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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#541

Post by nowherebeen »

picture wrote: post #300
deusum wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't imagine country run by a middle school bully. Now I can.

As someone who have spent 13 or so years of their life in China, I absolutely agree with this perspective. The culture of modern China seem to support a strangely "macho" image particularly for men: it's acceptable and maybe even encouraged, for men to be overtaken by rage, and thrash and kick around while yelling things. [1] It looks like this mentality is reflected by the politics of china as a whole. [1]: This is…

This is ridiculously and demeaning to the Chinese people. Losing your temper is universal and I have seen plenty of white friends that lash out. To say that only Chinese people behave this way and not white people is well at best a sign of superiority complex and at worst a subtle _______ remark.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#542

Post by peoplefromibiza »

monetus wrote: post #531
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because he referred to Taiwan as a country. But it isn't. Officially Taiwan is not a sovereign country. The status is controversial, it's similar to Catalunya in Spain (see what happened to Catalan leader Puigdemont) or Flanders in Belgium, but Taiwan is not officially a country. I think that if someone called Fort-de-France a country, France would correct them. On the other side of the spectrum, if someone says th…

I don't know much about catalonia or flanders, but don't they participate in the national government? Dissimilarly, taiwan hasn't participated in the chinese government? Correct me if I'm wrong, I've been under the impression they are not integrated with the mainland in any meaningful way governmentally.

they have their own parliaments and official languages

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Catalonia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Parliament

but they are not independent countries.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#543

Post by FooBarWidget »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #507
FooBarWidget wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

The US removed troops as part of the One Child Policy. That policy is now being undermined by the DPP, US and Lituania, where "undermining" includes selling weapons to Taiwan, sailing more warships near China, and AUKUS. It's not exactly a peaceful situation right now where China's worries are completely made up.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#544

Post by peoplefromibiza »

whimsicalism wrote: post #532
peoplefromibiza wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because he referred to Taiwan as a country. But it isn't. Officially Taiwan is not a sovereign country. The status is controversial, it's similar to Catalunya in Spain (see what happened to Catalan leader Puigdemont) or Flanders in Belgium, but Taiwan is not officially a country. I think that if someone called Fort-de-France a country, France would correct them. On the other side of the spectrum, if someone says th…

This is disingenuous. You can't seriously claim there is no difference between Catalonia and Taiwan in their relationship to the broader national entity.

I didn't say there is no difference, I've specifically said that their status is similar.

Catalunya has a quite conflictual relationship with Spain and the level of conflict has raised in the past few years.

Catalonia is not a country, Taiwan is not a country.

Some of us might think that they deserve to be independent, but that's not their current political status, so calling Taiwan a country is technically wrong, just like calling Catalonia a country.

In this specific example, if John Cena said that Catalonia is a country, Spain would have protested and probably asked Cena to correct himself.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#545

Post by financetechbro »

qwytw wrote: post #487
trasz wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your claim is that Xi is only barely better educated than every republican US president since the nineties?

TIL that George Bush is "the only U.S. president to have earned an MBA", I'm not sure if that's better or worse than purchasing a BSc in Chemistry, though.

Why would you want all US presidents to have an MBA? Is the US a business or something

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#546

Post by stale2002 »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #537
stale2002 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they keep making them. They don't want bloodshed where it's not needed. Exactly, I agree. They keep making threats, that they don't follow through on, and they will continue to not follow through on them. Nothing is needed, to do anything, given the fact that Taiwan is already independent, and that has been the case for decades. > What's needed is deescalation There is nothing to de-escalate. Taiwan is al…

Wait a minute, are you saying the US weapon sales to Taiwan, the US warships near Taiwan, and AUKUS, are not a thing?

> are you saying the US weapon sales

I am saying that none of this has changed. Taiwan is its own independent country, for decades, and we've been doing the same things, which is follow our defensive treaty with them, and have been doing this for decades.

That's the status quo. Nothing needs to change. Nobody is shooting down Chinese military assets.

All that is happening is the same exact, completely normal defensive treaty actions that we've been doing for a while.

And china isn't going to do anything about this status quo, of Taiwan already being an independent country, with a defense treaty with the US.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#547

Post by monetus »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #542
monetus wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about catalonia or flanders, but don't they participate in the national government? Dissimilarly, taiwan hasn't participated in the chinese government? Correct me if I'm wrong, I've been under the impression they are not integrated with the mainland in any meaningful way governmentally.

they have their own parliaments and official languages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Catalonia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Parliament but they are not independent countries.

I was looking it up as you replied and yeah, it seems like spain has judicial jurisdiction over catalonia and that is it. Huh. Thanks for the response.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#548

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #271
Aeolun wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re not really scared of offending China, they’re scared of triggering that war. If China triggers that war all the hesitancy will be gone. That said, I’d expected more of a reaction to the annexation of Hong Kong too.

Hong Kong was not "annexed". It returned to China's control from the UK by treaty. "One country, two systems" is being curtailed early, but that is harder to argue against without a foreign power there to do anything about it.

Ok, down-voters.

How is my statement about the Sino-British Joint Declaration incorrect?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#549

Post by whimsicalism »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #544
whimsicalism wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is disingenuous. You can't seriously claim there is no difference between Catalonia and Taiwan in their relationship to the broader national entity.

I didn't say there is no difference, I've specifically said that their status is similar. Catalunya has a quite conflictual relationship with Spain and the level of conflict has raised in the past few years. Catalonia is not a country, Taiwan is not a country. Some of us might think that they deserve to be independent, but that's not their current political status, so calling Taiwan a country is technically wrong, ju…

Taiwan is de facto independent in their governance. Catalonia is not even close.

This is about their current status, not about what they "deserve."

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#550

Post by LAC-Tech »

nindalf wrote: post #146
subroutine wrote: post #44

China would be much better off if they just gave up on the whole Taiwan charade. I understand how badly they want to put Taiwan under thumb like they did HK, but Taiwan is really the only issue I foresee with potential to derail China's progress.

Edit: apologies to anyone who read my comment analysing the situation and assumed that I’m some kind of warmonger. At no point did I advocate for Taiwan to be annexed. I merely pointed out that China really wants to and they’re stronger than ever in 2021. Shoutout to the dude who implied I’m a Nazi for saying this. Why would they give up on this “charade” as you put it? They’re closer than ever to annexing Taiwan in…

This is a bit of a shallow understanding of things. They were a lot closer 6 years ago to annexing Taiwan than they are now.

Diplomatic: Official allies matter less and less. The deepening unofficial ties with the US and Japan (I can cite examples here if you like) are much, much more important. If the current trend continues, ties between Taiwan and the US will be unofficial by name only. Dual recognition by stealth.

Militarily: Taiwans problems here are well known. But Taiwan has a free and very critical press, and will gladly tear into their military for clicks. This is not the case for China, god knows what problems it has (though the skirmish with India probably gives you some clues). You call the US military war weary, I call it highly experienced at waging war.

Economic: China is completely dependent on global trade. To act otherwise is laughable.

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