>Lithuania is at least the fifth European nation to face China’s
unhappiness since 2009, for offenses including meeting with the Dalai
Lama (Denmark), expressing solidarity with Taiwan (Czech Republic),
highlighting human-rights abuses (Norway, Sweden), and banning Chinese
5G technology (Sweden again). Targets in the Indo-Pacific have suffered
even sterner punishment. China has cut off rare-earth exports to Japan
over a territorial dispute; engineered a consumer boycott of South
Korean companies over the deployment of a U.S. missile system; and
blocked billions in imports from Australia, Canada and the Philippines for various other perceived slights.
This is as simple as this: Taiwan is not a state, it is a breakaway Chinese province. Let Lithuania imagine that the Russians tear off a piece of their state and support separatism there. Would they be happy with that?
Turns out Europe dislikes being sanctioned. Get a feel for what sanctioned states feel like for having different ideologies.
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>Lithuania is at least the fifth European nation to face China’s
unhappiness since 2009, for offenses including meeting with the Dalai
Lama (Denmark), expressing solidarity with Taiwan (Czech Republic),
highlighting human-rights abuses (Norway, Sweden), and banning Chinese
5G technology (Sweden again). Targets in the Indo-Pacific have suffered
even sterner punishment. China has cut off rare-earth exports to Japan
over a territorial dispute; engineered a consumer boycott of South
Korean companies over the deployment of a U.S. missile system; and
blocked billions in imports from Australia, Canada and the Philippines for various other perceived slights.
This is as simple as this: Taiwan is not a state, it is a breakaway Chinese province. Let Lithuania imagine that the Russians tear off a piece of their state and support separatism there. Would they be happy with that?
Turns out Europe dislikes being sanctioned. Get a feel for what sanctioned states feel like for having different ideologies.