[bsedlm]

> Considering that Taiwan is already independent and would need to be persuaded to join the PRC, these kinds of threats seem counterproductive to China's goals of "peaceful reunification".

--flurben

so flurben will now be criminally responsible for life (in China)?

[rndgermandude]

Correct. If flurben ever wants to go to China incl Hong Kong and Macau, and the officials there google a bit, that might be a problem. Probably not jailed, but no visa either.

It will also be a problem for companies who deal with Chinese companies. If e.g. Tim Cook started talking about the nation of Taiwan, he would probably get an email from somebody with a .gov.cn address reminding him "Nice Foxconn supplier you got there, would be a shame if something happened to your contracts... wanna revise your recent statements?"

Well, that even was a problem before this announcement, but this announcement certainly will make it worse.

[throwaway2474]

> Nice Foxconn supplier you got there, would be a shame if something happened to your contracts

More like “nice market you got there, would be a shame if a PR disaster turned the whole country against you”

[rndgermandude]

Huawei survived Trump, China is building a lot of international bridges e.g. with the Belt and Road initiative, the EU and US are defacto dependent on China because that's where they outsourced a lot of their product and supply chains. China never gave a fuck about what the populations in the West thought about them, because they know that even outraged Westerners will not stop buying products made in China. China had one "PR disaster" after another for years and years now, e.g. recent things like imprisoned Chinese dissidents getting the Nobel Peace price in absentia, anything happening in Hong Kong, and in the Chinese sea, and the "reeducation" camps for Uyghurs. They didn't budge after tiananmen square, they didn't budge after the Dalai Lama got popular, they didn't budge after any of the recent stuff. What makes you think they will budge in the future?

They don't really need the West, but the West needs them (for the forseeable future). Their markets may take a hit if push comes to shove with the West, but that's fine with them. And they have a home market with 1.7 billion customers, and many other foreign markets in Asia, Africa or South America that will still deal with them.