Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

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 to break up PRC like it's a too-big company, via hybrid warfare. It tries everything possible to politically destabilize Beijing, with propaganda being a cornerstone.

3. Washington enlists anyone available to achieve this goal, including washed-up NBA benchwarmers and irrelevant Eastern European countries. They are encouraged to adopt a foreign policy that is in line with Washington's desire to preserve unipolarity and therefore hostile to Beijing. Who knows what they get in return, because it certainly doesn't make any economic sense in the long-term.

4. When Beijing responds tit-for-tat, answering sanctions with sanctions, harassment with harassment, downgrade in relations with downgrade in relations, it's a simple matter of spinning PRC as the aggressor who acted first.

Alternatively, "See See Pee Bad". Propaganda works and no one is immune.

This just goes to show one thing: western companies have to leave the Chinese market and all its money on the table. Unless you are ready to live under constant threat of political pressure/blackmail, risk being spied on, forced to censorship or forced to corruption, you can’t operate there (and obviously several other countries).

The correct move for both companies and corporations is to be open from the beginning. Open about what you think about Taiwan, about Chinese politics and so on. If that leaves you in the cold - at least you aren’t already neck deep in investment in China.

I don’t pity corporations that invest in China only to find themselves blackmailed into (say) having their maps app show Taiwan as a part of China. I wish more companies had the moral backbone to say “we’re going to annoy China by showing the correct world map starting in may, and if you don’t agree you should sell your stock now”.

The author was just pointing out China's incentives. Any negotiator, a person analyzing international relation theory, or any policy maker must do this.

He doesn't sound like Germany 1938. He sounds like a person trying to analyze a power dynamic.

The Congressional Research Service tries to boil down complicated issues for Congressional members in public, short reports. Here is the one on Taiwan that discusses Taiwan and China in two pages (and has Lithuania).

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10275

They do talk about China's perspective on the second page. They do not ignore it. They do not sound like Germany 1938.

Now I can.