Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China

> China can no longer afford to use empty threats

And yet it keeps making them, and no actually doing anything about any of this.

It has been decades of empty threats. I am sure people said the same thing, the last time more empty threats for made.

Yeah, no. Thats the facts. They keep making empty threats, and not following through on them, and they are still doing that to this day.

> more serious about true independence

Well, Taiwan is already truly independent, and that has been the case for decades. They have their own laws, borders, and taxes. That is what an independent country is.

Furthermore, the official stance of the ruling party, is that they are already independent.

Nothing really needs to change, for them to become independent, because that is already the case.

> had maintained the One China Policy.

They have their own taxes, laws and borders. They are already an independent country, actually. There is nothing to be maintained, other than some fantasy make believe lip service.

Of course they keep making them. They don't want bloodshed where it's not needed.

But you seem to think that this trend can go on forever no matter what. That is a dangerous mistake. What's needed is deescalation, not more escalation in the faulty thinking that they will continue to do nothing no matter what happens.

As a Russian I am pretty biased, but I can't help but marvel at the West.

Lithuania started this row over Taiwan. They literally pissed in China's eye, knowing full well what the Chinese response is going to be. But then, somehow, it's still China's fault for engaging in Cold War rhetoric and ratcheting up political aggression? I am sorry, but I don't buy it. The equivalent here would be China opening up a Scotland or a Catalonia embassy in Pekin to troll Spain/UK, then being surprised Spain/UK break off relations.

This whole story also vividly reminds me of what the British did a few months back in the Black Sea. They knowingly sailed too close to Crimea, filmed our response (jets flying overhead, etc), then for weeks showed these clips to the world as proof of "Russian aggression against freedom in Europe." Wtf? Queue eye roll. I see the same dynamic playing out now with China now.

You Westerners go out of your way to initiate conflict, then play the victim card.

It's very strange. I don't understand it.

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 Russia and China (Scholz seems to have been hand-picked by China, his positions on China couldn't be more worrying regardless of what he has said in the past month). France is moving in the same direction, although it is hard to separate this from the profound weakness of Macron.

There is no equivalence with the US either. 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). The interests of the US overlap totally with the EU, 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.

The only saving grace has been the EU which has effectively counterbalanced France and Germany in these areas (they stopped the investment deal with China). But, again, the policy positions of France and Germany are incomprehensible. It is not that France is insignificant but that their policy is totally at odds with the US and the EU. The reason they aren't opposing China is because there is a strong desire to support China.