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Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

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Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#561

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.

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 op…

> 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.

My point was that "we" in your context clearly isn't the West as you are much more aligned with China.

Honestly, your comments in this thread feel like astroturfing.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#562

1. Beijing rejects being merely the "workshop" of the unipolar world, embraces sovereignty (GFW), high quality development (HSR), technological innovation (4IR), including in the military space (space, cyber, hypersonics). Oh and BRI. 2. Washington doesn't like that because it will displace the unipolar moment. USA has been in economic decline for half a century while PRC has been on a dramatic rise. Washington tries…

What are your thoughts on what China has done to Taiwan or the Uyghurs?

Taiwan:

1. PRC has a very clear national security interest in Taiwan not being ruled by an unpredictable regime that may host American weapon systems pointed at the mainland. See Cuban/Soviet Missile Crisis. Coincidentally, similar situation going on with Russia and Ukraine right now.

2. If/when the DPP regime falls and is replaced by a more "independent" government, that government will naturally be favorable to joining the PRC as an autonomous province. Because the economic incentives are there and there is no real ethnic/cultural barrier to reunification (there is already massive brain drain from TW to mainland). This is the outcome that Beijing is clearly planning for and they won't have to fire a single shot to get it.

Uyghurs:

1. Xinjiang is a pathway to Central Asia and critical to the Belt and Road initiative. It's also a relatively undeveloped region that shares a small border with Afghanistan, with a history of widespread poverty and separatism/terrorism.

2. In the mid 2010s, Beijing was busy implementing two important policies in Xinjiang. A deradicalization campaign and an anti-poverty campaign. These are serious, fast-moving policies that involved a lot of heavy-handed action. Like getting millions of people enrolled in vocational training, Mandarin classes, and distant employment. Basically, Beijing wouldn't tolerate Xinjiang becoming Afghanistan 2.0, as much as Washington would love that. So they aggressively developed the region. Ürümqi in 2021 is probably unrecognizable to Ürümqi in 2009, when over a hundred civilians were butchered by ETIM-linked terrorists.

3. In response, Washington, through proxies like Adrian Zenz and WUC, launched a vicious propaganda campaign. Ordinary prisons for violent extremists and other criminals became "concentration camps for Uyghurs". Schools became "reeducation facilities". Vocational training and just having a job became "forced labor". Mandarin lessons became "cultural genocide". Women being lifted out of poverty became "genocide through birthrate suppression". And so on and so forth.

4. The hypocrisy from Washington is mind-blowing. On the "forced labor" front, Washington implemented sanctions against any company that uses "Uyghur labor", in other words, virtually any company that employs Uyghurs. The goal is obvious: to push Uyghurs back into poverty and therefore destabilize the critical region. Because Washington does not care about the lives of distant Muslims; the last three decades make this abundantly clear.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

France weighs very heavily. With Germany, they led the move earlier this year for the investment deal with China. The decision was made to become reliant on China, and the pandemic significantly worsened this dependency because China's faster recovery essentially mitigated the economic effect of the pandemic. But it was a choice. Germany's politics appears to have been totally compromised at the highest level by Russ…

> The French position (and German) position on Iran makes no sense, it is the equivalent of: pretend the problem doesn't exist, and it won't exist (again, with policy being led by business interests).

We had contracts in Iran and had to break them because US warned of retaliation. We are weaker and had to back off.

The US obsession with Iran (driven by religious organizations), instead of staying with the US, was broadcasted to all countries which had to show their vassal position.

We did not like it, as you can imagine.

> The interests of the US overlap totally with the EU,

in Iran?

> the US has been funding European defence for decades to the tune of tens of trillions but, of course, France and Germany will continue to nuzzle up to Iran, China, and Russia because they waved their chequebook in front of exporters in economically weak regions.

Ah - here you are right. And the normal reaction of the US should have been "since you support our enemy, we are withdrawing from NATO and the money we pour into Europe". But then so many US military companies would loose contracts (less production) so this is obviously not the right thing to do.

The US is a bully, and proud to be one. We do not like to be bullied but are the small child in th eplayground so we suffer in silence, hoping that oone day we will be able to respond (a day that will not come)

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the latest being the Australian submarines, but also our interests in Iran Good point. I think Europe is the only continent that can oppose to colonialistic empires like US and China, but needs to have a single voice, France, Germany, Spain, Italy etc. alone are insignificant in the scenario.

The problem is that each of th eEU countries is a country. With its own interests, culture, history. We are eons from a country such as the USA, which highlights how federal it is. It is still one country, with one president, one army etc. We (in the EU) are countries that love or hate other for over 1000 years. Some of the dislike is deep, some is surprisingly different now (France and Germany for instance, forever…

that's true, but in my opinion younger generations feel they are European more than anything else.

Even I, in my middle 40s, consider myself European before being Italian.

And I am proud to be from Europe, more than I am proud of my country (which I am not for so many things).

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of us know exactly what different leaders are planning so you may well be right. I do wonder though: if that is the USs plan, why not say so? The US has formal alliances with NATO, Japan etc. They're public, because making them public dissuades the chance of an attack. If you're going to risk getting into a war, why not minimise the risk at no cost by being upfront about it? Instead the US maintains a position o…

Strategic ambiguity makes sense because they don't want to encourage Taiwan to declare independence by saying they'll 100% back them to the end. Blank cheques are great ways to start wars.

That's a fair point but then why not just tell Taiwan that? why not agree that publicly.

Strategic ambiguity means china is emboldened and that Taiwan cannot rely on any US support whatever secret deals have been made no?

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#566
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.

Teltonika, Ruptela.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#567
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 thanks for that, now that I think about this issue, that is the way I feel also. A few of my friends think I am overboard when I talk positively about China, but really I am just reacting to how wonderful the people there were when my wife and I travelled in China, and I also really respect their AI tech, their tech in general, and how so many people have moved out of poverty. It is just their current government t…

Governments are a reflection of the people. They're not some nebulous, abstract entity; they're literally made and run by people of each country. They're chosen–or in some cases imposed–to represent the people to the world. Even in dictatorships, it is the people that choose for governments to remain in power. When that stops being the case, governments are overthrown, and a new set of people take power. The people o…

> Governments are a reflection of the people. They're not some nebulous, abstract entity; they're literally made and run by people of each country. They're chosen–or in some cases imposed–to represent the people to the world. Even in dictatorships, it is the people that choose for governments to remain in power. When that stops being the case, governments are overthrown, and a new set of people take power.

This seems closer to the mandate of heaven[0] than an explanation of how governments work or why they are overthrown.

Here's another explanation based on The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. The 18 minute video The Rules for Rulers[1] has a great summary of the principles from this book.

Dictators and elected representatives have the same problem; they must keep control of key supporters and reward them in order to remain in power.

Dictatorships have only a few key supporters - heads of the army, secret police, treasury, etc. Popular support isn't required; if these people are content with your rule, you will remain in power. If they aren't, you will be replaced.

Democracies have many more key supporters; we normally call them voting blocs - suburban voters, Hispanic voters, non-college voters, evangelic Protestants, etc. Popular support from these groups is required and this difference is why democratic governments change between parties so often.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to do that for larger countries, cooperation with China is the only way. Large economies are too tightly coupled to just cut China off. It would take a decade or two.

Sunk cost fallacy. Anything is possible, it's just a matter of how much pain you're willing to bear for your principles.

We were fine profiting off from their lack of principals and were looking the other way for decades. There's no point for sudden drastic measures.

Another thing to keep in mind: any serious confrontation with China will be exploited by Russia. They already have made their moves known.

I think Musk was right on China recently, basically said that we have to come to terms with new reality, on both sides:

https://youtu.be/lSD_vpfikbE?t=2038

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The US military isn’t war weary. The US public is. And ultimately any US politician who launches yet another war will likely lose their job very quickly.

Obviously China is dependent on world trade. What’s laughable is not reading what I wrote, in that China can afford to lose trade ties with one or two nations, although not all at the same time. Whereas no single country can afford to lose China. That gives China the high ground - it can threaten any single country with a boycott. And it has done so successfully.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lithuania … got basically paid by the US to provoke the PRC Any links on that?

https://www.reuters.com/business/lithuania-get-us-trade-supp...

This occured after the embassy opening, one could argue that the spat with China attracted US investments.

Lithuania took a step in the right direction, something other EU states (Germany in particular) are afraid to do because it will affect their trade with China. Taiwan is an independent country, regardless of what the PRC thinks or wants others to think.

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