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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

501–510 of 727 posts

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#501
> In November China unilaterally declared that each country’s respective embassy would be demoted to an office headed by a chargé d’affaires, or caretaker.

Is this technically an invasion from China since the embassy grounds are theoretically soil of the embassy's country?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#502

I am Lithuanian; Lithuania Taiwan PRC conflict is frequently a topic of discussion these days among my peers. My position, shared by a few others, is that this is the next best thing that happened in Lithuania after leaving USSR: the first being joining NATO and EU in 2004. Everyone in the world can (and almost everyone do) endorse PRC. "You won't get fired for picking IBM/Oracle/PRC". While very few countries have t…

While I generally think the EU should have a deeper relationship with Taiwan, I disagree with your interpretation of what happened here. Lithuania has weak trade relations with the PRC in the first place, and got basically paid by the US to provoke the PRC. The EU having no coordinated foreign policy, but being supposed to show solidarity is ill equipped to react to a member state just going of the rails, and this now basically forces the hands of the other members.

This sets a dangerous precedent: A member state shouldn't be able to start shit and then hide behind the others, it is a perversion of the idea of solidarity. If the rest of the EU shows major Support for Lithuania now, it will signal that small countries can dictate policy through stunts like these.

It also once again shows that the US really loves to manipulate supposed allies if it benefits them, and that the transatlantic partnership must be fundamentally redefined.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#503
My Grandmother just turned 100 and grew up under the Nazi regime which controlled her island in Norway. All of her grandchildren would occasionally tease her about her staunch refusal to buy anything made in China due to their politics (to this day). I find it interesting that she may have been forward thinking about this.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#504
post #260

I am Lithuanian; Lithuania Taiwan PRC conflict is frequently a topic of discussion these days among my peers. My position, shared by a few others, is that this is the next best thing that happened in Lithuania after leaving USSR: the first being joining NATO and EU in 2004. Everyone in the world can (and almost everyone do) endorse PRC. "You won't get fired for picking IBM/Oracle/PRC". While very few countries have t…

What interesting software or locally producing electronics companies are there in Lithuania? I will by something from them instantly.

Vinted, used clothes marketplace, unicorn by now and likely to IPO in the next 2-3 years.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read my post? I said nothing about not wanting to personally get sick (although of course I'd prefer not to). I was talking about cancer patients and people in other similar situations. What are they supposed to do, not go to the chemo clinic? Since you asked for a source, here you go: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33253013/

They should go where ever their doctor tells them to go. But quite frankly I don't see cancer patients going to bars/resturants/clubs etc. This includes the world prior to 2020

But they're going to the same grocery stores as the rest of us. Often they have to ride public transport to get to their appointments. And so on. Thinking that this is just a matter of people's social enjoyment is naive.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#506
post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we want to grandstand at all cost, then we have to wage war with China and force them into submission. Who is we and they ? Based on your Twitter profile, you're Chinese and your views seem perfectly aligned with the official CCP position.

This user is also known for ignoring/downplaying the sexual assault allegations of Peng Shuai against a CCP official. Be wary. View parent(s) of this comment for details of how this user attempted to FUD her accusations. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29362031 Absolutely disgusting.

What's absolutely disgusting is you misrepresenting my views like that in order to smear me just because you don't like the fact that I have a different opinion about China. If you read that thread it is perfectly clear that I merely pointed out that different opinions about the situation exists without giving my own view, but that's not acceptable to you because you seek to doxx. To be perfectly clear, if that wasn't already so, I am against any kind of sexual assault and I support an investigation into corrupt officials. Thank you very much.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value It seems to me that you are saying that a contemporary political position (that Taiwan should be ruled by the same government as mainland China) is in fact a "core value". Unity can be a value, but the political position that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of China, and China can't be unified without it, is not . That's the position wh…

That is correct. But as I said: Taiwan is being used by the US as a strategic military location to contain China. As long as this situation persists, China can't accept any other situation than Taiwan being part of the same state. Were this danger to disappear then I foresee much greater chances of Taiwan emerging as a independent state, probably as one that is aligned with PRC in the same manner Canada is to the US.

The US _removed_ troops from Taiwan when they recognized the PRC. China has had every opportunity to bring Taiwan into its orbit by simply having enough sense to not threaten Taiwan so much as to to force it to seek out allies against it. Taiwan has shown that it clearly considered business interests to trump any differences in political philosophy. If China would simply declare that it wouldn’t attack Taiwan, then the US wouldn’t have an in any longer. The fact that Taiwan can be used strategically against China is due to China’s shortsighted thinking and nothing else. It’s complete inability to treat neighboring countries like Taiwan as anything but vassals is mind blowing. The PRC government is playing a dangerous game.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that whether the west thinks the Chinese ought to think that way, is not very important. People can debate that all day long, but at the end of the day the Chinese do think that way, and they are willing to fight for it. This has strategical implications. Do we want to grandstand or do we want to actually solve a problem? If we want to grandstand at all cost, then we have to wage war with China and force…

> If we want to grandstand at all cost, then we have to wage war with China and force them into submission. Who is we and they ? Based on your Twitter profile, you're Chinese and your views seem perfectly aligned with the official CCP position.

Then you clearly either haven't read enough of my tweets, or you don't know official CCP positions as well as you think you do in order to differentiate my views with official CCP positions. Do I need to copy a few links where I disagreed with CCP official position?

If you think my views are too much like CCP's, you should talk to more mainlanders. There's a way deeper rabbit hole out there.

Yes I have a different opinion than the mainstream western one. So what? I can have my own legitimate, independently researched opinion, of which some parts may or may not align with other actors because that's what I happen to believe in based on research results.

Who is "we" and "they"? The west vs China of course. This was, after all, the context to which I was replying to. Not sure how you missed that context.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that Taiwan is merely a nationalism and internal unity issue, and that people's views are merely a result of propaganda, ignores the very history of how Taiwan came to be and how the Chinese civil war developed. Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years. But more im…

>unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years. I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).

Also the landmass referred to as “China” has constantly changed throughout history. For example today China _is_ unified, but Taiwan is not a part of it.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#510
post #220

I am Lithuanian; Lithuania Taiwan PRC conflict is frequently a topic of discussion these days among my peers. My position, shared by a few others, is that this is the next best thing that happened in Lithuania after leaving USSR: the first being joining NATO and EU in 2004. Everyone in the world can (and almost everyone do) endorse PRC. "You won't get fired for picking IBM/Oracle/PRC". While very few countries have t…

I'm French, I hope we (France, EU) follow your lead.

I am French as well, and proud to be one.

France weights exactly nothing in such politics.

Let's take an easier case: the hijacking of the Estonian plane over Belarus to imprison Roman Protasevich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryanair_Flight_4978).

Everyone was outraged, Macron had his martial face to say that we will not tolerate this (I voted for Macron, to be clear). What happened? Exactly nothing. And this is against a clown regime backed by Russia who has vital interests in Europe. We dod not have the power to force Putin to do anything.

We are dependent on China like we are dependent on the US. Each of these countries will fuck us up the moment we get out of line (US did it many times already - the latest being the Australian submarines, but also our interests in Iran (the US said: either you move away from Iran or you will have problems. We asked the EU for help and eventually moved away as instructed)).

So our Napoleonian idea of a great country that everyone fears is just in th ehead of some people.

If we wanted to weight whatever, EU would need to be united. This is not happening with the current EU structure.

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