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.
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.
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...
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.
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.