News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by sudosysgen on Sunday December 19, 2021 @11:28AM (#29615207)
This is naive. The government simply doesn't have that power. If they tried to downplay Taiwan people would be absolutely furious.

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.

Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by GekkePrutser on Sunday December 19, 2021 @12:26PM (#29615955)
Serious question: Why do the Chinese people care so much about Taiwan though? What do they want with it? What's the endgame plan?

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.

Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by AnimalMuppet on Sunday December 19, 2021 @04:45PM (#29618741)
> What's the endgame plan?

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.

Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by manuelabeledo on Sunday December 19, 2021 @12:40PM (#29616136)
> Why do the Chinese people care so much about Taiwan though?

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.

Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by stickfigure on Sunday December 19, 2021 @12:20PM (#29615872)
Then maybe Xi should take more interest in the wellbeing of his people than in his personal political dynasty.
Re:Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China by sudosysgen on Sunday December 19, 2021 @12:22PM (#29615899)
The obvious implication is that he will be replaced with someone that cares about Taiwan.