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China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy

212 points by whatyoucantsay 9y ago

ekianjo 9y ago
I dont understand the word Forcing here. Norway had a choice to continue denying The one China policy. Putting pressure on Norway thru various means is not forcing. Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice.
- provost 9y ago
  > Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice. Blackmail, threats, deceit, etc are other ways to force. Not saying that occurred here, just that your definition has a narrow scope.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Id rather say you are narrowing the scope of free will. Succumbing to pressure is not the same as being forced.
    - sgift 9y ago
      What a brilliant piece of newspeak. "You weren't forced to do what the mugger wanted. You just succumbed to their pressure."
    - otp124 9y ago
      Being forced IS succumbing to pressure
    - rdlecler1 9y ago
      You clearly don’t understand the meaning of the word.
      - ekianjo 9y ago
        Oh really ? http://www.dictionary.com/browse/forced http://www.dictionary.com/browse/forced > enforced or compulsory Is the first definition of the word. How was it compulsory for Norway to comply? They had their officials at gunpoint?
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        Why are you using an adjective def for a verb (past tense of the verb “force".) Two different (related) words... Also, words often have more than just their first definition.
- gambiting 9y ago
  I don't understand the problem with the word forcing here. If you take your kid's xbox to make them clean their room then yeah, you are forcing them to do it.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    No you are not. They can decide to live without it.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      Ha! Now that would be something. So China is not forcing Norway because Norway can just choose to not trade with China? That's some extremely bizzare logic there.
      - andrepd 9y ago
        Well, yes? They could choose to put their foot down instead of bending over backwards in appeasement. They they would trade with everybody else in the world but China. They chose not to go that way, but unless trade with China is a critical, indispensable part of their survival, no, they were not forced.
        polotics 9y ago
        China is currently being run by bullies. Luckily the regime is not long-term sustainable, they are badly failing on innovation, which makes sense considering that the fruit of much hard work can get easily stolen by said bullies.
      - oytis 9y ago
        I think it depends on whether you believe in free trade or not. If you think that every country's business has a right to make deals with any other country's business then Chinese government is depraving Norvegian fishers from what is rightfully theirs and is "forcing" Norwegian government to support their claims on Taiwan. If on the contrary you believe that every government has a right to establish any rules for external trade relationships it likes, then it's more like a free market. Either you buy access to Chinese consumers for recogition of Chinese claims for Taiwan or you don't, it's your choise.
- robert_foss 9y ago
  Applying pressure that is irresistible is the literal definition of forcing. So yes, China was definitely forcing Norway to recognize Taiwan and Hong Kong as a being a part of China.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Its rather a matter of incentives. Norway has more to gainthis way. But it is not threatening their existence so forcing is the wrong word to use here. Its just clickbaity.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    But here the pressure wasn't "irresistible"; they were not being threatened or attacked. They would just be making less money than they do this way. I hardly call that irresistible.
    - robert_foss 9y ago
      Financial force is force.
      - andai 9y ago
        What is it called when all it takes to convince you to do something you consider unethical is the promise of money?
- StavrosK 9y ago
  > Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice. I mean, they'd still have the option of denying the one China and going to war, by your definition. Basically, the way you see it, nobody can force you to do anything, as you can always kill yourself.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    I'd seriously doubt not recognizing China would lead them to war with them. So therefore there were still clearly able to continue on the previous line of thought.
- tristor 9y ago
  I'm not sure I agree with you, but for what it's worth I do understand the point you are making. You are making a separation between types of pressure which are existential and those which are not. Norway could have accepted the lower exports on fish (less than 1% of their GDP) and continued on while snubbing China, but it was more beneficial to them economically to concede. However, this isn't existential because even if China refuses to trade with Norway entirely, through the EEA the Norwegian people could continue receiving goods from China mediated through a different EEA country that has trade agreements. At it's most dire what occurred simply wasn't an existential threat to Norway and the geographical distance meant that military reactions to trade disputes simply weren't going to occur. Thus the "force" here was mostly one of appearances, rather than reality. That said, I'm not entirely sure I agree that this doesn't meet the definition of "forcing". Politics is squishy like that. Just because fishing is less than 1% of the GDP doesn't mean it has minimal impact on Norwegian society. The fishing industry has significant historical and cultural significance to Norway and abandoning support of that industry could very well be political suicide within Norway for the politicians that refused to play ball. You could say its simply spineless, but the optics of them snubbing China and at the same time snubbing their own fishing industry aren't especially good.
  - fpoling 9y ago
    There are 2 fishing industries in Norway. One is traditional one and another one is factory farming of fish. The latter appeared around 1980, earned a lot of money and bought disproportionate amount of influence. The industry treats the fish in absolutely evil way, a complete opposite of how traditional fish men relate to the fish.
alansammarone 9y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20170110193419/https://sentinel.tw/norway-one-china-policy/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170110193419/https://sentinel....
sitepodmatt 9y ago
Looks like a PHP/mySQL non-static site (I wonder if some popular blogging platform?) crumbling under the load. Luckily someone pressed the turbo charge button (x-turbo-charged-by: LiteSpeed <-- seriously?) on the cpanel box so it can now accommodate a page view a second!
- kuschku 9y ago
  Even WordPress pages end up faater than much of what is nowadays produced. Gogs doesn't do any caching at all, every request opens a new database connection. After 30 accesses per second gogs dies. WordPress can cache SQL queries with memcached, and can scale to tenthousands of accesses per second with that.
avar 9y ago
Since the site is melting under the HN load here's the full linked article: HEADLINE: Norway just recently established normal ties with China after a six-year break. But in order to do so, the Norwegian government had to embrace the Chinese development model and social system, as well as the ‘one China’ framework. ARTICLE: Since 2010, Norway barely had any diplomatic relations with China, due to the fact that Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. The Chinese government demanded an apology from Norway, together with a guarantee that the prize was never to be awarded to a Chinese activist again. But since the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent institution, the Norwegian government was in no position to issue neither an apology nor a guarantee. Nevertheless, China decided to punish Norway by immediately shelving a free-trade agreement that was being negotiated. Chinese officials also stopped visiting the Norwegian embassy in Beijing, and its ambassador no longer received invitations to diplomatic events. Visas became harder to obtain for Norwegian tourists and professionals alike, and a range of exchanges in different fields was canceled with haste. However, in late December last year, Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende suddenly appeared in Beijing to announce that the two countries were resuming normal diplomatic and trade relations. Negotiations on the free-trade agreement started again, much to the joy of the Norwegian Seafood Council, which estimates salmon exports to China to increase twentyfold in the coming years. The joy was shared by the tourism industry and the business sector alike. It was also shared, obviously, by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who acknowledged that the strained relationship what China had not only weakened Norway’s trade but also its say in global politics, since China has been throwing its weight around to marginalize Norwegian influence in several international organizations. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. When declaring the re-establishment of ties with China, Brende also had to present a two-page joint declaration that included passages like: “The Norwegian government reiterates its commitment to the One China Policy, fully respects China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, attaches high importance to China’s core interests and major concerns, will not support actions that undermine them, and will do its best to avoid any future damage to the bilateral relations.” Hence, after Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taipei, China has not only engaged in checkbook diplomacy, as was the case when Sao Tomé & Principe switched diplomatic allegiance in late December. It is also demanding leading democracies to embrace the “one China” policy to atone for ”mistakes” made years ago in totally unrelated policy issues. William Nygaard, chairman of PEN Norwegian Center, criticized the fact that the two-page joint statement doesn’t include a single word about human rights. John Peder Egenaes, general secretary for Amnesty International Norway, finds this particularly strange given that human rights is a Norwegian foreign policy priority — especially the support of human rights champions. “This policy,” Egenaes said, “has to apply to China, as much as to any other place.” Stein Ringen, a Norwegian political scientist and professor at Oxford University, even branded the event as “an outright humiliation” to Norway, accusing his country’s politicians of surrendering to China’s demands. Ringen is particularly worried about terms like “territorial integrity” and “core interests” in the joint declaration, which he means de facto constitutes a “formal acceptance” from Norway not only regarding Taiwan, but also China’s claims in South China Sea, which was ruled illegal by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last summer. While in Beijing, Foreign Minister Brende said that resumption of normal relations with China was made possible only after long-time and laborious diplomatic efforts. Those “laborious efforts” seems to have begun almost immediately when his Conservative Party assumed power after the 2013 elections, replacing the prior left-center coalition. Already later the same year seven pillars from the imperial Summer Palace, brought to Norway over 100 years ago by a Norwegian cavalry officer, were returned to China. And when the Dalai Lama was invited to Norway in 2014 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to celebrate his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 25 years earlier, conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg refused to meet with him, as did every single member of Solberg’s government. Due to warnings from China, His Holiness was not even allowed in to the Norwegian Parliament’s formal reception room, despite the room being empty during the time of his visit. The two-page joint agreement signed by the conservative government also states that Norway “fully respects China’s development path and social system, and highly commends its historic and unparalleled development that has taken place.” For good measure, the declaration further highlights that Norway is “fully conscious of the position and concerns of the Chinese side” concerning the Nobel Peace Prize. Alas, just short of a formal apology, China managed to get everything it wanted from the Norwegian government. In fact, the two-page joint statement can arguably be seen as an apology by diplomatic language, for an independent committee’s decision to reward a peaceful activist, who is still to this day behind bars while his wife is enduring a strict house arrest. As if that was not already enough, China added insult to injury by using the Norwegian resignation for propaganda purposes. At the time of the declaration, foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Norway understood how bilateral relations could be improved only after “deep reflections” and “solemn consultations” with China. “Norway has paid its price due to its intervention in Chinese domestic affairs,” the party mouthpiece Global Times mused, before summing up the case with the following observation: “Norway has a population of merely 4 million, but it tried to teach China, a country with 1.4 billion people a lesson in 2010. It was a ridiculous story.”
oh-kumudo 9y ago
Which in fact, is what most countries in the world signed up for. Also, it is a prerequisite for any country to even establish ANY formal diplomatic relationship with China[1]. It is almost certain Norway government has acknowledged this way back then through some bilateral treaty, and this time it is simply a reiteration. TL;DR:this is no news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy#Diplomatic_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy#Diplomatic_re...
- nailer 9y ago
  IIRC you have to agree that there is 'one indivisible China', which is vague. You could still support democracy. The Norwegian government grovelling about 'not supporting anything to undermine China again' - after the Nobel was awarded to an activist - stinks more than usual.
- dak1 9y ago
  The US has never recognized the One China policy or China's claim over Taiwan. Instead, the US merely acknowledges China's position. Of course, as a superpower, you have a little bit more negotiating leverage. However, China's only been successful at bullying countries into recognizing some of its more absurd positions because it has negotiated on bilateral bases, where in almost every case China holds significantly more relative economic clout. If the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia collectively took a position and agreed to provide support for any country that was individually attacked or sanctioned by China for its position, then you'd probably see a much more restrained policy response from China (although their rhetoric would likely be quite loud). We've known for years that China's foreign policy has largely consisted of "salami slicing" — pressing hard for small concessions that cumulatively result in dramatic changes to international norms, and in the past states engaging in such behavior have been met with a strong and united international response, but for numerous reasons, the reaction to China still remains quite muted.
  - dis-sys 9y ago
    > If the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia collectively took a position and agreed to provide support for any country that was individually attacked or sanctioned by China for its position, then you'd probably see a much more restrained policy response from China (although their rhetoric would likely be quite loud). cold war version 2? nice try.
avar 9y ago
An interesting detail left out of the article is that Norway's neighbor Iceland ended up signing a free-trade agreement with China in 2013, both Norway and Iceland had negotiations underway in 2010 when China broke ties with Norway. Norway and Iceland are both EEA members, effectively with one foot in the EU, Iceland was the first European country to sign such an agreement with China. Norway and Iceland having free-trade with China while having deep access to the European single market leaves EU expansion in an odd situation. Neither country could become a full EU member without hurting trade with China, or alternatively the EU would have to make a similar FTA with China beforehand. I've wondered what the realpolitik of the situation is. Is China's main interest in these deals to drive a wedge into further EU integration? Are they trying to create a situation where Norway and Iceland joining the EU would be contingent on the EU accepting a FTA with China?
- vidarh 9y ago
  Norway at least have no current interest in EU membership. Support for EU membership has for a long time been so low (last year polls indicated 71% no, compared to an almost even result in the '94 referendum) that there's no prospect of another EU referendum anytime soon.
  - nolok 9y ago
    I agree with your comment, but given the tone / details of the questions you answer to I would like to add "... Compared to their current situation". Norway's low will to join the EU as full member is not because they don't like it or are moving away from it , but because they already have everything they want from it, and a few exceptions specifically "for them" in a custom made package they're fine paying the price of. They pretty much have a "vanity membership, gold level"
    - doktrin 9y ago
      > Norway's low will to join the EU as full member is not because they don't like it or are moving away from it , but because they already have everything they want from it These aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Public sentiment has historically leaned towards EU skepticism, something which hasn't been helped by witnessing the EU's broad managerial incompetence (and occasionally petty vindictiveness) on everything from Greece to Brexit.
jacknews 9y ago
What's that got to do with the price of fish? Ah...
ddmma 9y ago
Utopian meets dystopian
whatyoucantsay 9y ago
There are two notable points in this piece: 1) China suspended normal diplomatic relations with Norway, tossed out a free trade agreement, largely shut down fishing imports from the country and made it far more difficult for Norwegians to get visas to travel study or work in China. All of this was because of an activist being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, which is process controlled a foundation, not directly by the Norwegian government. 2) It took six years for Norway to get normal relations back. After many failed attempts, what they finally had to do was jointly acknowledge the One China Principle and China's core interests and territorial integrity. Beyond Taiwan, this clearly includes the China’s "nine dash line" claims in South China Sea, which was ruled illegal by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last summer. There's also various content about interfering with Dalai Lama visits and other topics that are pretty familiar to most Europeans. Update: correction about the Nobel Peace prize thanks to dagw's feedback.
- dagw 9y ago
  Nobel Peace Prize, which is process controlled a private family, not by the Norwegian government. Not entirely true. First of all the Nobel Foundation is completely independent of the Nobel family and has been since the start. Secondly while the Committee that decides who gets the peace prize is technically independent of the Norwegian government, it is appointed by the Norwegian government and many of its members have always been former Norwegian politicians (a former prime mister of Norway, for example, sat on the committee that gave the prize to Liu Xiaobo).
  - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
    Thanks. I hadn't realized it was such a thin technicality. I just updated the comment.
  - demonshalo 9y ago
    I thought that prize stopped mattering when Obama got it just because he was black?
    - 9y ago
z3t4 9y ago
It will be interesting if the nobel committee give another Nobel Peace Prize to China ;)
jcfrei 9y ago
Can't read the article because the site is down. But it seems like a reminder why countries join supranational organizations like the EU: To increase their collective bargaining power.
null_dev 9y ago
Another somber reminder that US hegemony is generally preferable to one in which the fragile, overcompensating and downright Trumpian Chinese national ego is allowed to throw its weight around the world stage.
klunger 9y ago
I live in Norway. There has been pressure for some time on the government to do this because of the salmon exports. Fishing is not as big as oil, but it is still an important part of the economy here. Losing China as a customer meant bad news for a lot of folks in the fishing industry here. Also, since Norway is trying (unsuccessfully so far, but still they are trying) to lessen dependence on oil, this loss mattered even more than you might think at first glance. Not saying that caving to normalize relations was "right," but it definitely had quite a bit of domestic support here.
- MagnumOpus 9y ago
  > Fishing is not as big as oil, but it is still an important part of the economy Meh. It employs 7k-10k people and contributes 0.7% of the economy. That is chickenfeed, and a particularly dumb thing to give up their principles over - particularly because processed fish are a fungible commodity and could be sold for the same price outside of China.
  - klunger 9y ago
    It is roughly 5.4% of exports http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nor/#Exports http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nor/#Exports Does not compare to oil I guess, but I would not call it chickenfeed. It probably does get oversized media attention though, which is why this has so much domestic support.
  - HillaryBriss 9y ago
    > processed fish are a fungible commodity and could be sold for the same price outside of China yes. right. that aspect of this story puzzles me. i thought that was how globalism worked. i mean, can't Norway just sell the fish to, say, Canada, which could then sell its farmed salmon to China, etc? i can't quite see what difference this will make. is Norway geographically closer to China than other salmon producing nations? how do they explain this?
    - pmontra 9y ago
      Those triangulations are possible only if the destination country is willing to pay a premium for the banned goods. Norwegian salmon would cost more in China because the Canadians are going to put some markup on it (and fairly, because they'll have to do some work on their own.) Or keep the same price for the consumer and gain less. In both cases Norway is going to lose money compared to normal commercial relationships.
rdlecler1 9y ago
The continued growth of China (and India) can strengthen organizations like the EU and give rise to other blocs of small countries. Collective bargaining power is the only way to have leverage with a country that’s 20-60 Times larger. It’s not unlike the unionization of labor in response to the weak bargaining position of the individual worker and I expect a similar pattern to repeat including union busting and bribery and a populist response. All very dangerous. If China pushes too hard, then the pendulum will swing hard in the other direction and China will be facing strong union fronts, populist movements that stubbornly demand painful concessions and resultant trade wars. We’ve seen this pattern before and it gets worse before it gets better.
captainmuon 9y ago
International "meta"-law is so ridiculous. I mean the customary rules concerning recognition of states, embassies, passports [1], etc.. If I was ruler of a small country, I would say "of course we won't recognize Taiwan. We will foobar them. They don't get an embassy, but they get a blah." (which de facto will be exactly the same thing) [1] Concerning passports, no matter how radically different states are, the US, the Soviet Union, North Korea, the Vatican, one thing they can all agree on is that people have a "nationality" and must carry a "passport" when going over borders, the passport has a certain size and spaces for "visas", etc.. It really makes me consider how "radical" a state is if it partakes in this global system. Especially interesting, if you remember that a few centuries ago, none of this existed at all. In history lessions in school, I wondered how Lenin could travel through all of europe unhampered when he was fleeing from the tsarists. Well, there were only little borders or passports as we know them now around.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  > If I was ruler of a small country, I would say "of course we won't recognize Taiwan. We will foobar them. They don't get an embassy, but they get a blah." (which de facto will be exactly the same thing) That might not be a smart move. Small nations get a lot out of banding together and acting as a bloc. If you foobar Taiwan, it might freeze you out of diplomatic channels that are more important to you than wanking off China. Plus, you don't have to kowtow to China when you have the US around. If you're really lucky, you'll rate a US military base and watch your economy take off. Sadly, if the Trump-ites get their wish, the US won't be much of an alternative for much longer.
  - muninn_ 9y ago
    Yes that’s great. Let’s put US military bases in small countries so they “turn to us” when China is acting unfavorably. Sorry. As an American I have no interest in this. I don’t want military bases all over the world, I don’t want to pay for them, and I don’t want to be the world’s police.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Taiwan is quite used to countries working around China like this. Only 20 countries have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, none of them very influential.
Geekette 9y ago
Wow, shocking to read of such deep capitulation from a country like Norway, which positions itself as egalitarian and goes the extra mile in various areas such as excluding certain companies from investment by its global sovereign fund on ethical grounds[1]. This was also chilling to read: "And when the Dalai Lama was invited to Norway in 2014 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to celebrate his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 25 years earlier, conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg refused to meet with him, as did every single member of Solberg’s government. Due to warnings from China, His Holiness was not even allowed in to the Norwegian Parliament’s formal reception room, despite the room being empty during the time of his visit." [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#Excluded_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
- imron 9y ago
  > Wow, shocking to read of such deep capitulation from a country like Norway China forces every country that it has normalised relations with to adhere to the 'One China' policy. Does your country have a Chinese embassy in it? Guess what, your country adheres to the 'One China' policy too.
  - semperdark 9y ago
    Perhaps, but in many cases recognition that there should be "One China" also comes with the implication that Taiwan's government should be the one ruling the "One China". Did you read the linked article? Norway's statements were absolutely humiliating, most countries absolutely do not go that far.
    - imron 9y ago
      > Perhaps, but in many cases recognition that there should be "One China" also comes with the implication that Taiwan's government should be the one ruling the "One China". Correct. All it is, is the acknowledgement that there aren't two countries called China, and if you want to do business with China, then the People's Republic of China is the only China you are allowed to officially recognise. > Did you read the linked article? Yes. Other countries do go that far too.
interfixus 9y ago
> China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy China does no such thing. Norway sells out. For money. But at least they held out for six years. A better score than most of the rest of us.
nnq 9y ago
How did Liu Xiaobo become so important? So much happening for this guy expressing his opinions, wtf?! If an American or someone from most European countries would express similar opinions wrt his own country's government... nobody would blink a fucking eye, regardless of who gave him what prize... (And we all know that Nobels for anything except science are 100% bullshit. Heck, I'd even question the relevance of the ones for medicine...)
- astebbin 9y ago
  In American high school I learned not just about Nathan Hale and Martin Luther King Jr., but also about Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sophie Scholl. These figures are famous for the strength of their moral beliefs, the brutality they endured as a result, and their perseverance despite such adversity. On these points, I think Liu Xiaobo is of equal merit. This would explain his visibility in the West. If students in China aren't taught similar stories or values, then I could understand the difficulty to relate.
  - teresonos 9y ago
    Students in China are definitely taught about "figures are famous for the strength of their moral beliefs, the brutality they endured as a result, and their perseverance despite such adversity." But considering that Liu Xiaobo preached about the inferiority of the Chinese race and how they needed to be colonized by the West for a couple hundred years, they would most likely compare him to an Uncle Tom/Chan type of person.
- dionian 9y ago
  He risked his neck to advocate peacefully for democracy in Communist China (PRC)
ausjke 9y ago
The reality is, money talks, even war is sometimes caused by economic reasons, if not all the times. with that being said, the rising power of china, with its sheer size, it can essentially now bend everything to its will, including US who has so much trading deficit these years. and, more cases like this will be down the road, people will probably have to get used to this new ruler in a few decades, mostly not by war, but by its economic power.
- it_learnses 9y ago
  Unless we can all unite, and bring China back down to where it belongs.
crystaln 9y ago
There's no real commitment here, just a face save for China. The diplomatic language was clearly coerced and has no impact except satisfying Chinese narcissism.

I dont understand the word Forcing here. Norway had a choice to continue denying The one China policy. Putting pressure on Norway thru various means is not forcing. Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice.

provost 9y ago
> Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice. Blackmail, threats, deceit, etc are other ways to force. Not saying that occurred here, just that your definition has a narrow scope.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Id rather say you are narrowing the scope of free will. Succumbing to pressure is not the same as being forced.
  - sgift 9y ago
    What a brilliant piece of newspeak. "You weren't forced to do what the mugger wanted. You just succumbed to their pressure."
  - otp124 9y ago
    Being forced IS succumbing to pressure
  - rdlecler1 9y ago
    You clearly don’t understand the meaning of the word.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      Oh really ? http://www.dictionary.com/browse/forced http://www.dictionary.com/browse/forced > enforced or compulsory Is the first definition of the word. How was it compulsory for Norway to comply? They had their officials at gunpoint?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Why are you using an adjective def for a verb (past tense of the verb “force".) Two different (related) words... Also, words often have more than just their first definition.
gambiting 9y ago
I don't understand the problem with the word forcing here. If you take your kid's xbox to make them clean their room then yeah, you are forcing them to do it.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  No you are not. They can decide to live without it.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    Ha! Now that would be something. So China is not forcing Norway because Norway can just choose to not trade with China? That's some extremely bizzare logic there.
    - andrepd 9y ago
      Well, yes? They could choose to put their foot down instead of bending over backwards in appeasement. They they would trade with everybody else in the world but China. They chose not to go that way, but unless trade with China is a critical, indispensable part of their survival, no, they were not forced.
      - polotics 9y ago
        China is currently being run by bullies. Luckily the regime is not long-term sustainable, they are badly failing on innovation, which makes sense considering that the fruit of much hard work can get easily stolen by said bullies.
    - oytis 9y ago
      I think it depends on whether you believe in free trade or not. If you think that every country's business has a right to make deals with any other country's business then Chinese government is depraving Norvegian fishers from what is rightfully theirs and is "forcing" Norwegian government to support their claims on Taiwan. If on the contrary you believe that every government has a right to establish any rules for external trade relationships it likes, then it's more like a free market. Either you buy access to Chinese consumers for recogition of Chinese claims for Taiwan or you don't, it's your choise.
robert_foss 9y ago
Applying pressure that is irresistible is the literal definition of forcing. So yes, China was definitely forcing Norway to recognize Taiwan and Hong Kong as a being a part of China.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Its rather a matter of incentives. Norway has more to gainthis way. But it is not threatening their existence so forcing is the wrong word to use here. Its just clickbaity.
- andrepd 9y ago
  But here the pressure wasn't "irresistible"; they were not being threatened or attacked. They would just be making less money than they do this way. I hardly call that irresistible.
  - robert_foss 9y ago
    Financial force is force.
    - andai 9y ago
      What is it called when all it takes to convince you to do something you consider unethical is the promise of money?
StavrosK 9y ago
> Forcing would be done via a military operation leaving little choice. I mean, they'd still have the option of denying the one China and going to war, by your definition. Basically, the way you see it, nobody can force you to do anything, as you can always kill yourself.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  I'd seriously doubt not recognizing China would lead them to war with them. So therefore there were still clearly able to continue on the previous line of thought.
tristor 9y ago
I'm not sure I agree with you, but for what it's worth I do understand the point you are making. You are making a separation between types of pressure which are existential and those which are not. Norway could have accepted the lower exports on fish (less than 1% of their GDP) and continued on while snubbing China, but it was more beneficial to them economically to concede. However, this isn't existential because even if China refuses to trade with Norway entirely, through the EEA the Norwegian people could continue receiving goods from China mediated through a different EEA country that has trade agreements. At it's most dire what occurred simply wasn't an existential threat to Norway and the geographical distance meant that military reactions to trade disputes simply weren't going to occur. Thus the "force" here was mostly one of appearances, rather than reality. That said, I'm not entirely sure I agree that this doesn't meet the definition of "forcing". Politics is squishy like that. Just because fishing is less than 1% of the GDP doesn't mean it has minimal impact on Norwegian society. The fishing industry has significant historical and cultural significance to Norway and abandoning support of that industry could very well be political suicide within Norway for the politicians that refused to play ball. You could say its simply spineless, but the optics of them snubbing China and at the same time snubbing their own fishing industry aren't especially good.
- fpoling 9y ago
  There are 2 fishing industries in Norway. One is traditional one and another one is factory farming of fish. The latter appeared around 1980, earned a lot of money and bought disproportionate amount of influence. The industry treats the fish in absolutely evil way, a complete opposite of how traditional fish men relate to the fish.

alansammarone 9y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20170110193419/https://sentinel.tw/norway-one-china-policy/ https://web.archive.org/web/20170110193419/https://sentinel....

sitepodmatt 9y ago

Looks like a PHP/mySQL non-static site (I wonder if some popular blogging platform?) crumbling under the load. Luckily someone pressed the turbo charge button (x-turbo-charged-by: LiteSpeed <-- seriously?) on the cpanel box so it can now accommodate a page view a second!

kuschku 9y ago
Even WordPress pages end up faater than much of what is nowadays produced. Gogs doesn't do any caching at all, every request opens a new database connection. After 30 accesses per second gogs dies. WordPress can cache SQL queries with memcached, and can scale to tenthousands of accesses per second with that.

avar 9y ago

Since the site is melting under the HN load here's the full linked article: HEADLINE: Norway just recently established normal ties with China after a six-year break. But in order to do so, the Norwegian government had to embrace the Chinese development model and social system, as well as the ‘one China’ framework. ARTICLE: Since 2010, Norway barely had any diplomatic relations with China, due to the fact that Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that same year. The Chinese government demanded an apology from Norway, together with a guarantee that the prize was never to be awarded to a Chinese activist again. But since the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent institution, the Norwegian government was in no position to issue neither an apology nor a guarantee. Nevertheless, China decided to punish Norway by immediately shelving a free-trade agreement that was being negotiated. Chinese officials also stopped visiting the Norwegian embassy in Beijing, and its ambassador no longer received invitations to diplomatic events. Visas became harder to obtain for Norwegian tourists and professionals alike, and a range of exchanges in different fields was canceled with haste. However, in late December last year, Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende suddenly appeared in Beijing to announce that the two countries were resuming normal diplomatic and trade relations. Negotiations on the free-trade agreement started again, much to the joy of the Norwegian Seafood Council, which estimates salmon exports to China to increase twentyfold in the coming years. The joy was shared by the tourism industry and the business sector alike. It was also shared, obviously, by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who acknowledged that the strained relationship what China had not only weakened Norway’s trade but also its say in global politics, since China has been throwing its weight around to marginalize Norwegian influence in several international organizations. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. When declaring the re-establishment of ties with China, Brende also had to present a two-page joint declaration that included passages like: “The Norwegian government reiterates its commitment to the One China Policy, fully respects China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, attaches high importance to China’s core interests and major concerns, will not support actions that undermine them, and will do its best to avoid any future damage to the bilateral relations.” Hence, after Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taipei, China has not only engaged in checkbook diplomacy, as was the case when Sao Tomé & Principe switched diplomatic allegiance in late December. It is also demanding leading democracies to embrace the “one China” policy to atone for ”mistakes” made years ago in totally unrelated policy issues. William Nygaard, chairman of PEN Norwegian Center, criticized the fact that the two-page joint statement doesn’t include a single word about human rights. John Peder Egenaes, general secretary for Amnesty International Norway, finds this particularly strange given that human rights is a Norwegian foreign policy priority — especially the support of human rights champions. “This policy,” Egenaes said, “has to apply to China, as much as to any other place.” Stein Ringen, a Norwegian political scientist and professor at Oxford University, even branded the event as “an outright humiliation” to Norway, accusing his country’s politicians of surrendering to China’s demands. Ringen is particularly worried about terms like “territorial integrity” and “core interests” in the joint declaration, which he means de facto constitutes a “formal acceptance” from Norway not only regarding Taiwan, but also China’s claims in South China Sea, which was ruled illegal by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last summer. While in Beijing, Foreign Minister Brende said that resumption of normal relations with China was made possible only after long-time and laborious diplomatic efforts. Those “laborious efforts” seems to have begun almost immediately when his Conservative Party assumed power after the 2013 elections, replacing the prior left-center coalition. Already later the same year seven pillars from the imperial Summer Palace, brought to Norway over 100 years ago by a Norwegian cavalry officer, were returned to China. And when the Dalai Lama was invited to Norway in 2014 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to celebrate his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 25 years earlier, conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg refused to meet with him, as did every single member of Solberg’s government. Due to warnings from China, His Holiness was not even allowed in to the Norwegian Parliament’s formal reception room, despite the room being empty during the time of his visit. The two-page joint agreement signed by the conservative government also states that Norway “fully respects China’s development path and social system, and highly commends its historic and unparalleled development that has taken place.” For good measure, the declaration further highlights that Norway is “fully conscious of the position and concerns of the Chinese side” concerning the Nobel Peace Prize. Alas, just short of a formal apology, China managed to get everything it wanted from the Norwegian government. In fact, the two-page joint statement can arguably be seen as an apology by diplomatic language, for an independent committee’s decision to reward a peaceful activist, who is still to this day behind bars while his wife is enduring a strict house arrest. As if that was not already enough, China added insult to injury by using the Norwegian resignation for propaganda purposes. At the time of the declaration, foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Norway understood how bilateral relations could be improved only after “deep reflections” and “solemn consultations” with China. “Norway has paid its price due to its intervention in Chinese domestic affairs,” the party mouthpiece Global Times mused, before summing up the case with the following observation: “Norway has a population of merely 4 million, but it tried to teach China, a country with 1.4 billion people a lesson in 2010. It was a ridiculous story.”

oh-kumudo 9y ago

Which in fact, is what most countries in the world signed up for. Also, it is a prerequisite for any country to even establish ANY formal diplomatic relationship with China[1]. It is almost certain Norway government has acknowledged this way back then through some bilateral treaty, and this time it is simply a reiteration. TL;DR:this is no news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy#Diplomatic_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy#Diplomatic_re...

nailer 9y ago
IIRC you have to agree that there is 'one indivisible China', which is vague. You could still support democracy. The Norwegian government grovelling about 'not supporting anything to undermine China again' - after the Nobel was awarded to an activist - stinks more than usual.
dak1 9y ago
The US has never recognized the One China policy or China's claim over Taiwan. Instead, the US merely acknowledges China's position. Of course, as a superpower, you have a little bit more negotiating leverage. However, China's only been successful at bullying countries into recognizing some of its more absurd positions because it has negotiated on bilateral bases, where in almost every case China holds significantly more relative economic clout. If the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia collectively took a position and agreed to provide support for any country that was individually attacked or sanctioned by China for its position, then you'd probably see a much more restrained policy response from China (although their rhetoric would likely be quite loud). We've known for years that China's foreign policy has largely consisted of "salami slicing" — pressing hard for small concessions that cumulatively result in dramatic changes to international norms, and in the past states engaging in such behavior have been met with a strong and united international response, but for numerous reasons, the reaction to China still remains quite muted.
- dis-sys 9y ago
  > If the US, the EU, the UK, Canada, Japan, and Australia collectively took a position and agreed to provide support for any country that was individually attacked or sanctioned by China for its position, then you'd probably see a much more restrained policy response from China (although their rhetoric would likely be quite loud). cold war version 2? nice try.

avar 9y ago

An interesting detail left out of the article is that Norway's neighbor Iceland ended up signing a free-trade agreement with China in 2013, both Norway and Iceland had negotiations underway in 2010 when China broke ties with Norway. Norway and Iceland are both EEA members, effectively with one foot in the EU, Iceland was the first European country to sign such an agreement with China. Norway and Iceland having free-trade with China while having deep access to the European single market leaves EU expansion in an odd situation. Neither country could become a full EU member without hurting trade with China, or alternatively the EU would have to make a similar FTA with China beforehand. I've wondered what the realpolitik of the situation is. Is China's main interest in these deals to drive a wedge into further EU integration? Are they trying to create a situation where Norway and Iceland joining the EU would be contingent on the EU accepting a FTA with China?

vidarh 9y ago
Norway at least have no current interest in EU membership. Support for EU membership has for a long time been so low (last year polls indicated 71% no, compared to an almost even result in the '94 referendum) that there's no prospect of another EU referendum anytime soon.
- nolok 9y ago
  I agree with your comment, but given the tone / details of the questions you answer to I would like to add "... Compared to their current situation". Norway's low will to join the EU as full member is not because they don't like it or are moving away from it , but because they already have everything they want from it, and a few exceptions specifically "for them" in a custom made package they're fine paying the price of. They pretty much have a "vanity membership, gold level"
  - doktrin 9y ago
    > Norway's low will to join the EU as full member is not because they don't like it or are moving away from it , but because they already have everything they want from it These aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Public sentiment has historically leaned towards EU skepticism, something which hasn't been helped by witnessing the EU's broad managerial incompetence (and occasionally petty vindictiveness) on everything from Greece to Brexit.

jacknews 9y ago

What's that got to do with the price of fish? Ah...

ddmma 9y ago

Utopian meets dystopian

whatyoucantsay 9y ago

There are two notable points in this piece: 1) China suspended normal diplomatic relations with Norway, tossed out a free trade agreement, largely shut down fishing imports from the country and made it far more difficult for Norwegians to get visas to travel study or work in China. All of this was because of an activist being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, which is process controlled a foundation, not directly by the Norwegian government. 2) It took six years for Norway to get normal relations back. After many failed attempts, what they finally had to do was jointly acknowledge the One China Principle and China's core interests and territorial integrity. Beyond Taiwan, this clearly includes the China’s "nine dash line" claims in South China Sea, which was ruled illegal by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last summer. There's also various content about interfering with Dalai Lama visits and other topics that are pretty familiar to most Europeans. Update: correction about the Nobel Peace prize thanks to dagw's feedback.

dagw 9y ago
Nobel Peace Prize, which is process controlled a private family, not by the Norwegian government. Not entirely true. First of all the Nobel Foundation is completely independent of the Nobel family and has been since the start. Secondly while the Committee that decides who gets the peace prize is technically independent of the Norwegian government, it is appointed by the Norwegian government and many of its members have always been former Norwegian politicians (a former prime mister of Norway, for example, sat on the committee that gave the prize to Liu Xiaobo).
- whatyoucantsay 9y ago
  Thanks. I hadn't realized it was such a thin technicality. I just updated the comment.
- demonshalo 9y ago
  I thought that prize stopped mattering when Obama got it just because he was black?
  - 9y ago

z3t4 9y ago

It will be interesting if the nobel committee give another Nobel Peace Prize to China ;)

jcfrei 9y ago

Can't read the article because the site is down. But it seems like a reminder why countries join supranational organizations like the EU: To increase their collective bargaining power.

null_dev 9y ago

Another somber reminder that US hegemony is generally preferable to one in which the fragile, overcompensating and downright Trumpian Chinese national ego is allowed to throw its weight around the world stage.

klunger 9y ago

I live in Norway. There has been pressure for some time on the government to do this because of the salmon exports. Fishing is not as big as oil, but it is still an important part of the economy here. Losing China as a customer meant bad news for a lot of folks in the fishing industry here. Also, since Norway is trying (unsuccessfully so far, but still they are trying) to lessen dependence on oil, this loss mattered even more than you might think at first glance. Not saying that caving to normalize relations was "right," but it definitely had quite a bit of domestic support here.

MagnumOpus 9y ago
> Fishing is not as big as oil, but it is still an important part of the economy Meh. It employs 7k-10k people and contributes 0.7% of the economy. That is chickenfeed, and a particularly dumb thing to give up their principles over - particularly because processed fish are a fungible commodity and could be sold for the same price outside of China.
- klunger 9y ago
  It is roughly 5.4% of exports http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nor/#Exports http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/nor/#Exports Does not compare to oil I guess, but I would not call it chickenfeed. It probably does get oversized media attention though, which is why this has so much domestic support.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  > processed fish are a fungible commodity and could be sold for the same price outside of China yes. right. that aspect of this story puzzles me. i thought that was how globalism worked. i mean, can't Norway just sell the fish to, say, Canada, which could then sell its farmed salmon to China, etc? i can't quite see what difference this will make. is Norway geographically closer to China than other salmon producing nations? how do they explain this?
  - pmontra 9y ago
    Those triangulations are possible only if the destination country is willing to pay a premium for the banned goods. Norwegian salmon would cost more in China because the Canadians are going to put some markup on it (and fairly, because they'll have to do some work on their own.) Or keep the same price for the consumer and gain less. In both cases Norway is going to lose money compared to normal commercial relationships.

rdlecler1 9y ago

The continued growth of China (and India) can strengthen organizations like the EU and give rise to other blocs of small countries. Collective bargaining power is the only way to have leverage with a country that’s 20-60 Times larger. It’s not unlike the unionization of labor in response to the weak bargaining position of the individual worker and I expect a similar pattern to repeat including union busting and bribery and a populist response. All very dangerous. If China pushes too hard, then the pendulum will swing hard in the other direction and China will be facing strong union fronts, populist movements that stubbornly demand painful concessions and resultant trade wars. We’ve seen this pattern before and it gets worse before it gets better.

captainmuon 9y ago

International "meta"-law is so ridiculous. I mean the customary rules concerning recognition of states, embassies, passports [1], etc.. If I was ruler of a small country, I would say "of course we won't recognize Taiwan. We will foobar them. They don't get an embassy, but they get a blah." (which de facto will be exactly the same thing) [1] Concerning passports, no matter how radically different states are, the US, the Soviet Union, North Korea, the Vatican, one thing they can all agree on is that people have a "nationality" and must carry a "passport" when going over borders, the passport has a certain size and spaces for "visas", etc.. It really makes me consider how "radical" a state is if it partakes in this global system. Especially interesting, if you remember that a few centuries ago, none of this existed at all. In history lessions in school, I wondered how Lenin could travel through all of europe unhampered when he was fleeing from the tsarists. Well, there were only little borders or passports as we know them now around.

vinceguidry 9y ago
> If I was ruler of a small country, I would say "of course we won't recognize Taiwan. We will foobar them. They don't get an embassy, but they get a blah." (which de facto will be exactly the same thing) That might not be a smart move. Small nations get a lot out of banding together and acting as a bloc. If you foobar Taiwan, it might freeze you out of diplomatic channels that are more important to you than wanking off China. Plus, you don't have to kowtow to China when you have the US around. If you're really lucky, you'll rate a US military base and watch your economy take off. Sadly, if the Trump-ites get their wish, the US won't be much of an alternative for much longer.
- muninn_ 9y ago
  Yes that’s great. Let’s put US military bases in small countries so they “turn to us” when China is acting unfavorably. Sorry. As an American I have no interest in this. I don’t want military bases all over the world, I don’t want to pay for them, and I don’t want to be the world’s police.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Taiwan is quite used to countries working around China like this. Only 20 countries have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, none of them very influential.

Geekette 9y ago

Wow, shocking to read of such deep capitulation from a country like Norway, which positions itself as egalitarian and goes the extra mile in various areas such as excluding certain companies from investment by its global sovereign fund on ethical grounds[1]. This was also chilling to read: "And when the Dalai Lama was invited to Norway in 2014 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to celebrate his receiving the Nobel Peace Prize 25 years earlier, conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg refused to meet with him, as did every single member of Solberg’s government. Due to warnings from China, His Holiness was not even allowed in to the Norwegian Parliament’s formal reception room, despite the room being empty during the time of his visit." [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#Excluded_companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...

imron 9y ago
> Wow, shocking to read of such deep capitulation from a country like Norway China forces every country that it has normalised relations with to adhere to the 'One China' policy. Does your country have a Chinese embassy in it? Guess what, your country adheres to the 'One China' policy too.
- semperdark 9y ago
  Perhaps, but in many cases recognition that there should be "One China" also comes with the implication that Taiwan's government should be the one ruling the "One China". Did you read the linked article? Norway's statements were absolutely humiliating, most countries absolutely do not go that far.
  - imron 9y ago
    > Perhaps, but in many cases recognition that there should be "One China" also comes with the implication that Taiwan's government should be the one ruling the "One China". Correct. All it is, is the acknowledgement that there aren't two countries called China, and if you want to do business with China, then the People's Republic of China is the only China you are allowed to officially recognise. > Did you read the linked article? Yes. Other countries do go that far too.

interfixus 9y ago

> China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy China does no such thing. Norway sells out. For money. But at least they held out for six years. A better score than most of the rest of us.

nnq 9y ago

How did Liu Xiaobo become so important? So much happening for this guy expressing his opinions, wtf?! If an American or someone from most European countries would express similar opinions wrt his own country's government... nobody would blink a fucking eye, regardless of who gave him what prize... (And we all know that Nobels for anything except science are 100% bullshit. Heck, I'd even question the relevance of the ones for medicine...)

astebbin 9y ago
In American high school I learned not just about Nathan Hale and Martin Luther King Jr., but also about Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sophie Scholl. These figures are famous for the strength of their moral beliefs, the brutality they endured as a result, and their perseverance despite such adversity. On these points, I think Liu Xiaobo is of equal merit. This would explain his visibility in the West. If students in China aren't taught similar stories or values, then I could understand the difficulty to relate.
- teresonos 9y ago
  Students in China are definitely taught about "figures are famous for the strength of their moral beliefs, the brutality they endured as a result, and their perseverance despite such adversity." But considering that Liu Xiaobo preached about the inferiority of the Chinese race and how they needed to be colonized by the West for a couple hundred years, they would most likely compare him to an Uncle Tom/Chan type of person.
dionian 9y ago
He risked his neck to advocate peacefully for democracy in Communist China (PRC)

ausjke 9y ago

The reality is, money talks, even war is sometimes caused by economic reasons, if not all the times. with that being said, the rising power of china, with its sheer size, it can essentially now bend everything to its will, including US who has so much trading deficit these years. and, more cases like this will be down the road, people will probably have to get used to this new ruler in a few decades, mostly not by war, but by its economic power.

it_learnses 9y ago
Unless we can all unite, and bring China back down to where it belongs.

crystaln 9y ago

There's no real commitment here, just a face save for China. The diplomatic language was clearly coerced and has no impact except satisfying Chinese narcissism.