Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China
economist.com
economist.com
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 the guts and the internal political structure that allows opening a Taiwanese representative office. Lithuania shows that it prefers dealing with a country that takes the human rights into account; being the first one "in the party" to do so bring us significant advantages. Both Taiwanese investments and Lithuanian exports to Taiwan are picking up pace.
This will hurt us in the short-term, sure. It already does: packages(/containers) from PRC are delayed or cancelled, invoices are not being paid, we are losing business there. In the long term, if we don't change our mind (not impossible), I think this is for the better.
It’s disturbing I cannot buy goods that are not (at least partially) made in China.
Possibly this is partially because they're commingling inventory made in different places, but I think a lot of it's just that amazon doesn't see any reason to force people to list that.
France was the first Western country to recognise the PRC, for instance. This was realpolitik and hopefully that will continue.
Before every action we need to ask yourself what we want to achieve and whether that is actually achievable. This requires knowledge of other countries' history, culture, and politics. Rash, emotional moves are rarely productive. Historically France and other Western powers have been aggressors towards China (which partly caused the reaction that led to the current Chinese regime). The reality is that a country like France is in no position to pressure China and rash action against China would help the Chinese government at home by allowing them to invoke history.
France has a choice in whether they choose to support the PRC or not - this requires stepping on red lines and facing the consequences.
France trades with China because it is in its interest to do so, not because of any 'support' for China.
https://mashable.com/article/china-censorship-companies-hong...
The concern is that the CCP will have a rash, emotional response (as they did with Lithuania) because they imagine they can set the terms for any Taiwan-related business.
These frequent emotional outbursts have cost the CCP so much political capital, which means countries like France will reconsider their relationship.
> but I was not specifically referring to that but rather to closing the embassy in China and other actions against China
Could you clarify what other actions did Lithuania take against China? This is the timeline afaik [0]:
- In August 2021, the ROC opened its representative office in Vilnius under the name of "Taiwanese"
- In response, the PRC recalled its ambassador in Vilnius, Shen Zhifei, and demanded that Lithuania recall its ambassador in Beijing, Diana Mickevičienė.
- On 3 December 2021, Lithuania reported that in an escalation of the diplomatic spat over relations with Taiwan, China had stopped all imports from the Baltic state. It said Beijing has delisted Lithuania as a country of origin, preventing items from clearing customs, and was rejecting all import applications
- As a result of the conflict China pressured Continental AG and other international companies to stop doing business with Lithuania.[7] The spat spilled over to the rest of the EU when China banned the import of goods which contained Lithuanian parts potentially disrupting integrated supply chains in the common market.
^ not included in the timeline: internal propaganda to smear Lithuania as a nation once the PRC deemed the tiny country a threat for allowing ROC to open a representative office under the name "Taiwanese" in its capital
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Lithuania_relati...
Looking at the comment history of the person you responded to, they post pro-China stuff a lot. This is probably not a conversation being had in good faith by two disinterested parties. You're responding to a member of the 50 cent army.
They're everywhere online now. Some subtle, some not so subtle. But whenever I see a pro-China poster who doesn't really give any evidence to back up what they're saying, and they just spew pro-China apologist rhetoric, I become very suspicious.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you want explanation as to why we have this rule, there is many years' worth at this link:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
also:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 (<-- Mini-FAQ)
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 against a clown regime backed by Russia who has vital interests in Europe. We dod not have the power to force Putin to do anything.
We are dependent on China like we are dependent on the US. Each of these countries will fuck us up the moment we get out of line (US did it many times already - the latest being the Australian submarines, but also our interests in Iran (the US said: either you move away from Iran or you will have problems. We asked the EU for help and eventually moved away as instructed)).
So our Napoleonian idea of a great country that everyone fears is just in th ehead of some people.
If we wanted to weight whatever, EU would need to be united. This is not happening with the current EU structure.
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.
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 enemies and now counties that are really close to each other thanks to the post-war efforts).
But when it comes to money and politics, we are often each for its own.
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).
do you think for most people its a "group of Europeans"
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.
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)
EU itself is not really a bully, but most EU members are, and always were.
So Isn't it's a smart thing to do for EU to make other bullies to fight each other?
You understimate the chaos that then comes into being.
I also bet if China would still be economically and technologically inferior to the west taiwan wouldn't be even on the agenda.
We don't have a problem with Saudi Arabia's war with Yemen. Even after they caused largest cholera epidemic in human history.
Haven't heard about Šilelis before, but it does seem like a new company bought the trademark to sell repackaged junk from China.
Hardware: Deeper,Teltonika.
This is ideology
In the context of tensions with Russia and Belarus it seems likely that Lithuania is getting something out of its stance against China from the US.
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:
This sets a dangerous precedent: A member state shouldn't be able to start shit and then hide behind the others, it is a perversion of the idea of solidarity. If the rest of the EU shows major Support for Lithuania now, it will signal that small countries can dictate policy through stunts like these.
It also once again shows that the US really loves to manipulate supposed allies if it benefits them, and that the transatlantic partnership must be fundamentally redefined.
Any links on that?
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.
1) a transaction between the US and Lithuania occurred in which Lithuania agrees to provoke PRC.
2) Lithuania provokes PRC (presumably the act involves the embassy opening).
However, the article you linked publicizes the U.S. trade support which seems to have occurred after (2). The article you linked does not permit one to draw the causal inference that (1)->(2)
However, following your argument of human rights, would you cut diplomatic ties to Russia in similar fashion? Who's your largest trading partner?
You seem to be naive and ideological. We didn't do a lot of business with Taiwan previously, sure. But it's very small comparing to the amount of business we are losing to China. I don't know if You have noticed the rising prices of products in our country much faster than wages. It took 1-2 months to get a shipping container from China 6months ago. Now it takes 3-5 months. Prices are going up. Taking a political stance against China hurts our businesses, increases prices to us all. With the marginal benefit of a pat on the back from ideological people
Moral questions aside (as everyone here seems to focus on it), the people are split into roughly three camps: - Anti-vaxers: hate anything government because Vax-Pass, including the China oriented diplomacy - Libtards: love anything government and worship the leader of the main party. They celebrate this and openly bash China because their Leader said that it is good - Non-involved people - worry about the economic consequences to businesses and people's lives. Most of them would have a hard time finding Taiwan (probably even China) on a blank map.
In my opinion:
Our Minister of Foreign Affairs went into this without really understanding what it would mean to the CCP and what possible counter-actions they can take. Lithuania was hit more than the politicians expected and we are, essentially, alone in this fight (save for endorsements and pats on the back). I guess that we will be in a pretty rough spot in short-term, while mid/long term can go either way depending on how the western powers and Taiwan will act.
Edit: Flagged for pointing out that childish snark (a clear violation of HN guidelines) ruined an otherwise good comment? Ok, then.
What we want HN users to do is leave provocations where they find them, and respond/build on the most interesting things in a comment/article/topic instead. We even promoted this to the official guidelines recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html):
Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article and rush to the thread to complain about it. Find something interesting to comment about instead.
Perhaps it should say "article or post".
Well I was actually trying to be constructive "it sounds like you might have some meaningful insight" but fair enough.
Some feedback: The problem with reacting to the most "interesting" part is that the rest of the comment is tainted by the obvious bias (and lack of maturity) presented. The whole thing comes off as bad faith by the commenter so engaging such a person thoughtfully feels like encouraging the behaviour.
Having said that, I realize the intent of the rule is to prevent escalation or amplification of such distractions. Next time I will flag and move on.
Thanks for the heads up and all you do for this community. Happy Holidays.
Nothing much else will deter China.
If they didn't provide evidence, yes, we coule refute it.
The West will pretend that Taiwan wasn't doing that anyways. That's why I said 80%.
There is no such thing as incontrovertible evidence.
Yeah, that's what I just said.
> the world saw through WMDs in Iraq
And Iraq got bombed anyway, it's a great example of how the actual validity of a casus belli doesn't matter.
Of course it does matter. The invalidity is why the entire world was opposed to the US doing so. If the US wasn't in such a dominant economic and strategic position at the time it would have had to pay a much larger price.
But my main point is that if Taiwan wants nuclear weapons they can make their own, so there is no sense in America giving nuclear weapons to Taiwan. And if America did, that would provide China with 'valid' casus belli anyway. I think PRC spies would be no less aware of plans to import nuclear weapons than plans to make them.
The USA and Japan alone against China in a Taiwan situation may simply lose.
There is a rumor that Taiwan has rockets that are targeting Three Gorges Dam. In case of an invasion they may choose to destroy them which would result in millions of deaths of deaths. Nuclear weapons not needed.
And you people are seriously discussing the possibility that Taiwan goes nuclear, but it was in the KMT era after China had the bomb, Taiwan was considering building its own nuclear weapon, only to be quickly removed by the US. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the US has been selling Taiwan expensive out-of-date weapons, which is only logical if the US doesn't want Taiwan to defend itself. Taiwanese people know that, ever since the 70s when Taiwan was kicked off the UN and the US did nothing!
Do you guys know the real sentiment in Taiwan? They are more like, "F*k the US, they treat us like pawns. F*k the west, they would give us anything but real support! F*k the government, they got us in such a bad position. F*k China, they want to annex us. F*k the 20% Taiwanese, they do business with China, in China, for China!"
As for invasion within the next two years, I suppose none but some inner circle in China really knows, but that it's a guaranteed fact is not a consensus belief here. If it was true, people and money would be pouring out of Taiwan. From the outside, Taiwan sounds like a besieged island expecting incoming missiles any moment, but life is typical here. People are concerned with real estate prices, getting a promotion at work, construction noise in the neighborhood, climate change, etc. You'd think a place with such grim prospects about the future wouldn't have time to worry about animal welfare or environmentalism. However, any given weekend you can find thousands of volunteers going to clean up litter on beaches, or working in animal shelters.
In Taiwan you see Taiwan is not grim, for the geopolitics people they are predicting big change, but from the outside it appears that Taiwan is doomed. This, if you think about it, is really the biggest problem for the DPP government: ordinary Taiwanese people do not really care if they are reunified, while some learned people are worried, and the US can do nothing. The day after the US fled Afghanistan, high rank government officials told the press that "we are not Afghanistan". Yes, no other countries want to occupy Kabul except for the yankees.
And why would the economics be bad if China finally annex Taiwan? Cash from China has been flowing into Taiwan for 40 years, and the rich in Taiwan knows that all too well. Internationally sanction? Do you think who in the world is in bad need of Chinese products now? Taiwanese cannot even count on their leaders. Legislators and local government leaders have always been able to send someone (or in person) to visit their family graves in China and the Chinese government permits it. In Chinese culture, that speaks more than their public speeches.
Every election in every country at any time is the most important decision we've ever faced, according to political analysts. Talking heads isn't a great way to gauge popular sentiment. I won't be surprised if _something_ happens, and I don't really know what people in Japan or Singapore think, but at least here, I would expect the atmosphere to be much darker if people were expecting an invasion by 2024.
> ordinary Taiwanese people do not really care if they are reunified
Ordinary Taiwanese care immensely, and that is reflected in the strong support for DDP. Not even KMT are indifferent towards unification, they're just pro-status quo, and they still can't catch a break lately.
> would the economics be bad if China finally annex Taiwan?
The per-capita GDP in Taiwan is ~$26k, while in China it's only $10k. If there was a successful unification, it's unlikely that Taiwan would be permitted to remain twice as rich as the rest of China. TSCM and other tech would most likely be relocated to Shenzhen, just like we're seeing finance get stripped out of Hong Kong. I can't see any circumstance under which Taiwanese people would be better off.
> Cash from China has been flowing into Taiwan for 40 years
This is true. Chinese money has flowed into Taiwan in an attempt to take it by economics rather than force. But, there are now laws restricting Chinese ownership of domestic entities. It's no secret that tons of the money in Taiwan was made using labor in China. Taiwan was a bridge between western markets and brands, and Chinese labor for a long time. Everything from Foxconn to Nike shoes. Most of those factories were opened using Taiwanese capital and management with mainland labor. No idea how all of that will unwind. Fortunately, Chinese labor isn't as cheap as it used to be.
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”.
Part of the problem is that executive compensation is more short-term results focused.
We never saw this with North /South Korea, nor West/East Germany. Countries recognized both as sovereign. There was no "Korean Seoul" or "German Bonn" competing at the Olympics, etc.
If anything, West Germany or South Korea could've done what China is doing now but they chose not to.
Are you aware that both China and Taiwan claim to be the legal government of both countries? Because that's completely different from Germany or Korea, where the states recognized each other.
Germany's two halves treated each other as neighbors and did not consider the other side an opponent in a war that's temporarily paused (after the initial conflict, but that was mostly the Soviets trying to take Berlin by starving the population). In case you're wondering: the Berlin Wall does not suggest differently, it was meant to stop people from fleeing the socialist East Germany ("Republikflucht", literally flight from the republic, was a crime in the GDR, and they killed quite a few that sought freedom from the "worker's paradise"), it was never meant to keep invaders out.
China is a rising power in the world and wants to at least be the primary power in its region (maybe the world, who knows), and the USA as the primary power in the world and the region wants to keep its position. The US and China also have a symbiotic relationship, China would not be able to be in the position it is today if not for American purchases, and Americans would not have the quality of life they currently enjoy if they did not have Chinese manufacturing.
Both countries know they cannot be openly hostile to each-other without huge ramifications so they use proxy conflicts to try to secretly bludgeon each other and propagandize their own populations. Americans can propagandize their population with HK, Taiwan, concentration camps, no freedom and Chinese can propagandize their population with drone strikes, Century of humiliation, US Imperialism... Nobody, except the misled population (who are being propagandized) or extremely dim-witted subsets of elites (who are doing the propaganda, and go high of their own supply so to say) actually care about these issues.
I do not think this will be as hot as the last cold war since the US and China are way more interdependent than the US and the USSR and the way to make sure that this semi-cold war will not turn into a hot war is to not trying to break the interdependence, but to strengthen it.
IMO, this is a much bigger problem for Western nations. They want to pressure Hollywood and the NBA to take a stand against China, but that is exactly what China wants. They don't get any economic value from importing entertainment, so they would much rather that money circulate domestically. This is exactly what happened in with H&M and Nike when they started to look into Xinjiang forced labor. China had an excuse to encourage a consumer boycott, but they happily continued to manufacture for them, widening our trade deficit.
Unfortunately, that would require western nations to agree on something.
The West will not go, and die without one xmass season, and a new Iphone 99.
But Western elites all holding stocks of companies valued in trillions will do.
I requires a healthy conversation in society about this. It will come to a time when people will have to decide what to do with these people.
Potential adversaries now do things which just 15 years ago would've meant a real hot war with the whole Western world by leveraging their financial influence on Western elites, and a threat of bankrupting them.
Not selling to a citizen of China regardless of race (not all Chinese are from the same race) is much different than not selling to anyone who has a Chinese gene.
The nation state you think China and the US to be doesn't exist.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna12...
As the article already mentions: "While Biden performed well among Asian Americans, the data suggest that Trump didn't lose support with the group, either."
If the support didn't go down doesn't that mean the level of support hasn't changed? And this election wasn't an outlier for this group?
I think you are being a bit too idealistic and have quite honestly drank the Kool-Aid and forgot about the original purpose of why America dislikes China. They are a rising power seeking to disrupt the current one. Good playing American jobs have been cut and Chinese jobs have sprang up in their place. People who had those jobs are now experiencing a reduced quality of life.
I'm not a fan of the heavy dependence on Chinese manufacturing as it comes at huge human rights/ecological costs (in that order), but companies typically care about the bottom line above all else. How the product is made is less important typically than whether or not it __is__ made.
And it's a simple truth that right now a lot of companies are heavily dependent on China for production of goods, and if the US/UK unilaterally were forced to drop Chinese Manufacturing without time to plan, it would be pretty devastating to a lot of businesses.
Please don't misread this as "no action should ever be taken against China", as absolutely that is not my position; moral stands sometimes have a significant cost. Same with changes for a more sustainable future, you might need to have a higher upfront cost than you may want.
That doesn't mean these changes are bad, it just means that there is a non-trivial cost to consider. For me, this is a no brainer, as I like to look more towards the future and have the comfort zone to do so. Many businesses do not have that comfort zone, and regardless of the reason they're in that position, it's a reality for them that losing their chinese suppliers is a deathknell for them.
I'm not trying to propose anything except that I can understand why some businesses are against taking strong stances against Chinese manufacturing; I don't action _shouldn't_ be taken if China is not behaving well, just to be clear. But I can understand where people are coming from if they are opposed to it, as they don't want to bite the hand that feeds so to speak.
China is just as dependent on the clients of those factories.
But I don’t imagine Western nations will ever remove their embassies from China, as OP suggests. Those are useful for both official and backchannel communications, and have no bearing on nation’s leverage over the other.
Your suggestion is that the rest of the world should play nice with China, and accept an invasion of a free nation (Taiwan) and its people because not doing so would hurt Chinese nationals within China?
Chinese people suffering due to the CCP is bad, certainly. But what's worse is another country (having nothing to do with the CCP) suffering for it.
So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China. Hence why everyone (from Putin, to China to even our allies the US) are so invested in breaking EU apart (and even succeeding - the Brexit).
Unfortunately (?) not. By nominal GDP the US is the largest. By PPP-adjusted GDP China comes first.
> So if EU got its shit together and formulated a coherent unified foreign policy - it would be at the very least on equal terms with both US and China.
On approximately equal terms, yes, probably.
Second largest, at $17.1tn, after the US ($22.7tn), but ahead of China ($16.6tn).[1]
> is by far the wealthiest region on the planet
North America is the wealthiest region, with the United States alone having a total wealth of $126tn. European wealth is around $103tn.[2]
1. World Economic Outlook Database, April 2021
2. https://www.credit-suisse.com/media/assets/corporate/docs/ab...
The ones who can't afford to be without China's manufacturing are big tech companies like Apple. Perhaps they will take a huge hit but it's hard to imagine them going out of business. I remember the Apple of the mid 90's and how close they came to going out of business. Now, with the enormous cash hoard and other capital they've accumulated, I can easily imagine them surviving for many years even if they were cut off completely from all their manufacturing in China.
In the past I would have said "there's no way that we would tolerate that," but for the last two years we have seen substantially diminished standard of living already due to [redacted], the monetary response to [redacted], and the policy response to [redacted], but now that we've seen that it is conceivable that the US would go a more austere route now. I also have seen now that no one in our leadership believes in anything or has any principles, so radical shifts really are possible.
With Vietnam, a lot of its recent development is related to expansion of Chinese foreign direct investment with substantial percentage increases every year in recent years. A lot of the notions about Vietnamese hostility to China and Chinese business is out of date and becoming more out of date.
There's virtually no US industry that is not heavily dependent on Chinese industry for refined materials, intermediate goods, and consumer goods. A lot of substitution could conceivably happen at higher prices, but really the way that we get out of it is defaulting on the government's medical obligations to the boomers and rededicating the money that was slated to giving them their to-the-grave care to industrial redevelopment.
The pandemic has forced technology companies to push harder on communication products and development of virtual places.
Severely diminished trade with China would require an acceleration in manufacturing technology on a scale that could only be borne out of necessity.
Recognizing that robotics technology is orders of magnitude more challenging than an improved Zoom interface, It won’t come easy. But the demand will be there and so would be the creativity to overcome the challenges.
I think when it comes to articulating this to the public and to the government, I would never say "robots are replacing all skilled labor," because that would predispose the legislator or the staffers supporting the legislator to think about what they could do to quash it.
Fwiw, I see only a downward trend in the effectiveness of governments larger than cities to contain or regulate technology. What is possible is changing too fast.
Note that the last major riot against China in Vietnam was way back in 2014. As long as China doesn't do anything aggressive in the SCS, the Vietnamese should come to like China again, however the chances of the former happening are very slim.
Cutting off all reliance on China would be economic suicide for any individual nation unless every one mutually agrees on it. Best of luck getting that to happen.
Nah, you need to read/watch Secret History of Silicon Valley to understand this is false. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Obviously, not having to rebuild your country helps. But thinking this is the only or even main reason is very shortsighted, IMO.
PRC wants ROC on the same map as indistinguishable
easy cop out for the rest of us then
I would say still notice that visa policy is handled separately, and that requires continual education
But as far as public recognition its super easy to just show one country, no need for grandstanding
Maps are just political theatre. The vintage ROC map you are referring to also includes Mongolia and parts of Russia (Chinese territories that Mao/CCP ceded), but no one in Taiwan is seriously making those claims. Note the CCP lays claim over the SCS based on an old 9-dashed map made by the ROC.
I get that the current head of state and majority party in the ROC doesnt extend its territorial claims beyond the island they are on. There are some people that hold on to the prior claims.
The rest of us really need to just build additional pylons so we don't have any manufacturing consequences when that matter is resolved. Because thats the only reason we care right now (aside from how brutal the reintegration will be).
Seems like nobody in these corporations or in politics has a spine anymore and is willing to say, "Yeah, I understand, but No, and fuck you for even asking."
Now all that said, I think if they saw some real unified push-back Xi would drop that shit in a hot second, but for now it comes at very little cost.
Surely that's a joke, right? China, which still has the audacity to call itself a "Communist" nation, which is basically much closer to a Fascist system, with their authoritarian and state-directed control of capitalism?
China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power. Their primary way of doing that has been ensuring that bargain of "we get 8-10% annual growth, the populace is happy enough not to revolt", but they've also been phenomenally successful in using the Internet to stoke nationalism and Xi's personality cult.
> China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power.
Yes, which they place above profit motive. It seems like you agree with above
The kind of censure that Jack Ma had for example would be impossible to imagine to say Elon Musk in the US .
Sadly, people misunderstand those two basic concepts.
Autocratic systems are better in some ways. For example, they can be very efficient. CCP says something and it is done. Is it good/right? It is completely different topic.
We’re talking past each other a bit, but this is evidence of principle driven behavior rather than government capture by the wealthy like we have in the west.
Airline bailouts last year were good because they saved subcontractors and union contracts.
> Surely that's a joke, right?
Nah, it's just an obvious truth.
> China, which still has the audacity to call itself a "Communist" nation, which is basically much closer to a Fascist system, with their authoritarian and state-directed control of capitalism?
That's pretty much what "communism" worked out to in the Soviet Union -- well, in the entire Warsaw Pact -- too. So in practice, that's pretty much what "communism" means nowadays.
> China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power.
Yup, exactly.
And they sure do stand by that principle, don't they?
Q.E.D.
You say "put principles over the profit of a few constituents", and that is a very widely held slogan or catch phrase.
Whose constituents? I, as a constituent, very much like not having a war going on where I could be drafted and sent to die for some people I do not know or really care about. I, as a constituent, very much like not having to pay 5k for a phone or 10k for a computer. I, as a constituent, like the cheap products that trade has allowed me to buy.
Whoes principles? America's manifest destiny principle is to take everything you can take and then fight weaker neighbors to take some more. Is it fair that we, Americans, got to do our dirty work in the past and make our country whole while other countries have to be plagued by a civil war?
The only actual principle that maters when it comes to countries is might makes right. The US was mighty so it could crush the Indians, the Mexicans, the Spanish and take what was "rightfully ours". The US was mighty so it could crush the CSA during the civil war. The US was mighty so they could use the threat of force to protect Taiwanese independence or de facto-independence. The UK was mighty so they could crush China and take HK. Now that China is (questionably? maybe?) mighty, they want to take back HK, they want to take over Taiwan. Now when other countries are mighty, the rules of the game suddenly change so that it is no longer might makes right but human rights and democracy and peace and sham pretending about principles?
I like human rights and I would generally support people being free (whatever that means), but is it not hard to see the hypocrisy in it all? Where were the principles when we beat up the Indians and Mexicans and grabbed up all of California? Where were the principles when we beat up all the LATAM countries who tried to have democratic elections. Where were the principles when we drone striked every adult man and called them all combatants since they were within the age range?
>>> So, they've really effectively backdoored our politicians. Not just politicians, they have backdoored hollywood, wallstreet everyone of em. They will suck up to the CCP and pander to any of their demands
Politics is what it is, and the diplomats role is most often not to combat, but to ease communication.
For the same reason the UN may often seem toothless and not able to execute. But it is just a reflection of world politics. It is hard sometimes.
The precursor to UN was the League of Nations. And they were much better at condemning. Germany. That didnt work out much better.
Don't blame the empty plate if you are hungry.
And getting rid of the plate will not help you if you want food.
As such, China would rather fight the entire western world than to let Taiwan go. They would rather destroy all their relationships with the west than to let Taiwan go. It doesn't matter whether they will actually win or not — they are prepared to, and that's what we don't understand (or for some people: don't want to understand).
They already do. But now they do it via trade wars, strongly worded letters, Olympic boycotts. They ensure that the fight is China vs the enemy of the day (Today Lithuania). It’s unbalanced. The “fight” vs the whole world wouldn’t be a hot war. It would be a more balanced diplomatic and economic conflict where China can’t bully one state at a time.
Yeah, sure. So do I... Only I'm rooting for the "good" side in the Chinese civil war -- the side currently holding Formosa.
And so should you, and everyone else too.
However, this will be tougher than other countries that are newly formed like Kosovo. China will surely use its influence to make sure it won't happened.
Obviously they don't want to be careless, since China could try to invade them if they did that. So they would need quite some military backup from USA and Japan to make China accept their defeat.
The real issue, in my opinion, is that the EU and the rest of the world depend heavily on China for manufacturing goods. There is that great initiative in the EU to invest in the semiconductor industry so that we would manufacture them in the EU.
The situation in our country is very strange. I haven't seen so much chaos. This pro-USA anti-CCP propaganda is hurting us practically a lot.
Current situation in Lithuania:
-We have a big real-estate price boom, because people are putting all of their savings to real-estate, because money is losing value due to USA recently printing ludicrous amounts of money. Housing market is getting crazy.
-Prices of imported products are also going up because of the supply shortages in the market. Let's face it - Europe is dependent on China. A lot. And if only Lithuania take a stance against it, only we are going to take the hits.
-wages are increasing, but not as much as prices are going up.
For me it seems that the only ones that are getting the benefits for these anti-CCP stunts are the politicians and their groupies, who are getting patted on the back by USA, other ideologists and pro-"Lansbergis" (our foreign ministers grandfathers cult) people.
Me and my dad have a small business importing high-quality electrical products from China (yes China sells good products too. We tested them in laboratories). This political tension is not good. We are considering options to import not to Lithuania, but to Poland instead
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 that I don’t like.
The people of China choose to allow CCP to run their country. If they were so different ideologically the CCP would no longer exist. Countries with orders of magnitude less people struggle to remain united. The fact 1.4 billion people can be represented by the same political party speaks to the strong ideological ties that are shared by most Chinese people. I would argue that those ideologies were implanted by decades of brainwashing and totalitarianism, but how it was achieved doesn't change that fact.
So, yes, your experience and likely many others' is with good people. Countries are not exclusively bad or good. We can recognize those good traits that China has as a nation.
But it would be wrong to also not criticize the bad aspects, and sweep them under the rug as the CCP constantly tries to do. The rampant economic and moral corruption, overfishing of world's waters and general disregard for animal life and nature, disregard for human life, widespread racism and xenophobia, isolationism, etc.
These are not only governmental issues, but part of the modern Chinese culture that taints whatever good aspects we can celebrate.
Undoubtedly comparisons to the US will be made, but at least we can criticize bad US aspects (both government and cultural) openly, without random US citizens coming up with defensive arguments. The US government will persecute whistleblowers for airing its dirty laundry, but we've known that for decades.
I fear a world where the dominant superpower has such a culture and is closed to criticism—not only because of its oppressive government, but because of its people.
In my worldview, and I am likely at least partially wrong, I think that almost all governments are totally controlled by corporate and elite interests - same as news media.
I do try to not get too upset by this, and I just try to be a decent person. Really, I am just an average person so what else can I do?
The problem is that it is enough for only a small minority to support the government for it to keep the power forever.
I have been born in a country occupied by communists and there for many decades an overwhelming majority of the people wished that the current government would be deleted, but nobody could do anything.
It is hard to estimate how many people supported the government, but it is very unlikely that they were more than 5% of the total population.
Nevertheless, that was enough to make impossible to organize any kind of opposition against the government because any attempt would be reported by informers and the initiators would be eliminated before being able to do any action.
Maybe in China there is a majority that supports the CCP, but that certainly is not a rule in dictatorships.
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.
Yup.
> without random US citizens coming up with defensive arguments.
Eh... No, usually not.
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 because other regions of China are seen as potential underdogs for independence, due to cultural heritage (and wealth), such as Shangai.
Where I live in the Midwest USA, nobody would care if Hawai'i claimed its independence in some not-harmful-to-tourists-nor-threatening-to-military-fuel-depots fashion.
That doesn't mean it would be easy. Much as was seen in the original USA annexation of Hawai'i, it is very common for interested parties to create violence where none naturally exists.
In other words - aside from containing Chinese/Communist external influence, when has the US threatened China?
Note: I'm not justifying or condemning any of those "external" actions by the US, I'm just curious if you can illustrate a past or ongoing threat to China proper?
Also Midwest/Great Lakes and I’m not sure about that. I know I’d be pretty upset about it just as I would be if Texas tried to seriously secede or similar. I wonder what a poll would show? I hadn’t thought about Hawaii like you have but it would be interesting.
I was stationed there too. It felt like America on an island. It was weird.
The Us would never let it happen though. Too strategically important
Taiwan still has 400+ tonnes of gold the Guomindang took with them on their way out. I have no idea if good reserves have any relevance in this century but it’s just one part of the long term animosity.
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.
Another factor that complicates things is the fact that Taiwan is a strategic location for the US's military containment of China. The whole "first island chain" depends on it. The US knows it, China's life depends on it.
There's a reason why this issue has persisted since 1949 and why it's China's "reddest of the red lines".
People in China are happy. People in Taiwan are happy. What moron would start a war over it now?
People in China and Taiwan are happy as it is right now, yes. But if the status quo changes, for example if Taiwanese independence is recognized, people will become unhappy.
Even Chinese people seem to think that Taiwanese want to be part of China. In reality support for unification is about 4% of the population. The official One China Policy exists to prevent immediate start of war.
There is nothing to do with the Communist ideology or any particular party or people. If it were KMT on the mainland and Communist Party on Taiwan, they would do the same.
> China's people also believe that.
Only because that is what they learn and hear (literally) daily, starting with kindergarten. Just reduce this crab step by step, and it will fade away. The same is true for this even more stupid 7-dash line. They draw this stuff only really, really every map you see in China.
Chinese people initially saw Taiwan as part of China for historical reasons as well as a result of the civil war. Propaganda slows this from stopping, but the problem very much is not manufactured.
Yes education is a contributing factor. But it is my no means the only factor. Your take also ignores the fact that unification is Chinese core value, which is valued more than western freedom of speech, and that this core value has been around for thousands of years.
Is warring with all neighbors a core value too? Chinese government, through censorship, controls the minds of the Chinese people. The government needs to update the core values.
This has strategical implications. Do we want to grandstand or do we want to actually solve a problem? If we want to grandstand at all cost, then we have to wage war with China and force them into submission. If we want an actual peaceful resolution then something has to give.
Who is we and they? Based on your Twitter profile, you're Chinese and your views seem perfectly aligned with the official CCP 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 opinion than the mainstream western one. So what? I can have my own legitimate, independently researched opinion, of which some parts may or may not align with other actors because that's what I happen to believe in based on research results.
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.
Maybe the Taiwanese can defend their nation mostly by themselves; amphibious assault is not easy, even for major world powers. Even more difficult with satellites watching your (extensive) preparations. Even more difficult with hostile submarines prowling the seas. The PLA can't march to Taiwan.
It is not China that is deviating from the status quo.
No, they aren't. China has been making empty threats for literally decades.
Yes, I am sure they will throw around more empty threats and not follow through on them.
But this "red line" thing is just internal propaganda that they never actually follow through on.
It is time the rest of the world stops pretending.
Furthermore, China can no longer afford to use empty threats when US warships are inceasingly sailing in China's backyard. Things weren't so militarily contested before.
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.
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.
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 already an independent country, and it has been so for decades, and that will continue.
They have had their own taxes, laws, and borders for decades. And they have those same things today. Nothing has changed. They are already independent, and that was the case before, and still is now.
And anyway, the only one who can choose to stop making those empty threats is china. Complain at them if you don't like their big talk, and no follow through threats.
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.
So go tell the fucking PRC to deescalate.
The extent of "mind control" is really not that great. The internet exists, and despite imperfect controls people have access to information. It would probably take Xi down to try to abandon Taiwan.
If the vision is that everyone will be living happily ever after under the PRC umbrella, I could see some flaws in that reasoning. Like a whole population that will probably take up arms guerilla-style. I've visited Taiwan and even wearing pro-CCP colours is frowned upon. If they just want the territory and not the people and it'll end up another XinJiang style "re-education" camp, well that's obviously something unsupportable.
Also, of course Taiwan is so crucial to global supply chains that this has all the ingredients to become a world war in short order, which is pretty worrying.
They mostly don’t. It’s not that big of an issue outside politics and loudmouths, which sometimes converge.
Taiwan is an excuse to add fire to patriotic indoctrination.
How about unification, under the government of Taiwan? Is everybody down with that? No? Oh, then maybe the mainland could see why Taiwan isn't down with unification on the mainland's terms.
But that's the problem. Neither side is willing to be unified "under" the other. That's not unification; that's subordination. Neither is willing to be subordinated. So no non-violent unification is currently possible.
I think if you asked the average American living in the continental United States, that they would not care one iota if Puerto Rico suddenly became independent. And frankly it's the same for people living in mainland China - their day-to-day lives would change zero percentage if Taiwan was formally recognized. It's purely a matter of conditioned education delivered as part of the party system.
Once people taste freedom they tend to not want to give it up, no matter how messy.
Democracy != Liberal democracy.
I hope you are not seriously thinking true propagandists are recruited out in the open via HN comments. Are you seriously paranoid and naive at the same time?
So, no, I don't think Taiwanese would agree to become Chinese.
I would bet that a Scottish-style ref in Taiwan (which would be tantamount to declaration of independence and hence, dead on arrival) may yield a surprising similar response: no majority support for independence.
If China would allow a referendum in Taiwan (accepting any outcome peacefully), there would be 90%+ majority for independence.
You are also missing the part where the ambiguous stance is mostly a consequence of China's threat of immediate violence if independence is ever declared. Taiwanese support for reunification is under 15% or so - and even lower among Taiwanese who were born in Taiwan. Why would they, when their living standards are way higher than China's and they live a free country?
But more importantly, you dodged the military strategic significance of Taiwan. Telling China to give up Taiwan is like asking China to give cut off its lifeline.
At the end of the day, your point boils down to that China ought not to think that way, for reasons that you believe are the only legitimate reasons. But that is useless: Chinese do view things that way, and if foreign forces pressure China to let Taiwan go, then they will fight to the end.
It seems to me that you are saying that a contemporary political position (that Taiwan should be ruled by the same government as mainland China) is in fact a "core value". Unity can be a value, but the political position that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of China, and China can't be unified without it, is not. That's the position which is encouraged by propaganda and government rhetoric, and mirrors similar positions with regards to, for example, Tibet.
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.
Say what?
Can you give some background (and, especially, evidence or documentation) for this? Because that sounds completely insane.
China obviously doesn't want the matter resolved peacefully, if at all, because they use this conflict for internal control.
I don't have an opinion on that. Just want to point out that out of the previous 2500 years, China has been unified for only 500 years, and 300 of those 500 years was spent under the yoke of a foreign invader (the Mongols).
This is not true, Mongol rule only lasted for about 100 years.
Han dynasty lasted 400 years. Tang about 300 years, Ming and Qing together lasted about 550 years. All of that adds to about 1250 years of unified times. That did not count Qin or Sui or Northern Song, which are unified that just happened to be short lived.
I don't know where you got your numbers.
Yes, there is a certain believe among Chinese that Taiwan is an inalienable part of their territory, but most don't believe that reunification should be achieved by force. There is also the idea that Taiwanese people are indeed different from mainland Chinese, but at the same time, any strong Taiwanese identity is the result of propaganda and indoctrination by the Taiwanese authorities.
In other words, it seems that Chinese citizens believe that Taiwanese are "misguided children", thus there is no reason to punish them militarily, and the Taiwan question should be treated as an internal conflict, like any other separatist movement.
Hence, I did not say people believe reunification needs to be achieved by force. What I did say is that if foreign forces pressure China into letting Taiwan go, then China will fight back.
Then this line:
> if the president lets go of Taiwan, the CCP would be overthrown tomorrow.
doesn't make much sense to me. Who would overthrow the CCP, if not the Chinese people? And if they would be willing to do that, why wouldn't they believe in achieving reunification by force?
Letting go of the reunification aspiration entirely, and letting Taiwan relinquish their identity as Chinese, is a whole different matter and would make lots of people angry. It would be seen as a sign of a weak government, one which is in collusion with foreign forces to destroy Chinese sovereignty; an extension of early 20th century efforts by the west to balkanize China. The CCP will lose legitimacy.
Once CCP is overthrown, who can say whether the new policy is peaceful? Maybe a populist will make use of the anger to incite people to call for an invasion.
The CCP are actually moderates. Be careful of what you wish for.
There are different types of "Chinese", and as the PRC frequently does, you are blurring the difference between them.
Taiwanese are 中文 but not 中國.
> being Chinese is being 中国人, which doesn't mean belonging to the Chinese state
I wish that were the case, but the CCP declare themselves the arbiter and they have all the guns. People's Daily says we are "race" traitors if we don't obey their government.
So we don't like calling ourselves 中國人 anymore. I can read OK but not speak their 國語 well enough with the Taiwanese I meet to understand what they prefer. It is not a simple question. 或者华人? Maybe they ignore the pinks and still say 中國人.
我叫自己唐人
If the PRC were as reasonable as the relative you quoted above, none of this would matter. But they are not.
Haha, no. CCP will just present it as a victory for some weird reason, and everyone will just keep applauding. There might be some resentment, but not open one.
And even for those who "cared" I've explained, that imagine yourself as a Taiwanese, who had and always will have a better life than any mainlander. Would they want to have a dictator above themself who beat them up like they did with HKese? So far, I've found no mainlanders yet who would still insisted to take them over. (of course personally, in chat it might be different)
[1] Sino-Japanese Friendship and Trade Treaty
I doubt that China doesn't think of this possibility.
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.
- Diplomatic advantage. Only 14 tiny, inconsequential countries + the Vatican recognise Taiwan as a country. Everyone else acknowledges that there is “One China”.
- Military advantage. Taiwan struggles to man their military. In any case the investment in the PLA in the last 10 years means no military can stand up to it except for America. Except America is at peak war weariness with the shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan. They’re comfortable with Sabre rattling but it’s clear they won’t draw the sabre from the scabbard.
- Economic advantage. Every country in the world needs China. China doesn’t need any single country. See how they bullied Australia and Canada successfully. This dependence on China is at an all time high. It could maybe diminish, but it’s unlikely.
And Taiwan is a more compelling prize than ever.
- Political incentive. The leader who integrates Taiwan will enjoy unquestioned power for the rest of their life. Xi Jinping is often described as the strongest leader of China since Mao. This would be his opportunity to become more powerful than Mao by doing something he couldn’t. Unify China and importantly, face down America and show the world who’s #1.
- Economic incentive. 2020 and 2021 has made the world realise exactly how important Taiwan is to the world economy. TSMC in particular the most pivotal supplier for most of the worlds critical industries. If Taiwan could be annexed and TSMC brought under state control, China would have a bargaining chip of unparalleled power.
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.
Except how the rest of the world would react.
It seems like a recipe for war.
Yes.
That said, I’d expected more of a reaction to the annexation of Hong Kong too.
"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.
How is my statement about the Sino-British Joint Declaration incorrect?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-British_Joint_Declaration
If China invades Taiwan then most likely the USA goes to war over it. Anything else is to accept the final end of US leadership in the world. If we're going to end the world and kill billions then I guess it might as well be over something as honourable as Taiwanese freedom and in the broader name of freedom, human rights and democracy. Human civilisation could end in a far more banal way.
"anything at all besides what you did"
- On the Beach (2000)
Not only that, but the loss of coal imports from Australia led directly to massive power outages in the northeastern provinces this fall. Though it's possible that the people aren't aware of that causal connection.
> Anything else is to accept the final end of US leadership in the world
There is some sense in which the US is willing to relinquish its "leadership in the world" and "take some me-time"; it's just too much of a pain in the ass. This has been a trend since 2001, when george bush was elected on a "humble foreign policy" platform (but not delivered upon), skipped obama's cabinet (though he was famously aloof during high level diplomatic meetings), through Donald Trump, who hasn't started any new foreign adventures, and Biden has actually withdrawn from Afghanistan. I think that we are emerging into an zeitgeist where the US doesn't really care to be number one, it's just so stupid and so much of a waste of time.
But even in context of deliberately disengaging from the world, the US still goes to bat for Taiwan.
This myth has been repeated so many times, how about: https://www.worldometers.info/coal/coal-production-by-countr...
The outage was caused by misguiding policy incentive (clean air etc), which was seen as a huge blunder, rightfully so, but it had nothing to do with Australian coal.
But the aftermath would be pretty terrible. The US and EU would lock them out of the their economies, as would basically every country in the region except NK. Economic collapse would ensue and that would likely lead to a revolution: the CCP have basically ruled on a "give up freedom and get economic opportunity" ticket. If they can't deliver...
There is also a pretty big US air force base there which would be hard to... Invade around?
I am inclined to believe that it would look similar to Iraq invading Kuwait, only 100000 times bigger and bloodier.
I think the US, UK, Australia, Japan, and many EU nations would strongly disapprove and take military action.
The best they could realistically do if the invasion does succeed is try to force an embargo. This will be massively unpopular, kill tens of thousands in third countries that will be sanctioned as collateral damage, and crash the world economy, and still might not work.
The past 100 years of wars and military conflicts have shown that military logistics can overcome great distances if needed.
Great distances and economic consequences did not stop past wars. I doubt they would stop a war caused by the invasion of Taiwan.
>> This will be massively unpopular, kill tens of thousands in third countries that will be sanctioned as collateral damage, and crash the world economy, and still might not work.
The damage would be incredible, likely as bad as World War 2, or possibly worse.
Great distance stopped many, many wars. It is the reason the US is so rich, right now.
Economic consequences did not stop actual wars, yes. But in the event that an embargo is the only realistic alternative, it is a very powerful factor.
> Great distances and economic consequences did not stop past wars.
Yeah, the wars of German invasion of North America -- sub-theaters of WW1 and WW2 -- were over so quickly hardly anyone even noticed them.
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 of "strategic ambiguity".
It would also be hard because China isn't Iraq. It's a nuclear nation with a bigger stronger army and much better morale. And Taiwan is an Island. You can't mass your troops 100m from the border and then march over when ready. The allies would need to do an amphibious landing less than 200 miles from the Chinese coast (aka air force), under fire from subs and against a fortified target.
Strategic ambiguity means china is emboldened and that Taiwan cannot rely on any US support whatever secret deals have been made no?
No country would lock China out of their economies. It would be the most painful suicide imaginable. China is already the source of most components in most industries. A China that annexed Taiwan would also be the main source of the world’s semiconductors.
And that’s even before getting into how companies cut off from the second largest market in the world would struggle to survive against competitors that weren’t.
I think you might be over estimating how indispensable they are.
This is one of (not the only reason) China is so hungry to move into harder to replace industries (cutting edge chip manufacturing for instance, infrastructure like 5G).
And of course Chinese markets are mostly closed to Western goods and services already...
I think this is why the war weariness would matter little.
Americans may be many things, but liberal or conservative, they’re all proud as fuck.
They won’t initiate a war, but barring a complete takeover of Taiwan in the course of a day (e.g. Crimea), they’ll fight.
The same is more or less true for Japan, which really just needs an excuse.
> 2020 and 2021 has made the world realise exactly how important Taiwan is to the world economy.
These two statements are exclusive.
If China would invade Taiwan, the economic downfall and the reactions from most western countries, which, on the other hand, are essential partners for China to continue its manufacturing dominance, would be catastrophic.
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.
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.
Which Chinese economic boycott was successful in achieving their goals? You surely can't point to the Australian one.
The UK (my country) does it with 1001 places (Greece and the Elgin Marbles, Argentina and the Falklands, German and WW1 and WW2, France and, well, everything). The US does it with Iran and Cuba. China does it with all it's neighbors.
It's childish and short-termist and dangerous. But it works.
That's what this is. It's Winnie the Pooh rallying support, not an actual political position.
Is this technically an invasion from China since the embassy grounds are theoretically soil of the embassy's country?
No, because:
(1) embassy grounds are not soil of the embassy's country, even in theory. See, Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
(2) a place being an embassy is a matter of mutual agreement, not a permanent right with regard to the establishment.
Deng understood the West and was able to advance Chinese interests. Xi Jinping is complete opposite of Deng. Xi has no understanding of other cultures.
Russia under Putin bullies and plays brinkmanship due to political weakness. That seems to work for them under the circumstances.
Chine under Xi bullies because they are incompetent. China under Xi can't even bully right. Wolf Warrior tactics of Chinese diplomats works against Chinese interest. Nobody is scared and everyone wants to resist.
There are no complex reasons at play.
Still, this is not from a lack of understanding of the West. There a lot of complex strategic factors that mean that China cannot abandon the idea of holding Taiwan, which means either war or the One China Policy, which requires the behaviour we're seeing now.
So more than that I'd hope EU can then put its squabbling aside and respong in unison to any military provocation as well.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_s...
In the EU we view the "Department of Defense" as a tool for actual defense. Not for invading the middle east for corporate benefit. We've been dragged into this several times by the US in the last decades and it's always been a huge failure and has sometimes led to worse threats (ISIS for example which was much more of a threat to us than Saddam Hussein was)
A land war against China is not winnable anyway. I do think we should help Taiwan if it comes to it. But this should just come down to strategic deterrents. There's no point sending armies. By the time they get there it's too late anyway.
Our main threat right now is mainly Russia. And mainly so because they view us as enemies. But having entire tank brigades like in the cold war won't do us any good. This is not how the next war will be fought.
The US is definitely overspending for no real benefit, except lining the pockets of defense contractors(and by that, politicians pockets)
One example is that several EU armies running out of precision bombs relatively early into the Libyan intervention [1].
[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/nato-runs-short-on-some...
Sure, Spain can take a break from hunting down Catalonian referendum politicians in France, or hunting down the Basque separatists that Franco didn't wipe out in Guernica, and can declare Taiwan should be an independent country.
The British PM can visit soldiers in Thiepval, Holywood or other UK barracks in north Ireland and declare support of Taiwan breaking off of China.
The Italian newspapers can take a break from condemning the northern League wanting to break off from Italy and form another country, and praise Taiwanese independence.
Maybe after an EU council meeting denouncing the people of Crimea voting to be annexed into Russia, we can have an opening of Taiwanese embassies in preparation for Taiwan announcing a break from China.
Are we supposed to order them by which may be even close to what we see with Taiwan or doesn't it matter at all?
I thought this was a discussion site about "hacking and startups".
If there's enough daily top of the front page US/EU bash China/Russia/Iran/Cuba/Venezuela (put your developing country not bowing down to the west here) threads for someone to have a "colorful comment history", then maybe this new focus of the site can be updated in the about section.
This is not twitter or something.
We see what you're doing.
It's not complicated.
This isn't the 90's, that stuff died down when we all united against the africans. [1] There's no separatist movement in Italy other than in fringe groups on Facebook. Definitely much less than "Texas wanting to secede" anyway.
Supporting Taiwan is really not a question of opposing local separatist movements (at least in Italy) as much as just "losing China" and all that it'd entail.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2KTI_mZ0v4
This video is satire, racist POV
I think the problem there was that the vote came after the annexation. Or the voting method was so untrustworthy it might as well have been made up.
If you want a more accurate comparison it would would be as if Spain started claiming that Portugal is a part of its territory and pushing the world to accept that position.
The west ignored the human rights situation at the beginning to get cheap labor, cheap resources and to ignore environmental issues and now the west can't simply stop without killing it's econonmy.
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.
It is a simplification, but it is mostly true. Washington has literally been trying to contain PRC's rise since it was born in 1949. Because duh, China has historically been the most prosperous civilization on the planet and they just got out from under the boot of Western/Japanese imperialism.
War in Korea (and almost over Taiwan). Deny access to 1st island chain.
Sino-Soviet split.
War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Scorched earth policy. Deny access to SEA.
Transition to hybrid war (propaganda-driven psychological warfare) as PRC opened up under Deng.
Tibet.
Tiananmen Sq.
(20 years of relative tolerance, Washington assuming PRC won't get uppity and will follow USSR's fate)
Obama's "China Pivot", anti-BRICS campaign.
South China Sea.
Hong Kong.
ETIM/Xinjiang.
Taiwan.
You can spin Beijing's responses to this containment strategy as "aggression", but frankly that doesn't make much sense unless you believe Washington is entitled to global hegemony.
The fact is that Beijing has been consistently outplaying Washington since Mao. And that makes Washington extremely nervous and irrational.
Other than that, China was the clear aggressor in most of the conflicts you mention.
China invaded Tibet with the excuse of “liberating” their people, which is essentially what the US has claimed to justify most of their foreign interventions.
The CCP violently squashed the Tiananmen protests.
China keeps claiming authority over large areas of the South China Sea, disregarding protests by surrounding countries like the Philippines.
The CCP backtracked on their promise of keeping Hong Kong’s system of government, putting more agreeable politicians in charge, and disregarding and/or squashing any citizen movements.
Taiwan is a de facto independent country whose mere existence is threatened by China.
I could go on and on, but pretending that China is not the aggressor here is almost laughable.
Frankly, this makes me want to stop reading right here. This is an outrageously ignorant comment. PLA participated in both wars, which bordered China, and backed the Northern factions. USSR did neither.
But don't take my word for it. SecDef McNamara to LBJ:
"1. US strategy. The February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China."
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03...
You should not believe everything you read from Washington media or high school American history textbooks, as your comment implies you do. It will make you weak and exploitable.
Starting a full on proxy war in Vietnam during the Cold War era is a completely different issue. Same goes for Korea.
China wasn’t that big of a threat to the US. Pretending that it was, and that it was at the same level of the USSR, is ridiculous and close to historic revisionism at this point.
The Sino-Soviet split took place in 1960. Vietnam War took off later. The latter had virtually nothing to do with the USSR and everything to do with violently containing PRC. Read the linked White House memo above.
> China wasn’t that big of a threat to the US
Believe it or not, US strategists in 1950 were capable of planning more than 0-4 years into the future.
The war started half a decade prior. The US already had 50,000 soldiers stationed in South Vietnam by the time the Sino-Soviet split reached its point of no return, plus several thousand advisors and other personnel.
> Believe it or not, US strategists in 1950 were capable of planning more than 0-4 years into the future.
I agree. I also think they were a bit more concerned about an arms race with the USSR, and the fact that the Soviets were involved in half a dozen direct geopolitical threats in the 50s and 60s.
Anyway, let’s say that you are right. Supporting and arming the North Vietnamese regime would make China as much as an aggressor as the US. Funnily enough, China also turned against Vietnam and both financed the Khmer Rouge and directly attacked the country after the war ended. But I guess those don’t count as “aggressions” either.
We are specifically discussing American combat involvement in Vietnam, which did not meaningfully begin (beyond 100-1000s of noncombat advisors) until after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. With the explicit goal of containing China.
> …until after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. With the explicit goal of containing China
You are making a single phase the whole reason why the US deployed millions of troops to Vietnam, which is patently untrue.
I see you would not acknowledge either that China became the aggressor a few years after the US withdrew, and eventually the Chinese got their asses kicked too.
Did you see that the government hired thugs to beat up it's own people in HK? (and after used the police directly to do this?) It's said if a small irrelevant country is doing this, but if this becomes the standard of a global power, well I don't want to be nearby.
However, once the USD loses global reserve status, USA is in extreme economic trouble. In 2021 alone, it will have over $1T trade deficit in goods.
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.
"The mean old world is just lying about China." Kind of incredible that literally the whole world is conspiring against the truly good natured China because... Reasons.
> "The mean old world is just lying about China."
It is a literally a core theme of modernity. Opium Wars, Yellow Peril, anticommunist crusades in SEA... Chinese civilization is a historical threat to narratives of Anglo racial/cultural supremacy like nothing else.
1) On the Uyghur issue. If what you say is true, why is it difficult to get CSPAN footage in Xinjiang?
2) Is there a hypothetical future event or evidence that would shift your viewpoint to believe the "western narrative"? If so, what is it?
> Women being lifted out of poverty became "genocide through birthrate suppression".
It can simultaneously be true that the heavy-handed actions (as you put it) successfully lifted women out of poverty, and also violated their individual human rights. The words we use to describe these actions aren't mutually exclusive truths.
A good start would be a motive for why Beijing would do a Holocaust against peoples within China.
Hitler had a motive, you can read all about it in Mein Kampf. It was out in the open. There is nothing even remotely resembling such a policy by Beijing.
On the other hand, there is a very clear motive for why Washington would spread misinformation about Beijing. So to believe Washington's story is to put on my blinders towards Washington's interests and simultaneously accept that Xi Jinping is a comic book villain. Sorry, but that is ridiculous.
And the rest of the world? Why is the free press of the entire world conspiring against China? Or the free press in the US? Does Washington own that?
Anyway, we can only speculate on the motive. Ethnic cleansing? Perceived threat of religious beliefs? Who knows. You're gonna have to do better than "I don't think those are strong motives" to dismiss mountains of evidence.
Your long list if irrelevant facts is very impressive, there's no doubt you are well read on your history. The consistency with which you present these facts any time China's atrocities are mentioned is also impressive.
So fuck knows who this "you" (who was tricked by that) that you think (or pretend to think) you're talking to might be
But that doesn't answer my question (2). Would you please answer it directly? Either there is some hypothetical evidence that would change your mind, or there is no hypothetical that could change your mind. Providing the affirmative to one or the other would help us understand whether you are open to changing your perspective at all.
For what it's worth, I'm happy to volunteer a hypothetical that would convince me to believe more in the narratives that you provided.
Anyways, please don't dismiss my comment. What is Beijing's supposed motive here?
Oh yes, I'll gladly dismiss it: You introduced it with a carefully weasel-worded "a good start would be"... So even if you got an iron-clad motive in reply, you'd just go on quibbling, because it was, after all, "just a start". So: Dismissed!
Collapse of Soviet Union influenced western world badly. They relaxed and eased requirements whom to work with.
We need at least to introduce tyranny tax, same as carbon tax. That will give a good boost of local economies also gives a proper signal to the entire world.
And the west never cared about whom to work with as long the got their needed resources. And the west has a long tradition of using countries with lack of environmental and human rights to produce their products or get needed resources.
We complain about Ukraine and Taiwan but about the Yemen we don't care. Because there seem to be good and bad tyrannies. Russia, China bad, Saudi Arabia, Qatar good. Iraq good as long they fought Iran, bad a soon as they attacked Qatar and threatened our oil.
it's not about capitalism. Current time is the most close to WWIII , if Russia and China will decide to attack Ukraine and Taiwan right now. What would west do?
Most likely the answer is nothing. You just need to hit hard. And that's how WWII started.
So they would not have to lose? That's a guaranteed way to war. Mutual dependence prevents wars.
>You just need to hit hard.
And then? We are talking about nuclear powers here? What will happen when their backs are against the wall and they don't have much to lose?
It's like if the confederates lost the war, but simply kept Florida or if Nazi Germany lost, but kept Austria.
I don't know how bad the Chinese nazionalists were back in the days, but I can kinda understand why the rest of China is unhappy about them.
Kind of a good analogy, but the wrong way around. China vs Taiwan is more like if the confederates won the civil war, but the Union kept Florida; or if Nazi Germany won WW2, but the Allies hung on in Austria.
The communists never were the good guys.
No one needs to rewrite his history. The guy was a complete fucking disaster.
Would you mind expanding on this? I could only find articles describing a bank account opened in China, that indicate only a little less than $500k business per year. What do you know?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/28/ivanka-trump...
It’s the only good thing trump did IMO. As a kiwi.
How does that affect how well their investments do? Maybe I'm not following.
See also the ZTE and DanceByte sanctions. WTF was that about?
Legitimate reasons of concern.Either estonians or lithuanians released a very detailed report (from their ministry of defence if i recall correctly) showing how chinese manufacturers installed backdoors(these are not mere malware viruses, because that would assume infection post-purchase) on their phones which actively surpress any messaging/information exchange about TW,HK, or touchy subjects that the Chinese governments wants to shut down.
yes
> China has been unfair in its trade practices
yes
but these doesn't have much to do with each other.
It was already known before Trump that the lack of trade/investment reciprocity with China is big fucking problem. (2016 Brookings report, and Brookings is not a conservative think tank. Quite the opposite - according to conservative pundits.)
Of course this concern was mostly completely ignored, because the money was good. (The economy was booming, who cares if the CCP is a narcissist control freak. Human rights violations are nothing new, it's just Tibet again.)
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/hvmilner/f...
My first impression is that CCP and Taiwan remind me of the archetype of the unwanted suitor that never gets the message and keeps on pursuing a disinterested woman. But I think your framing CCP in psychological terms is just as if not more apt. I'm just pasting a list of symptoms of narcissism. Not all apply, but strikingly, enough symptoms do apply to CCP for a positive diagnosis:
Grandiosity Exaggerated sense of self-importance Feeling superior to others and that one deserves special treatment Feelings are often accompanied by fantasies of unlimited success, brilliance, power, beauty, or love which more often than not cover for hidden anxiety Excessive need for admiration Must be the center of attention Often monopolize conversations Easily offended, slighted, mistreated, depleted, and enraged when ignored Engages in blaming Long-held grudges Superficial and exploitative relationships Relationships are based on surface attributes and not the unique qualities of others Others are only valued only to the extent they are viewed as beneficial Lack of empathy Severely limited or totally lacking ability to care about the emotional needs or experiences of others, even loved ones Engages in cruelty Identity disturbance Sense of self is highly superficial, extremely rigid, and often fragile Self-stability depends on maintaining the view that one is exceptional Grandiose sense of self is easily threatened Patients retreat from or deny realities that challenge grandiosity Difficulty with attachment and dependency Relies on feedback from the environment Relationships only exist to shore up positive self-image Interactions are superficial Intimacy is avoided Chronic feelings of emptiness and boredom When attention and praise are not available, patients feel empty, bored, depressed, or restless Vulnerability to life transitions Difficulty maintaining reality-based personal and professional goals over time Compromises required by school, jobs, and relationships may feel unbearable Young adults may have a “failure to launch”
Especially eastern europeans(not the media) weren't critical at all of Trump,for key reasons: he was pro-nato, he promoted 3SI, pushed back against Russia(contrarian to what MSM said).The very important distinction and the reason you might have that impression is because the media is de facto the same on the entire continent and very much US-aligned.The EE media outlets literally copy-paste western talking points, you rarely see opposite voices, obviously with the exceptions of outlets that are either local or not the biggest, and why not often owned politicians with opposing voices..
With very few exceptions, the entire EE dislikes to a degree(to say hate is strong here) China,mostly on an ideological context.The more important question is to analyze China's (forceful) involvement into EE and specially Balkans.You see how hard they try to push development projects in Serbia,Bulgaria, etc and you really get surprised.They try to fund everything they can(because they have money) in order to expand their sphere of influence.However they have less success when it comes to critical infrastructure with nato members.Also on the Taiwan/HK issue, i don't think many people are pro-china at all.
I think the whole western world should stop playing games with the bully state that is PRC.
It has tons of military bases in the SCS, a region not even close to it, compared to the furor when it becomes possible that China might build a single military base along Africa's atlantic coast.
It seems like a bit of a double standard to me.
I wish a good faith discussion about China was possible here, but I think that HN swings pretty jingoistic on these issues.
Point me to the last time the US used its navy to directly threaten merchant shipping.
https://news.yahoo.com/us-warns-against-dealing-top-iran-shi...
This one involves the Navy.
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/05/19/us-threatens-ships-in-pe...
If there is a reason why Lithuania hasn't evacuated their US embassy, then I am just seeking to figure out what the standard is that makes China's behavior uniquely bad.
I think it is pretty undeniable that jingoistic rhetoric has increased in both China and the US in recent years.
Was that really a hard question to answer?
That is a simple one. The US is not hurting Lithuania the same way China is hurting Lithuania. This is the reason why Lithuania evacuated their Chinese embassy and not their US embassy.
Your question seems to imply that Lithuania drawn a big tally of the Chinese “moral failings” in general and decided to withdraw. This is not what happened.
Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open an embassy in their country. In response, the PRC recalled its ambassador in Vilnius, Shen Zhifei, and demanded that Lithuania recall its ambassador in Beijing, Diana Mickevičienė.
Following this Lithuania experienced a trade distruption. Shipments to and from Lithuania didn’t clear Chinese customs and invoices went unpaid. It goes as far that assemblies containing Lithuanian parts get blocked by the Chinese.
This is not rhetoric. This is not some feel-good measure to communicate displeasure with China in an abstract. This is a trade war.
Now I ask: is the US doing anything like this to Lithuania right now?
50 years ago Americans were mass bombing North Vietnam, spraying toxic chemicals across large swathes, and generally killing. However, now America is a friend and trading partner to Vietnam and China is a bitter rival because China has many centuries of history bullying and brutally subjugating Vietnam and compared to that the US comes off looking ok. It doesn’t diminish how terrible and regrettable the Vietnam War was but it sure puts China’s long held attitude toward foreigners in stark relief!
If criticism of the US and the President were treated by the US with such vitriol and reprisals as China responds to criticisms of China and Xi then the world would be a smoldering crater.
The PRC is bullying the whole planet, and people are letting them do it in name of profit.
If you are talking about India's spat with China in terms of territorial waters, I think the general consensus is that India is in excess of international law with its claims and China is conducting legal freedom of navigation operations just like the US does.
The SCS is an entirely different issue, where both China and Taiwan have made territorial claims that are largely illegal under international law.
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 that Vatican and San Marino are Italy, they would protest.
China is not dissimilar from USA In this regards.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_Catalonia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Parliament
but they are not independent countries.
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.
This is about their current status, not about what they "deserve."
If only Catalonia was interesting enough for the US to send their army on the borders...
That's one big difference.
Anyway, de facto doesn't mean anything here.
Taiwan is officially not a country.
If you don't like the comparison to Catalonia, lookup Cyprus.
I mean, I understand that in US Taiwan is recognized as a country, in Italy Palestin is recognized as such too, but they are not officially sovereign countries and protest from mainland are to be expected because it's a very complicated international matter and of course China uses all the tools they have to support their position, just like the US.
Do you remember what happened when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel capital?
Conflicts over sovereignty on land are as old as the human race.
Cyprus?!? Everyone calls Cyprus a country! Because it is.
So yeah, that's a much better analogy to Taiwan. Because that's a country too.
Hollywood - see John Cena's obsequious display. Australia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93China_relati...).
Right now, Hong Kong, above all.
This is an almost mundane incident compared to ethnic genocide, but it’s illustrative of how they believe the can operate in the world. A flag “provoked” their diplomats so they are within their rights to trespass and commit assault? That’s bully diplomacy if anything is.
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.
> the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group
Now to your points:
> religious conversion
1. No, forced religious conversion is not genocide in my book.
> Forced sterilization
2. Look, I'm not a fan of this law either, but sterilization in-lieu-of fine is one of the remedies in China for breaking the two (previously one)-child law and is also applied to Han Chinese. The Uyghur population is still growing at a faster rate than Han Chinese.
> the occasional organ harvesting
3. Awful and at large scale, absolutely a genocide. My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?
> ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group;
> (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
> — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2
The strongest case is for paragraph (d).
Another question - does a genocide necessarily require an actual reduction in the population of people being genocided?
I do agree that the strongest case is for (d) (or maybe c, actually), especially if Uyghur women are being sterilized with fewer than 2-3 births.
2. Oh, so the Chinese are just enforcing their population control law? Then what are the internment camps for? And why the Uighur birth rate plummeting far faster than the reported national Chinese birthrate? https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we...
"Birth rates in the mostly Uighur regions of Hotan and Kashgar plunged by more than 60% from 2015 to 2018, the latest year available in government statistics. Across the Xinjiang region, birth rates continue to plummet, falling nearly 24% last year alone — compared to just 4.2% nationwide, statistics show."
3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
"UN human rights experts* said today they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged ‘organ harvesting’ targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians, in detention in China
The experts said they have received credible information that detainees from ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities may be forcibly subjected to blood tests and organ examinations such as ultrasound and x-rays, without their informed consent; while other prisoners are not required to undergo such examinations. The results of the examinations are reportedly registered in a database of living organ sources that facilitates organ allocation."
1. Yes, referring to "cultural genocide" as "genocide" is genocide trivialization. There's an obvious difference between killing 6 million people because of their ethnic background and outlawing a practice (say, child marriage in India or wearing a burqa in France) that happens to be a large part of a certain culture.
2. You're conflating a few different things I'm saying. The internment camps are for alleged violations of a lot of extremely broad and bullshit laws designed to target Uyghur people, as well as for violations of China's two-child law. I am not claiming that the internment camps are just for people violating China's two child law.
Your chart indicates that Uyghur birth rates are roughly the same as Han Chinese, not that they are being disproportionately suppressed below Han Chinese.
> 3. The UN apparently does. Note that said treatments are apparently disproportionately targeted at various ethnic minorities. https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
I'll defer to them then. If they've been doing it against Falun Gong in the recent past, I wouldn't put it past them to be doing it to the Uyghurs. That is obviously a crime against humanity. It is scary that we probably won't know the true extent of this for decades at least.
2. I am not saying that "cultural genocide" is not the appropriate term. Honestly, it probably is. I'm merely saying that "genocide" is not the appropriate term for a "cultural genocide."
The purpose in referring to the repression of the Uyghur's as a "genocide" without qualifiers is to try to take some of the distaste people feel for mass killings and apply it to this.
It’s trivial compared to the Communist Party’s ongoing cultural genocide against numerous ethnic minorities, involving imprisonment, slave labor, forced sterilization, “re-education,” family separation, forced marriages to Han Chinese men, and many other abhorrent conditions, but still terrifying that Chinese diplomats in another country think it’s okay to gate crash a party, photograph attendees (presumably for identification and retribution), and then start a fistfight because they were “provoked” by a “false national flag.”
I don’t need to take some of the distaste we have for the holocaust and apply it to this. It’s shameful and terrifying enough on its own.
>> My understanding was that this had been done against Falun Gong in the early 2000s - do you have evidence on this practice continuing against Uyghurs circa now?
Yet you seem to really like the "1 in 3 black men" behind bars headline, based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups. Even the authors state its' gone down significantly.
There are 2.5 million black people in prison in the US, compared to a high end estimate of 1.5 million Uyghurs. (To be fair, there are 3x as many black people as uyghurs, but you said largest-scale.)
I would not expect a population to increase while it is undergoing genocide.
> based a study from 2001, at the peak of US incararation rates across all population groups
I've been consistent in using the past tense when referring to this study.
Nobody is calling disproportionate imprisonment "genocide" (we call them "lockdowns" LOL).
The "genocide" accusation against China is (these days) focused on / caused by (alleged) sterilization of its Uighur population. Which undoubtedly is a genocide (extermination of a lineage), if a bit more bloodless than e.g. Holocaust.
But backing up a bit - really what I'm taking issue with is the word "genocide." We can call horrendous, human rights violating policies for what they are without having to fall back on calling something a "genocide."
Not everyone who disagrees with you is PRC funded. I would encourage you to look over the HN guidelines as you seem to have forgotten some of them. [0]
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.
1. Saying a birth rate policy should be applied universally to all citizens of China is not justifying such a policy based on a 'believed “correct” ethnic ratio.'
2. My point about the growth of the Uyghur population was a separate point, which is that from my (apparently naive) understanding of what a genocide is, the population would typically decrease after it occurred, not increase.
3. Forced sterilization is ongoing in the criminal justice system in the US, at least as late as 2011. Don't think it is equivalent because it is not nearly as broad based, but in the 80s and 90s it was a not uncommon remedy offered (mostly) to black people to get probation instead of jail in exchange for sterilization, as well as just straight-up court mandated sterilization.
I also don't think the CCPs child policy is justified, but I do think that it should be within the realm of actions that the state can take.
Just to underscore my point here, almost every aspect of your viewpoint on the genocide China is committing is abhorrent and untenable if you believe in human rights.
The US law around this issue is in flux, see for instance [0], where policies that were neutrally applied but impacted people a specific religion were ruled constitutional. This specific case was later rendered moot by congressional action.
Regardless, is the claim that China is conducting a genocide, or that its actions would be in violation of the Civil Rights Act if it were a US state? Are we enforcing the Civil Rights Act globally now?
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Division_v._Smith
I won’t bother replying to the rest of your post about religious beliefs and children because it’s an attempt to derail the conversation by focusing on details that are relevant only to the particular framing you’re advancing.
But I do find it interesting that China is apparently conducting the first genocide in history where the population being genocided is increasing rather than decreasing.
You can't post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you have evidence of abuse, you should send it to us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. If you don't, you should remember that the vast majority of these perceptions on the internet are completely imaginary. Either way, you should be editing such swipes out of your comments here.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Plenty of past explanation at these links:
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27398725
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26652363 (<-- Mini-FAQ)
What would be an appropriate response to someone who's posted several comments to the same top-level post, all of which are grossly misleading and/or complete strawmen?
Obviously I don't have evidence of "abuse" (is this even abuse? obviously people can be trolls without being big-co/gov funded) but I'd like to point out the above fact to other commenters who might not have noticed it otherwise.
If an account is behaving badly, such as by repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, sending a heads-up to hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it is also an appropriate response.
Isn't that just demanding that everyone surrender to a shill's Gish gallop?
I can't resist saying a couple general things though. First, I think you need to assume a smart audience. If someone's throwing an endless sequence of distracting objections at you (which is how I understand 'gish gallop'), that doesn't have a lot of persuasive power for a smart audience. You should trust readers to see that those are distractions, and limit yourself (at most) to pointing out that they're not relevant.
Second, if you're truly dealing with someone posting in bad faith, the time-honored internet adage explains what do to: don't feed the trolls. I would never underestimate the wisdom of that advice. It may be the wisest thing the internet has ever said.
Sorry, no links; I was asking generically. (Though a couple pro-PRC guys on this page feel pretty close.)
> the time-honored internet adage explains what do to: don't feed the trolls. I would never underestimate the wisdom of that advice. It may be the wisest thing the internet has ever said.
Yup. (Well, immediately after anything posted by me, of course.) Sometimes hard to remember, though: Provocateurs provoke.
Anyway, forget all that for a while, and have a merry Christmas!
The concept of cultural genocide : an international law perspective https://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/43864
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.
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.
Last I checked, folks were welcomed to their perspectives around here, we don't typically just go around telling people their opinions are "wrong".
It is my opinion that your opinion is wrong. You are telling me to not express that opinion.
But sure, we can agree to disagree about whether the killing of 6 million people of a specific ethnic group should be "discussed equally" with cultural genocide practices like Burqa bans in France, child marriage bans, or limits on having more than 3 children.
I think what's going on in Xinjiang is broader and much worse than merely trying to restrict certain "cultural" practices, but I also don't think it is a genocide with the intent to exterminate the Uyghur people.
But sometimes we should, because some are.
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".
Ignorance like you're displaying here just helps further this trivialization of the word. Please educate yourself and join the resistance in stead.
You can try to “resist” cultural shifts in language, but I promise you’ll lose.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/06/...
2. I used the past tense intentionally. It is true that it is no longer 1 in 3 today, but the rates were much higher in the 80s and 90s.
3. In 1997, "one in three young African-American men are incarcerated, or on probation or parole"
In my hometown (Washington, DC), this number was closer to 50%.
It sends armed fishing boats[0] into the territorial waters of other countries to plunder its fishes. At night, PRC boats turn off their (mandatory) transponders, enter the waters to steal fish, then leave the territorial waters and turn their transponders back on. At times, you can watch it life on marinetraffic.com
For instance, last year a huge fleets of PRC fishing vessels raided the nature reserve around the Galapagos Islands[1] and destroyed much of the fauna around the islands. Same tactic was used, they turn off their transponders, steal what they can, and then turn the transponders back on.
Again, this is just one tiny topic of thousands of crimes the CCP and their thugs commit on a daily basis.
The sooner the Chinese people are freed of that criminal organization, the better. Look at Taiwan: they are Chinese too, and they have one of the best run governments and most democratic systems in the world.
[0] https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2019/05/31/t...
[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8858427/Huge-fleet-...
Also, I don't like that questions like your's are downvoted. Its a legitimate question and not everybody has the time to focus on PRC politics and the crimes of the CCP.
Doesn't VW own Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and Porsche?
I think Mercedes has a pretty solid market in Arabia too.
Yup. And BMW owns Rolls Royce.
> I think Mercedes has a pretty solid market in Arabia too.
I'd imagine it's their Maybach sub-brand's biggest market not only in percentage of total local car sales, but in absolute numbers. (Hm... Unless the latter is China.)
I agree that China shouldn’t get a free pass to pull this schoolyard bully BS, but the economic consequences of “just cut them off” need to be factored in.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-marc-rich-got-around-san...
(sarcasm about China’s extra behavior)
If the country was a person, we’d label their personality as a high functioning manipulative sociopath.
We (the US primarily, but also the rest of the developed world) have a tremendous opportunity with a still productive labor force and cheap capital to boot up manufacturing capacity we offshored to China, and we won’t have the chance again when China decides to act against other countries (economically or militarily).
I feel as though the post-Obama era of US politics is oscillating around the best amount of caution WRT avoiding a hot war with China.
It is only now that we are afraid China will eclipse our spot on the global stage that anyone gives a crap about Chinese human rights abuses, because of coverage largely driven by the media.
We've also switched to spinning things that China does that we also do in a much more negative light, for instance, how the media discusses Chinese loan programs to Africa (compared to how IMF/World Bank programs are just not discussed) or Chinese attempts to build a military base on the Atlantic coast (compared to the dozens of military bases we have in the South China Sea area).
I'm not making any claim about ethics, merely that the perception that China is doing so many bad things all at once because they "want the rest of the world to hate them" is more likely driven by US media highlighting terrible things China does because we view them as a great power competitor now, and it is important that our populace is rallied against them.
> It's like they want the rest of the world to hate them.
is a pretty incendiary comment, but I will avoid fanning the flames in the future.
As for how real the threat is - I'm not an expert, and I don't know you calculate threat, but NK does have nuclear weapon and it's probably the only reason why the are allowed to starve millions of human beings. They also literally, well, threatened to use it. Iran doesn't have one yet, but are lying about their status of development, enriching way more then required for civil purposes, and kicking out international watchers. Oh, and at the same time threatening to wipe Israel off the map. Saying there's no threat sounds like nitpicking to me.
Xi himself did not even finish middle school, his professional skill is the worst comparing to his past peers, he could not even read correctly many times in public since he came in power.
Now I can.
[1]: This is actually very accurate to how people get angry in China, I've seen teachers, businessmen, even customers, rage in this characteristic weirdly macho way. https://youtu.be/aCdFec3uu_g
China sure has a lot of empty very loud barrels.
In what culture is this considered "macho"? He's acting like a little spoiled brat.
The "Red Guards" (i.e. culture revolution) generation from China indeed stood out as a group that acts very differently. They are always ready to _fight_ with anyone just because of different opinions, thus the aggressiveness. It's a life long disease that keeps getting worse with no cure.
A practice deemed "almost" acceptable in the mainland among elites. People tell "for somebody already so high rank, merely buying a university degree is not really cheating"
I once had an argument over this 9 years ago with Chinese peers. The conversation came to "Maybe, if he was given a degree, and job even without a ghostwriter, then it may have been said he jumped the line."
It's problem with these people who genuinely believe that rank, and status is a license to violate things, and that is the reason to get it.
Out of all Westernised mainlanders exposed to overseas, or even out of the few who spent some years abroad, almost nobody gets past the superficial in understanding the world outside China. They are really a minority, among the minority.
If you watch `donghua` (Chinese anime) you can see the same logic all around. Status is a license to violate things. It's funny how pervasive it is.
Xi Jinping studied chemical engineering. Zhu Rongji studied electrical engineering.
Xi is the only exception among them. Xi got in college without _any_ tests, purely because he has a powerful father then. It's said he could not understand a thing taught and there is no way he could graduate(or admitted). Indeed it's unimaginable for a 6th grader to take calculus in the top universities all of a sudden.
Xi even said he has a PhD degree, it's so laughable he had to remove that claim himself.
Top notch private tutoring and some work ethic can work wonders in fairly short periods of time.
Corruption is certainly possible, but not the only conceivable possibility.
His powerful father made him a target during cultural revolution
It's only become more obvious in the covid environment.
Not sure about that. Against Soviet Union surely, but Nazis not at all.
In 1941-1944 people tried to stay away from Nazis and keep a fighting chance against Soviets once they’ll be back. For example Lithuanian SS division was never formed as in other occupied territories. While Germans did push for it, locals actively sabotaged it to have more men for coming anti-Soviet resistance.
Now standing up to Soviets.. while 1944-1952 was pretty decent, summer of 1940 was rather sad.
Which is more than what the ostensibly anti-fascist USSR did.
The funniest part is that when the USSR started the invade the other half of Poland right after Germany started, none of the allies declared war on the USSR while they had a protection treaty with Poland in the first place.
Looking at Poland army in exile, I bet if those people shot in Katyn were able to escape, that'd have helped allies more than decomposing bodies helped the local ecosystem.
Joint parades in Poland, training German armies in secrecy, Gulag tours to learn about concentration camps, selling strategic resources right up to the day when Nazis do u-turn… meh.
And it’s not much being a savior if you just install new management and keep the shitty practices
I'm not so sure about its history, but it sure doesn't have a present of standing up for the rights of its citizens. I wouldn't call it a beacon of freedom or prosperity over China. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/the-rise-of-the-unvaxx...
I can't help but wonder if the word was deliberately chosen for click-baiting --- the only three occurrences of "evacuate/evacuation", including the one in the title, are concentrated in the second and third paragraphs --- it is as if they are injected as a last-minute after-thought.
Seems they didn't want to risk it.
> Not knowing whether the staff would retain diplomatic immunity, and not accepting its embassy’s demotion, Lithuania told all diplomats and dependants to keep their cards and leave the next day on an Air China flight to Paris.
Beyond that, cults are obviously more dangerous the larger they are. That goes by itself.
And the biggest cult in the world is the CPP -- no, correction: Judging from some posters' claims here about how all of China fervently believes Taiwan must be "reunited" with the PRC, the biggest cult in the world is... the PRC.
This continual name-calling of anyone who criticises any aspect of their government leads me to always doubt the sincerity of such accusations. Boy who cried wolf, writ large.
Could you provide independent sources that this Falun Gong spreads propaganda?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/24/technology/epoch-times-in...
After Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a representative office in Vilnius under the "Taiwan" name, and subsequently getting blocked from Chinese customs from EU shipping routes [2], and now being asked to change the ID of their diplomats to remove the diplomatic status, many would not doubt that the Chinese government would arrest and detain some embassy staff in this move, as ordinary residents of the country, like they have done in the past in the case of Canadians [3]
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/587cff8f-3a7f-45c3-b4c7-8ac6f3e0a...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/china-lithuania-trade-idUSKB...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spavor_an...
1. Do diplomats normally lose immunity after an embassy is demoted to a consulate (or something of a lower status)? 2. Did China have a history of detaining diplomatic personnel, disregarding their immunity?
China doesn't have such a history.
Without question. Previously, China arrested Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig to force Canada to release Meng Wanzhou. No one forgot that.