Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 727 posts

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#381

Post by neom »

whimsicalism wrote: post #363
neom wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural Genocide is certainly a thing: The concept of cultural genocide : an international law perspective https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/43864 https://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-2/2/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

Okay, then I would claim referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. In the Holocaust, they killed 11 million people. I wouldn't compare that to an attempt to end child marriage in India, for instance. Some cultural practices should be ended. By contrast, people from a certain culture should not have their lives ended simply for being from that culture. Equating the two is nonsense.

I'd encourage you to study up more on the literature and definitions around cultural genocide. You're conflating nuances in subjects. Anyone discussing the subject seriously is typically focusing on one group, usually non-native to an area forcing cultural change on another group for the purposes of, compliance, curbing, minimizing or destroying, the group. See events such as Uyghurs in China, Natives in Canada, Darfur etc. You may value the destruction of a culture such to kill a peoples as lesser than say, the holocaust, and I doubt anyone would slight you on that value judgement, never the less, these are distinct things and need to be discussed equally, even if you're unhappy with the context around phrasing.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#382

Post by lumost »

whimsicalism wrote: post #343
tomp wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I disagree if the sterilization is applied even-handedly as an application of their two-child law. I am skeptical that a lineage is being exterminated if, at minimum, they can have replacement level number of births. The Uyghur population is growing faster than the Han population is. But backing up a bit - really what I'm taking issue with is the word "genocide." We can call horrendous, human rights violating policie…

> The Uyghur population is growing faster than the Han population is.

This seems to be the crux of your argument justifying the PRCs sterilization policy. As others have noted forced sterilization is a crime against humanity regardless of reason. Justification of forced sterilization based on a believed “correct” ethnic ratio is abhorrent.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#383

Post by GekkePrutser »

Galanwe wrote: post #98
gedy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't see the point or value at this stage. They control their media tightly, and if they just stopped talking about Taiwan I doubt many people in the mainland would care. They've proven they don't need Taiwan and vice versa.

> if they just stopped talking about Taiwan I doubt many people in the mainland would care Not at all. For a mainlander, Taiwan _is_ a region of China, think of it as Hawai for the US. People in the west see Taiwan as a separate country that China tries to forcibly absorb. People in mainland see Taiwan as a region of China that tries to be independent. Also, there is a lot of eyes on the Taiwan case from mainlanders…

> People in mainland see Taiwan as a region of China that tries to be independent.

They've been 'trying' pretty successfully since 1949 :) Maybe it's time to just cut your losses instead of trying to rebuild the past. You can pretend they're just a territory that wants independence but really the PRC has had no control over it for 72 years.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#384

Post by maybelsyrup »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #328
motiejus wrote: post #200

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 agree.. I wish more countries would take a stand like this. But my own country (the Netherlands) are all about commerce and big business, they don't care about ideology.

> are all about commerce and big business

This is ideology

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#385

Post by s1artibartfast »

whimsicalism wrote: post #363
neom wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cultural Genocide is certainly a thing: The concept of cultural genocide : an international law perspective https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/43864 https://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-2/2/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

Okay, then I would claim referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. In the Holocaust, they killed 11 million people. I wouldn't compare that to an attempt to end child marriage in India, for instance. Some cultural practices should be ended. By contrast, people from a certain culture should not have their lives ended simply for being from that culture. Equating the two is nonsense.

Comparing everything to the Jewish Holocaust is also genocide trivialization.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#386

Post by IsThisYou »

motiejus wrote: post #200

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 hope the rest of Europe follows Lithuania's lead. Mad respects.

Though I doubt that my country (Germany) will do anything ethical or useful about it. As usual. German foreign policy is a disgrace.

The entire EU should just open Taiwanese embassies. What's the CCP gonna do? Cut diplomatic ties with the EU? Not gonna happen, the PRC economy can't survive long-term without the West.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#387

Post by whimsicalism »

neom wrote: post #381
whimsicalism wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then I would claim referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. In the Holocaust, they killed 11 million people. I wouldn't compare that to an attempt to end child marriage in India, for instance. Some cultural practices should be ended. By contrast, people from a certain culture should not have their lives ended simply for being from that culture. Equating the two is nonsense.

I'd encourage you to study up more on the literature and definitions around cultural genocide. You're conflating nuances in subjects. Anyone discussing the subject seriously is typically focusing on one group, usually non-native to an area forcing cultural change on another group for the purposes of, compliance, curbing, minimizing or destroying, the group. See events such as Uyghurs in China, Natives in Canada, Darf…

> need to be discussed equally,

No, they absolutely should not be discussed equally.

Darfur was an actual genocide, ie. a killing fields genocide. Native Americans were also killed at high rates, the "cultural genocide" came later.

Equating the killing of millions of people from a certain ethnic group with prohibiting certain practices (like France prohibiting the burqa or public expression of religion, like attempts to outlaw child marriage, etc.) is wrong.

You're seeking to launder the distaste people have for mass killings of an ethnic group into prohibitions of certain cultural practices which are not viewed nearly as negatively. There is no other reason to simply call it "genocide" without the (very important) "cultural" modifier.

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#388

Post by toomim »

neom wrote: post #353
whimsicalism wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling disproportionate imprisonment (and racist imprisonment by ethnicity) "genocide" is genocide-trivialization, in my view. It wasn't a "genocide" when we imprisoned 1 in 3 black people in this country, even though it was pretty awful. The Holocaust was a genocide.

Cultural Genocide is certainly a thing: The concept of cultural genocide : an international law perspective https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/43864 https://www.getty.edu/publications/occasional-papers-2/2/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

"Cultural genocide" should be called "memocide".

At the point that you are only using the word "gene" metaphorically, it's time to switch to the word that already exists for that purpose: the "meme".

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#389

Post by vbezhenar »

nindalf wrote: post #210
thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Why would they give up on this “charade” as you put it? They’re closer than ever to annexing Taiwan in 2021. They hold every card. Except how the rest of the world would react. It seems like a recipe for war.

The rest of the world is scared of even offending China by calling Taiwan a country. You really think they’re going to go to war over Taiwan?

War with China is not possible because of nuclear weapons. China can do anything to Taiwan. And China size will make sanctions essentially useless (especially because half of the world will not join those sanctions).

Re: Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

#390

Post by sfe22 »

notpachet wrote: post #331
sfe22 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The percentage was just a wild guess. Its just that some resources need to be allocated to covid and the rest should continue as usual. That could be up to free market to decide, not me or you or some almighty “leaders”.

> That could be up to free market to decide I honestly spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to formulate a good-faith response to this, and I couldn't. I don't even know where to begin.

Well it is very hard to argue against this. Do you mean to say that people should not be able to decide what is more important to them so that resources can be appropriately allocated?
Post reply on HN