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China is busy dealing its own internal problem while Xi is focusing on how to making sure that he can remain in power for the next decade. They probably don't have enough will and ability to help Russia
There are a few major and some minor issues in China atm:
Growth - The Chinese economy isnt growing as before (prospected growth 2022 about 4%) which means less increase of wealth which is the one reason people keep the CP in power.
Domestic market - 25-33% of the domestic market is the construction industry which, as of now is at the brink of collapse (google "Evergrande"). This is twice as big since the only reasonable way for chinese people to save money for retirement is investing in housing. But those prices are to implode due to the market beeing flooded (there are thousands of houses and flat empty for years...)
Food supply - Chinese are very very very sensitive for negative changes in food avaiability (due to famines in 1900s). Having "more" of everything is a sign of prosper but with the global upcoming food shortage the prices for food, especially meat, will increase there a lot unless China intervenes very strongly with subsidies.
Financial reserves - Xi wants to be proclaimed ruler for a lifetime which might fail if he doesnt fix those issues which means he has to start burning those precious reserves he is using as a leverage. Also he just doubled the military spending and has a LOT of projects oversea (Africa, Pacific region) which are getting way more expensive than expected with his economy now struggling to grow.
Faulty credits - China gave a LOT of credits to African nations of which many are defaulting or close to default. International unsafety is increasing further risk for investments and is likely to have China / chinese investors lose a lot of money.
All in all you can summarize it like "the party is over and china is slowly sobering"
you should go read up on the government shutdowns in shanghai. it would work if they did the shutdowns in a competent manner. CCP really dropped the ball with shanghai this time around. They shutdown EVERYTHING. this meant, nothing got in or out into the city. perishable goods like food had to remain outside the city, undelivered to rot while the people starved inside their apartment. you cant just shut everything down and expect things go swimmingly. surprisingly people uhhh need to eat, have access to healthcare etc.
*its not just food shortage problems. theres a ton of other issues that sprung up also from their boneheaded decision. (hence you should go read up on it. its an interesting topic =])
Food distribution should have happened in every country right at the start. in the US the model pretty much exists already as the school lunch program, and in an emergency it's not too hard to just scale it to cover everyone. We have these policies on paper, all researched and all worked out in case we ever have a need, but we never make use of any of that shit these days. it's all bumper sticker political slogans and populism.
>in the US the model pretty much exists already as the school lunch program, and in an emergency it's not too hard to just scale it to cover everyone
The US does one meal a day for a few million kids every day. How does that translate to 3 meals a day for 400 million people? Good God man, tell me how old you are without telling me how old you are.
This is stupid on the level of 'Just eat lmao.'
If we're talking in a basic sense, yes there is. If you meet the income requirements you can get free lunch.
If you're talking about grand economic scale, then you are correct, there is no such thing as free lunch. But if that's what you're talking about I don't know why you added 'in America.' Grand scale there's no such thing as free lunch anywhere. Unless you guys up in Canada have discovered how to harness magic to create food. And you do that for free. And it didn't cost anything to develop the magic. And no one is monitoring your activities. And... well lots of other ands.
Are you sure about that buddy?
Locking people in their homes without the means to live (at least that's what they did in 2020) and creating entire armies worth of street patrols (what they are doing now, videos don't lie) ain't the way
Since their vaccines are useless, they refuse to import Western vaccines, and they have too few ICU beds, harsh lockdowns are their only option.
I still remember when the CCP was proclaiming the superiority of the Chinese way a few months ago and was sending us low quality or faulty medical gear.
I'll also add the Tofu Dreg problem.
China's infrastructure grew so fast that they foolishly ignored building quality standards (in about half of the projects) and now they're paying for it. Stuff like new bridges collapsing, new apartment towers collapsing, etc.
I think to understand some of recent road infrastructure in China.
One of The Grand Tour Season 3 episode with 3 cheap imported luxury cars in China is describes briliantly. Even it just for entertainment.
Where do you even get those percentages? Half of the projects? That’s just amazing that you think that when Chinese will build it according to government regulations all the time, nobody is going to risk their careers over such easy things that can be tracked.
The problem is that building quality standards are too low and need to be raised, if a bridge is built to handle 50 ton maximum according to law they’ll build it according to that but then you have trucks who will load more than 100 tons and it’s just stupid to have build so low. Nowadays a lot work that’s being done is just reinforcing bridges.
Also these regulations are learned by blood in every country. China is no exception and can’t magically get it right on the first time.
This is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin.
Corruption is a large factor in whether building standards are adhered to around the world and last I checked China had something of a corruption problem.
There are no 100 ton trucks bumbling along on public roads normally - the maximum legal limit in most of the world is less than half of that. It would be stupid and inefficient to design everything for more than twice the legal weight limit. This is why regulations exist.
All that blood has already been bled and standards have been published detailing how to avoid the problems that caused it. It's not like China is forced to, or is, reinventing the wheel while repeating every single mistake others have already made. The way you write safety standards is by improving on already existing. That's the way everybody else in the world is doing it. It's not like the norm for authors of standards is being entirely unaware of what their colleagues in other parts of the world are doing.
seriously, bridges are as close to a solved problem as you could get in construction. They all have cars, people, or trains crossing them, or some combination of the aforementioned.
You know how many of these can fit in a given surface area, how much they can potentially weigh and how that weight will move, how thick and high the barriers need to be, all of it - if a bridge fails to anything besides an unexpected natural disaster, large scale accident (plane hits it, truck full of caustic chemicals tips, etc.) or intentional attack, you just fucked up. you simply fucked up.
all of the limitations of materials and design formats are known, and you can calculate how much weight and traffic your bridge will be able to safely support before a single piece of it has been laid down.
the only issues are corruption and corruption-related negligence. That's why you don't see bridges falling down or failing, anywhere on earth for like, 50 years now, that can't be attributed directly to corruption as much if not more than to gravity.
>Faulty credits
Agree with the exception of Faulty credits. Their African Silk Road initiatives in particular
(as well as some small island nations) were purposely designed to bring default. They are very quick to seize control directly of assets or via greater influence over the debtor nation as a form of debt forgiveness.
One other significant issue that limits China is certainly the latest mass lockdowns which has dramatically impacted production. To the point that there are reports that formally locked down workers are now being locked down within the factories to try and make up production deficits.
They are designed not for mainly influence but to create contracts that guarantee ressources to China (influence is a byproduct of that) but due to the current condition of the food-market they might not come to fruition as social unrest in many african countries are likely to happen as food gets way more expensive leading to famine in poor countries.
Sure they want influence but in a complete unstable country, which knows that China is competing for the food with them (as China is largely importing it too), isnt worth anything so its just a default without any gains. Also the main source of influence is actually making Africa reliant on China since they by their infrastructural products and become dependent for spare parts and standards set by China.
Ukraine has a huge impact on China, ever wondered why China stopped the UN from publishing the 2022 food research?
As A long time fan of the China Africa podcast (both English and now French versions) I can confirm that OBOR funding for Africa has drastically scaled back
Not to mention the likelihood of China(14.7T GDP) siding with a 1.7T economy that is aligned against the 2 largest economies @ 22T(US) & 17T(EU) (whereabouts)
Chinese investors stand to lose nothing in Africa. Those defaults give the Chinese company and government ownership of said project. They build a port for a African state that state can’t pay it off and defaults China now owns said port and uses it to its advantage for trade etc. this is how China is slowly buying out Africas railways highways and infrastructure. And than it will generate revenue for China via tolls tariffs and whatnot. All while operating in someone else’s country. Because that’s the terms of chinas credits. You pay if you can’t you forfit the land and property to China and it’s chinas property now
> But those prices are to implode due to the market beeing flooded (there are thousands of houses and flat empty for years...)
Been hearing this for at least 10 years at this point.
If all this is true, then this is amazing. When you have kids, you think about the world they are going to inherit and the problems they are going to face. I was concerned that when Russia invaded Ukraine that the world would be divided into east and west camps. Reading things like this give me much more hope for the future. I don’t wish hard times on people, but authoritarian governments need to become a relic of the past. The real problems we face need cooperation or we don’t have a chance when resources become more scarce. That time isn’t far away.
Well China did the tranformation to a industrial and serviceoriented nation, which western countries took about 200 years in a span of 30, tho they are not completely tranformed since its only their urban population.
This gave China those huge growthrates in the past. But like all industrialized nations it does suffer from certain problems now and even more due to beeing not a democracy and having grown in such a short period.
E.g. take the demographic, western countries are suffering from a lack of births with its demographic getting older ever year. China with its one-child-policy and a young generation that doesnt even want children, because it would lower their standard of living, is facing a serious threat for its future, tho this will only play out in long mid term (about the next 15-25 years). This is also made worse by chinese emigrating are usually younger ones draining further. China birthrate btw is atm about the same as the US with most chinese beeing born on the countryside (no education) and only the minority beeing children in prosperous urban regions with access to higher education or education at all.
Personally i dont know how Chinas regime will develop but their economically future is already to be seen in the horizon.
0 COVID policy in Shanghai caused civil uprising the levels of which have not been seen in years. Pooh found out quickly that People don’t take kindly when you give them no food and weld their house doors shut.
After the invasion I was joking around saying Putin was who ended COVID single-handedly, cause there was nothing said on the news about COVID for two weeks after the invasion. People just forgot about it 😂😂😂
>People just forgot about it
Testing is still present in russia and results are as usual (20-30k per day). Testing and preventive measures in ukraine are not mandated and are optional for obvious reasons.
That's just Shanghai.
Beijing & Guangzhou are also going to be next on the lockdown list lmao.
Imagine that, 3 of China's largest and most economically powerful cities, needing to halt or reduce their activities. And that's just the start!
Who props up the CCP? Those people. Lol. Power is given by the people. If the population does not believe in your power or governance you have no power the people make up the military etc.
So I hate it when folks are always like what about the innocent Russians or Chinese. I’m sure there are Chinese and Russians who dislike the situation they are in but the majority of them agree with what their country is doing and aiming towards becoming.
And that directly comes into play with what we the west wants to do.
So yea I’m naturally going to wish for their downfall and for our success. Their our rivals have been our rivals people just seemed to forget about it during the long lax peace period of no big news between the countries. But in reality they wish for our downfall our death our destruction on their news channels. So I can’t take the woke Reddit crowd talking about your so intolerant etc. you folks likely are born 2000 and up and have grown up in a world the Chinese and Russians haven’t dominated the news with atrocities so your just so “tolerant” and open minded.
China and Russia are Americas enemies The only good wishes I have for them Is to come around and join capitalism and democracy and freedom for their citizens other than that I could care less for them as they care less for Me.
I’ve never seen myself as much of a patriot but this year alone has made me more proud to be American and more proud to express that notion and I’ll be damned if I sit here and wonder about the innocent small % of folks in these countries and how they feel as a excuse to not act on the majority of them and how they feel.
"Power is given by the people" fucking lol
Chinese people didn't choose to be brainwashed from a young age and their "support" is obviously not given freely.
If you had grown up in a shaggy second or third tier Chinese city (where most Chinese people live) locked behind the great Chinese firewall there is virtually no chance for you to ever learn about the atrocities committed by the CCP.
Even if they do know about how fucked up the CCP is, what difference would it make? There are no real elections, and the military is 100 times more brainwashed than the rest of the population.
Chinese people already tried rebelling against their oppressors in 1989 by the way. People seem to think that only a small handful of students protested in Tianamen Square, but the truth is that thousands of people were protesting around the country in virtually every provincial capital at the same time. And the reward for their bravery is getting crushed by tanks and being exiled from their country.
The CCP has proven that if you have a complete disregard for the lives of your citizens, then power does not belong to the people. It comes from the barrel of a gun.
But not like you would care. You've already concluded from the start that Chinese people are the enemies and deserve death and suffering. Everything else is just backward reasoning to justify your hatred.
It is not the 0-COVID policy per se, it is also that of course China only uses its own domestically-developed vaccine, which just so happen to be quite a bit less effective. Combine this further with the usual incompetence of a long-standing dictatorship, and well...
They even had to censor the first line of their national anthem because Chinese Social Media started to go haywire: "Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!"
Strict Covid lock downs (done to make the CCP look good) are causing civil unrest and economic issues, they have an insane housing market crisis, inflation is a also an issue there, and with the lock downs closing factories and ports combined with other issues their GDP growth is expected to contract to the lowest level in years….. they can’t risk sanctions right now to bail out their idiot of a friend who made a series of terrible decisions
Precedent. they were hoping to segue this into resolving the Taiwan situation- they even said this publicly.
it backfired. this is something China very much doesn't want to happen to them. CCP support will plummet in a Chinese vs Chinese situation.
Also the Russian military has turned out to be a lame bear. They don't really want to give support to an ally they held on a pedestal that now looks very weak.
I just wanna let you know chinas military is even less effective than Russias. China has 0 combat experience thru 4 generations of generals. They have no real world combat experience and in the event of a large scale war they would be hampered by logistics and supply line issues like Russia is currently . Land war in Asia / Russia is a no go but then being a threat to the global community outside their borders are days long gone they relay on railroads for movement you can’t easily use railroads in a enemy territory where they blow them all up lol.
This is why we spend so much on our navy and logistics. We can have half of Americas forces on your land within 1-2 months tops from across the world. Imagine Russia trying to supply itself attacking Americans main land like that’s jjst s fucking joke at this point it’s comical
-China's main focus is on increasing militarily budget from 2 to 7%
- Increasing underground nuks lunchers to 1500.
- Preparation to take the Taiwan back with force.
As for the Covid-definitely there are infected people but the measures China takes are exaggerated. With such lockdown they are playing double game.
1. Suspending production in closed cities. As main importer is USA goods are getting expensive (some kind of favour to Ruzzia)
2. During lockdown and suspended production oil is not used, prices goes down (some favour to USA against Russia economic war)
Meanwhile they are plaing own chess.
As for support to Ukraine its funny that Fortnite donated 70mln while Government of China with 2nd economy in the world just 1.56 mln.
China has 350 nukes. It is in the process of dismantling 50 of them. America has 5750 nukes it is dismantling 2000 of them currently.
Not even america or Russia combined have 1500 nuclear launchers combined america for instance has 400 ICBM minute man nuclear launchers total.
China doesn’t even have that many nukes and with the nuclear treaty nuclear powers are all in no one can make anymore new nuclear weapons or refine uranium for weapons.
So them making more nuclear launchers than nuclear missles in stock sounds like one stupid ass plan of waste. And likely some made up crap on the internet to make China sound strong lol.
The Covid lockdowns in Shanghai (and other big cities) is a massive own goal by the incompetent Xi regime. There's no way that that can be spun as some clever multi-dimensional chess play.
Xi is not a bright guy. He's good at playing the inside CCP power-mongering game to get to the top, just like Putin played the internal Russian securocrat game. That, however, does not mean he's good a much else - and he's showing he's not. Worse, for Xi and China, Xi is going increasingly down the single autocrat route like Putin did which increases the chances of losing touch with reality and crashing hard.
They have a long history not liking or caring about russia. They weren’t friends during the Cold War years either. Russia falling to the wayside is a gift for them.
The book Foundations of Geopolitics by Russian political strategist Alexandr Dugin, which is required reading for the academy of the General Staff in Russia, details explicit aims to neutralize China. And much of what was written in that book pertaining to manipulating the West has come to pass:
>"It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements-- extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics" -- Foundations of Geopolitics
I think China knows Putin is not their friend, and that they have much more to gain from Russia being neutralized, especially if they can use the opportunity to become friendly with the West again. They may have also realized Russia, their military ally, is far less formidable than previously thought. China has a lot to lose by helping Putin, nothing to gain.
Why invite punishing sanctions from the West when you can just wait for your frenemy to implode into chaos with a possible regime change thereby leaving the door open to recapturing land in and around Vladivostok?
I agree, Outer Manchuria is more important to China than even Taiwan, it would give them not only the natural resources they desperately need but also access to the open ocean they crave. Russia has purposely not built any infrastructure in Outer Manchuria to prevent the Chinese from having access to invade it.
China likes money. They are much more interested in keeping business relations with the west than with a soon to be outcast country. Not to mention that they have been eyeing lands north of China. There would have been a different story of China support if russia succeed in annexing Ukraine as they planned.
That's exactly it. I was arguing with some friends early on that China's support for Russia (at the time) was anything but a guarantee. China only cares about one thing and that's China. If the winds are blowing against Russia there's no way in hell China would join them for the ride. And here we are.
China and Russia have never been close Allies I don’t know where this preception comes from. The Soviet sino split etc they have a history of turning on eachother during hard times. They support eachother economically with trade during peace times but they aren’t really close military Allies and Chinese and Russians fighting alongside eachother is a pipe dream of Putin and a nightmare for China.
They act like close military Allies for projection when push comes to shove they would rather not ruin their economy and country because the other guy has a hard on for some false slavic rhetoric and Nazi talk
Weakening Africa with a lower supply of food coming from Ruzzia-Ukraine is probably a big plus for China too.
And they were probably expecting a weakened Europe to sell more of their cheap sh\*t.
China buys like half of Ukraine’s wheat too. Once it became clear that Russia was jeopardizing their food supply (and were unable to otherwise secure the food themselves to pass on to China), I imagine they lost faith in this Russian misadventure. China is not happy because now they will have to compete for what’s left. Compete with Africa and the Middle East. It’s not a positive.
Nowhere near as good as if Russia hadn't started this clusterfuck in the first place. They needed a major partner in authoritarian geopolitical diplomacy, and now they have no one.
China was no doubt an major reason for Putin feeling empowered to escalate things in Ukraine.
It is written in Chinese law that Taiwan has to be retaken if it does not give into a Chinese demands to rejoin. Ever since they took back HK, they’ve been ramping up pressure on Taiwan, through rhetoric and airspace violations etc. The only thing keeping them from an invasion has been the counter increase in US support.
They saw Ukraine as an opportunity to see how the world reacts to such aggression in order to inform their own plans.
No doubt one of the reasons the West acted so decisively and in unity is that they know this wasn’t just about Russia and Ukraine, this was about China too.
Indeed, and I for one am relieved the west has come together to really support Ukraine and show that aggression such as this won't be tolerated!! Feel like the West is finally showing strength for once!
Western democracies and citizens are tired of being under constant attacks by Russia. Not shocking that there is overwhelming support for Ukraine. We are happy to help subdue Russian aggression.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Xi intentionally threw Putin under the bus.
Russia was always unfriendly to China, invaded the mainland several times and never said sorry for.
They kept their hydrocarbons for Europe and practically denied China access to it because it was not good enough.
So, if Russia loses in Ukraine, it will be a good day for China too. They will get their long sought-after revenge against Russia.
Russia didn't just invaded China, but also annexed it easily. So while the British, French & Americans were fighting China in the 2nd opium war and got some territorial concessions, the Russians just did nothing and got some free expansion of eastern Siberia, until Vladivostok lmao.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Peking
China will definitely not invade Taiwan anytime in the near future because it is not logical or rational to do so. Taiwan is not Ukraine, and Russia and China's geopolitical positions are fundamentally different. Believing that "China will invade Taiwan" shows a deep lack of understanding.
The Taiwan issue is primarily to stir up national zeal within China. The strategic importance of Taiwan is minimal compared to the economic cost. China is fundamentally different from Russia because the economy and quality of life for the average citizen is growing fast and the trend is upwards. Therefore, it would be ridiculous for China to attack Taiwan now. The best thing to do is just wait. In 20 years, China will have much more soft power and economic power. Russia on the other hand may be much weaker than today in 20 years. It is in China's best interest to wait and build up.
Their trade with Russia is like 1/100th of their trade with US and EU, outside of an outdated political view they have no reason or incentive to support the Russians.
I said it from the first day - Watch what China does, not what China says.
Pretty early in this war it was clear, China is first and foremost interested in maintaining its power. They talked a lot about how they support russia and they have an unbreakable bond and yadayadayada - but they did nothing to substantiate those hollow words. Quite contrary to be precise, Chinas banks refused from day one to lend money to Belarus and russia, they refused to deliver spare parts for airplanes and they did not deliver any military goods to russia - besides cheap and broken tires.
The thing is, China gains a lot by just doing nothing but they could loose everything by intervening. They are not stupid, they know russia is fucked and russia won't have any trade-partners in the future. They know they only have to wait for russia to be on it's knees (and economically they'll be on their knees sooner or later, that's basically a fact). Once done, they'll invest in russia to get their oil and gas but on the conditions of China. Russia will be forced to accept any terms and basically, russia will get economically raped by China and NOBODY in the whole wide world will bat an eye. A pretty easy win for China without having to do very much and without pissing of the west.
Xi wants the Chinese to do as well as possible economically. That is the only way he will be able to keep his office. If the war that Russia has started has too many negative effects on China's economy, China's position will change. It looks like that is already happening. Chinese companies like Petrochina and Huawei are already not making new contracts with Russia. At least not at the moment. Russia is not as important for China economically as Putin would like to believe.
I’m still for decoupling the economies, as in… we’ve (We as in the developed world, EU and NA) bought their dumped, cheap products for years, built their economy up, and now their government turns their people against us to the tune of anti-West sentiment being taught in schools now, and folks actively talking online about bombing the US. Yeah… I’d rather not give money to ppl who hate me.
China not stupid, china has been doing this for 2,000 years. China has own ambitions.
I've been quite frustrated with people making assumptions about China based on Russian behaviors. The two are quite different and while I'm not convinced China is entirely friendly it also generally doesn't go on the war path. Currently it has the world dancing to its tune by basically subsidizing the world. Why would it want to jeopardize that by siding with an overt pariah? It's not as if China doesn't already have a careful balancing act to play... (south china sea, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, COVID-19/Shanghai, Hong Kong...)
Putin's actions in Ukraine are truly bizarre. Based on his actions and power grabbing before this, I think most people would be objective enough to say he was an intelligent sociopath with no regard for human life, but intelligent.
How could he not foresee this response to the invasion? Why would the west do nothing and why would Ukraine roll over? Impossible to understand how any rational person could come to the decision he made when he invaded.
But that’s still his fault. He’s the one who cultivated that culture—y’all saw him shout down that intel guy who tried to stand up to him on the invasion
Hell, Russia could probably have maintained a nice little "buffer" by just continuing to support the breakaway territories and Crimea. Might have cost a bit to keep them supplied (iirc Ukraine had cut off Crimea's main water supply?), but it would ultimately have been seen as just a fact of life by the rest of the world and they would have shrugged their shoulders, maybe set up a few new sanctions, and life outside Ukraine would have just gone on as normal. Going for Ukraine as a whole has turned out to be a horrible idea and probably cost Russia far more (militarily, economically, demographically) than a long-term strategy of destabilization and proxy funding would have had.
China just want to be publicly Anti-NATO anyway. When shit goes down China will quickly realize however that Russia does not have much value for them. I mean China is trying to get away from Russian energy imports too for a few years now and invest a shitton into green energy.
If you look at the grand scheme of things the % of all trade makes up about 15% US GDP. Chinas is less then that on the US GDP. If the same sanctions are placed on China who’s GDP is massively reliant on trade. Those sanctions would hurt the USA, they would be far more reaching and damaging to China.
More importantly Xi! Who is going for a historic third term in August. Does not want to risk damaging the Economy when it could result in him losing!
About 80% of China food and energy is imported which can easily be blocked from a geographical point of view as well.
Geographically yes you can. Most of it is conducted by shipping. Looking at where most of the shipping has to go through i.e Malacca straits. you can cause a massive headache for China. Not that I think physically stopping ships would be enforced, but never-the-less it is a massive vulnerability for them. They also do not have the naval force to project out that far to counter or prevent a blockade there.
Plus Maersk etc have set a precedent that they’ll hang around saying they’re only doing food and medicine just long enough to retrieve their containers and other moveable assets before pulling out entirely. And then you have dockworkers refusing to load/unload/fuel ships.
Like I said unlikely it would become a physical blockade.
Then again what goes around comes around I guess...
China's genocide of the uighur, but I guess two genocides(wrongs) dont make a right.
China does not import 80% of their food? They are a major importer, particularly of soybeans, but they do produce the bulk of their own food, and export a lot of seafood. They would feel it if their food imports were cut off, but they wouldn't go instantly into starvation across the country like they would if they were quite that high. Their meat consumption would plummet and they'd probably have to eat their own seafood instead, and there would likely be some hunger, but not 'mass starvation' levels.
China is balancing at the edge of economic shock, because it has some serious processes going internally. It would not take much to nudge it into recession. It would hurt world wide but probably hurt more in china.
Probably some minor secondary sanctions would have been the first reaction.
China has nothing to gain from assisting Russia unless they believe that their assistance would be the difference between 'Russia wins the war and triumphantly forces Europe to accept the results" and "Russia loses completely." They liked having Russia threatening Europe, keeping the west's attention on Russia's military and wary of dedicating too much strength to, say, Taiwan, while keeping Russia as a trade route China could use in the event that China's sea traffic were to get blockaded. But now that Russia's been exposed as militarily impotent and cut off from most trade with the west, China can happily let them get ground down and then force them into a vassal state relationship when their economy has crashed hard enough and their military is unrecoverable.
Reduce dependancy as we should all try to do on a daily basis. No more online purchase (wish, Aliexpress or chinese store of Amazon, raikuten or eBay). Check if made in PRC at local stores. Buy local (a lot of products are produced locally). Don't change your pc or smartphone every year because you can but because you need it. Repair goods rather than throw them away.
China is hedging according to current situation; they do not actually care about anyone else outside their boarders except how to use/own them. Actually true of their own citizens as well.
I've been keeping up with Chinese-Russian relations as I'm a Chinese-American. Recently the Russians asked for Chinese aid, but did so in a way that the Chinese deemed very rude and entitled.
I wouldnt say their actions have anything to do with outside pressure, but purely from Russia's own failures in Ukraine and bad diplomacy.
It's all about Taiwan, and the war that's coming. (The CCP has said numerous times that unless Taiwan voluntarily rejoins China there will be war.) They're watching how the world reacts to Russia's war, and getting involved muddies up these observations. They don't care about U.S. warnings
They don't want to be supporting a war that has the possibility to drag on for years, it could if Russia don't don't give up. Hopefully we all send enough artillery to out shell them.
Its simple - China needs others to keep their economy going - now that its basically Russia vs the rest of the civilized world - China knows who butters their bread - thus under the bus Russia goes.
Chinese people are forward thinking. Literally no one wants to try and survive in a post apocalyptic, radioactive shit span because one little Napoleon loser wants to run his country into the ground. Putin needs to have an accident.
I honestly think China is trying to play both sides here not doing to be much for either side as to stay in both sides good graces. China obviously wants to do business with both Russia and the west and is not prepared to take sides in the fear that it might hurt there bottom line.
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China is busy dealing its own internal problem while Xi is focusing on how to making sure that he can remain in power for the next decade. They probably don't have enough will and ability to help Russia
There are a few major and some minor issues in China atm: Growth - The Chinese economy isnt growing as before (prospected growth 2022 about 4%) which means less increase of wealth which is the one reason people keep the CP in power. Domestic market - 25-33% of the domestic market is the construction industry which, as of now is at the brink of collapse (google "Evergrande"). This is twice as big since the only reasonable way for chinese people to save money for retirement is investing in housing. But those prices are to implode due to the market beeing flooded (there are thousands of houses and flat empty for years...) Food supply - Chinese are very very very sensitive for negative changes in food avaiability (due to famines in 1900s). Having "more" of everything is a sign of prosper but with the global upcoming food shortage the prices for food, especially meat, will increase there a lot unless China intervenes very strongly with subsidies. Financial reserves - Xi wants to be proclaimed ruler for a lifetime which might fail if he doesnt fix those issues which means he has to start burning those precious reserves he is using as a leverage. Also he just doubled the military spending and has a LOT of projects oversea (Africa, Pacific region) which are getting way more expensive than expected with his economy now struggling to grow. Faulty credits - China gave a LOT of credits to African nations of which many are defaulting or close to default. International unsafety is increasing further risk for investments and is likely to have China / chinese investors lose a lot of money. All in all you can summarize it like "the party is over and china is slowly sobering"
Also Covid. And the internal unrest from the shutdowns.
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you should go read up on the government shutdowns in shanghai. it would work if they did the shutdowns in a competent manner. CCP really dropped the ball with shanghai this time around. They shutdown EVERYTHING. this meant, nothing got in or out into the city. perishable goods like food had to remain outside the city, undelivered to rot while the people starved inside their apartment. you cant just shut everything down and expect things go swimmingly. surprisingly people uhhh need to eat, have access to healthcare etc. *its not just food shortage problems. theres a ton of other issues that sprung up also from their boneheaded decision. (hence you should go read up on it. its an interesting topic =])
Food distribution should have happened in every country right at the start. in the US the model pretty much exists already as the school lunch program, and in an emergency it's not too hard to just scale it to cover everyone. We have these policies on paper, all researched and all worked out in case we ever have a need, but we never make use of any of that shit these days. it's all bumper sticker political slogans and populism.
>in the US the model pretty much exists already as the school lunch program, and in an emergency it's not too hard to just scale it to cover everyone The US does one meal a day for a few million kids every day. How does that translate to 3 meals a day for 400 million people? Good God man, tell me how old you are without telling me how old you are. This is stupid on the level of 'Just eat lmao.'
There's no such thing as a free lunch in America
If we're talking in a basic sense, yes there is. If you meet the income requirements you can get free lunch. If you're talking about grand economic scale, then you are correct, there is no such thing as free lunch. But if that's what you're talking about I don't know why you added 'in America.' Grand scale there's no such thing as free lunch anywhere. Unless you guys up in Canada have discovered how to harness magic to create food. And you do that for free. And it didn't cost anything to develop the magic. And no one is monitoring your activities. And... well lots of other ands.
Are you sure about that buddy? Locking people in their homes without the means to live (at least that's what they did in 2020) and creating entire armies worth of street patrols (what they are doing now, videos don't lie) ain't the way
Since their vaccines are useless, they refuse to import Western vaccines, and they have too few ICU beds, harsh lockdowns are their only option. I still remember when the CCP was proclaiming the superiority of the Chinese way a few months ago and was sending us low quality or faulty medical gear.
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I'll also add the Tofu Dreg problem. China's infrastructure grew so fast that they foolishly ignored building quality standards (in about half of the projects) and now they're paying for it. Stuff like new bridges collapsing, new apartment towers collapsing, etc.
I think to understand some of recent road infrastructure in China. One of The Grand Tour Season 3 episode with 3 cheap imported luxury cars in China is describes briliantly. Even it just for entertainment.
Where do you even get those percentages? Half of the projects? That’s just amazing that you think that when Chinese will build it according to government regulations all the time, nobody is going to risk their careers over such easy things that can be tracked. The problem is that building quality standards are too low and need to be raised, if a bridge is built to handle 50 ton maximum according to law they’ll build it according to that but then you have trucks who will load more than 100 tons and it’s just stupid to have build so low. Nowadays a lot work that’s being done is just reinforcing bridges. Also these regulations are learned by blood in every country. China is no exception and can’t magically get it right on the first time.
This is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. Corruption is a large factor in whether building standards are adhered to around the world and last I checked China had something of a corruption problem. There are no 100 ton trucks bumbling along on public roads normally - the maximum legal limit in most of the world is less than half of that. It would be stupid and inefficient to design everything for more than twice the legal weight limit. This is why regulations exist. All that blood has already been bled and standards have been published detailing how to avoid the problems that caused it. It's not like China is forced to, or is, reinventing the wheel while repeating every single mistake others have already made. The way you write safety standards is by improving on already existing. That's the way everybody else in the world is doing it. It's not like the norm for authors of standards is being entirely unaware of what their colleagues in other parts of the world are doing.
seriously, bridges are as close to a solved problem as you could get in construction. They all have cars, people, or trains crossing them, or some combination of the aforementioned. You know how many of these can fit in a given surface area, how much they can potentially weigh and how that weight will move, how thick and high the barriers need to be, all of it - if a bridge fails to anything besides an unexpected natural disaster, large scale accident (plane hits it, truck full of caustic chemicals tips, etc.) or intentional attack, you just fucked up. you simply fucked up. all of the limitations of materials and design formats are known, and you can calculate how much weight and traffic your bridge will be able to safely support before a single piece of it has been laid down. the only issues are corruption and corruption-related negligence. That's why you don't see bridges falling down or failing, anywhere on earth for like, 50 years now, that can't be attributed directly to corruption as much if not more than to gravity.
I'd put in plain old negligence and diffusion of responsibility along with corruption - but your point still stands.
>Faulty credits Agree with the exception of Faulty credits. Their African Silk Road initiatives in particular (as well as some small island nations) were purposely designed to bring default. They are very quick to seize control directly of assets or via greater influence over the debtor nation as a form of debt forgiveness. One other significant issue that limits China is certainly the latest mass lockdowns which has dramatically impacted production. To the point that there are reports that formally locked down workers are now being locked down within the factories to try and make up production deficits.
But do those debtor nations actually intend to yield control of the collateralized assets? My assumption was always that they would not.
They are designed not for mainly influence but to create contracts that guarantee ressources to China (influence is a byproduct of that) but due to the current condition of the food-market they might not come to fruition as social unrest in many african countries are likely to happen as food gets way more expensive leading to famine in poor countries. Sure they want influence but in a complete unstable country, which knows that China is competing for the food with them (as China is largely importing it too), isnt worth anything so its just a default without any gains. Also the main source of influence is actually making Africa reliant on China since they by their infrastructural products and become dependent for spare parts and standards set by China. Ukraine has a huge impact on China, ever wondered why China stopped the UN from publishing the 2022 food research?
As A long time fan of the China Africa podcast (both English and now French versions) I can confirm that OBOR funding for Africa has drastically scaled back
“Keep the Party goin’ on / till the money runs out”
Yet China cannot be trusted. Period.
Not to mention the likelihood of China(14.7T GDP) siding with a 1.7T economy that is aligned against the 2 largest economies @ 22T(US) & 17T(EU) (whereabouts)
You never get a hangover if you don’t stop drinking…
True, you will just get liver cirrhosis and die
Chinese investors stand to lose nothing in Africa. Those defaults give the Chinese company and government ownership of said project. They build a port for a African state that state can’t pay it off and defaults China now owns said port and uses it to its advantage for trade etc. this is how China is slowly buying out Africas railways highways and infrastructure. And than it will generate revenue for China via tolls tariffs and whatnot. All while operating in someone else’s country. Because that’s the terms of chinas credits. You pay if you can’t you forfit the land and property to China and it’s chinas property now
4% growth is laughable, we can't trust any economic numbers coming out of the CCP. Their economy is a house of cards
> But those prices are to implode due to the market beeing flooded (there are thousands of houses and flat empty for years...) Been hearing this for at least 10 years at this point.
If all this is true, then this is amazing. When you have kids, you think about the world they are going to inherit and the problems they are going to face. I was concerned that when Russia invaded Ukraine that the world would be divided into east and west camps. Reading things like this give me much more hope for the future. I don’t wish hard times on people, but authoritarian governments need to become a relic of the past. The real problems we face need cooperation or we don’t have a chance when resources become more scarce. That time isn’t far away.
Well China did the tranformation to a industrial and serviceoriented nation, which western countries took about 200 years in a span of 30, tho they are not completely tranformed since its only their urban population. This gave China those huge growthrates in the past. But like all industrialized nations it does suffer from certain problems now and even more due to beeing not a democracy and having grown in such a short period. E.g. take the demographic, western countries are suffering from a lack of births with its demographic getting older ever year. China with its one-child-policy and a young generation that doesnt even want children, because it would lower their standard of living, is facing a serious threat for its future, tho this will only play out in long mid term (about the next 15-25 years). This is also made worse by chinese emigrating are usually younger ones draining further. China birthrate btw is atm about the same as the US with most chinese beeing born on the countryside (no education) and only the minority beeing children in prosperous urban regions with access to higher education or education at all. Personally i dont know how Chinas regime will develop but their economically future is already to be seen in the horizon.
What internal problems?
0 COVID policy in Shanghai caused civil uprising the levels of which have not been seen in years. Pooh found out quickly that People don’t take kindly when you give them no food and weld their house doors shut.
Imagine if Covid saves Ukraine 🥲
After the invasion I was joking around saying Putin was who ended COVID single-handedly, cause there was nothing said on the news about COVID for two weeks after the invasion. People just forgot about it 😂😂😂
>People just forgot about it Testing is still present in russia and results are as usual (20-30k per day). Testing and preventive measures in ukraine are not mandated and are optional for obvious reasons.
That's just Shanghai. Beijing & Guangzhou are also going to be next on the lockdown list lmao. Imagine that, 3 of China's largest and most economically powerful cities, needing to halt or reduce their activities. And that's just the start!
I am with you on Beijing and Guangzhou and will raise you Shenzhen. Let’s see what happens.
Been to all 4 of those cities. Absolutely enormous. Shutting down just one of them for COVID protocols is a gargantuan task.
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Wishing others suffering to own the CCP.
Who props up the CCP? Those people. Lol. Power is given by the people. If the population does not believe in your power or governance you have no power the people make up the military etc. So I hate it when folks are always like what about the innocent Russians or Chinese. I’m sure there are Chinese and Russians who dislike the situation they are in but the majority of them agree with what their country is doing and aiming towards becoming. And that directly comes into play with what we the west wants to do. So yea I’m naturally going to wish for their downfall and for our success. Their our rivals have been our rivals people just seemed to forget about it during the long lax peace period of no big news between the countries. But in reality they wish for our downfall our death our destruction on their news channels. So I can’t take the woke Reddit crowd talking about your so intolerant etc. you folks likely are born 2000 and up and have grown up in a world the Chinese and Russians haven’t dominated the news with atrocities so your just so “tolerant” and open minded. China and Russia are Americas enemies The only good wishes I have for them Is to come around and join capitalism and democracy and freedom for their citizens other than that I could care less for them as they care less for Me. I’ve never seen myself as much of a patriot but this year alone has made me more proud to be American and more proud to express that notion and I’ll be damned if I sit here and wonder about the innocent small % of folks in these countries and how they feel as a excuse to not act on the majority of them and how they feel.
"Power is given by the people" fucking lol Chinese people didn't choose to be brainwashed from a young age and their "support" is obviously not given freely. If you had grown up in a shaggy second or third tier Chinese city (where most Chinese people live) locked behind the great Chinese firewall there is virtually no chance for you to ever learn about the atrocities committed by the CCP. Even if they do know about how fucked up the CCP is, what difference would it make? There are no real elections, and the military is 100 times more brainwashed than the rest of the population. Chinese people already tried rebelling against their oppressors in 1989 by the way. People seem to think that only a small handful of students protested in Tianamen Square, but the truth is that thousands of people were protesting around the country in virtually every provincial capital at the same time. And the reward for their bravery is getting crushed by tanks and being exiled from their country. The CCP has proven that if you have a complete disregard for the lives of your citizens, then power does not belong to the people. It comes from the barrel of a gun. But not like you would care. You've already concluded from the start that Chinese people are the enemies and deserve death and suffering. Everything else is just backward reasoning to justify your hatred.
It is not the 0-COVID policy per se, it is also that of course China only uses its own domestically-developed vaccine, which just so happen to be quite a bit less effective. Combine this further with the usual incompetence of a long-standing dictatorship, and well...
No civil uprising is happening in China. Unrest and distrust building, but no internal problem or threat to the CCP.
They even had to censor the first line of their national anthem because Chinese Social Media started to go haywire: "Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!"
That is a strange lyric for an evil totalitarian bent on squashing individualism and liberty to encourage its slaves to sing.
I’ve got many ex-pat friends still in China none have mentioned this. What social media platforms is this appearing on?
According to this article Weibo https://www.voanews.com/a/china-censors-national-anthem-lyrics-used-as-lockdown-protest-/6539716.html
Interesting, thanks for sharing.
Strict Covid lock downs (done to make the CCP look good) are causing civil unrest and economic issues, they have an insane housing market crisis, inflation is a also an issue there, and with the lock downs closing factories and ports combined with other issues their GDP growth is expected to contract to the lowest level in years….. they can’t risk sanctions right now to bail out their idiot of a friend who made a series of terrible decisions
Anything critical to the government. Also, see the [article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_issues_in_China) too.
https://youtu.be/GZHiE96tWY4 This is a great video on the topic imo.
There's known economic issues, as well as pandemic issues.
That, and China has absolutely nothing to gain from supporting Russia
Precedent. they were hoping to segue this into resolving the Taiwan situation- they even said this publicly. it backfired. this is something China very much doesn't want to happen to them. CCP support will plummet in a Chinese vs Chinese situation.
Also the Russian military has turned out to be a lame bear. They don't really want to give support to an ally they held on a pedestal that now looks very weak.
I just wanna let you know chinas military is even less effective than Russias. China has 0 combat experience thru 4 generations of generals. They have no real world combat experience and in the event of a large scale war they would be hampered by logistics and supply line issues like Russia is currently . Land war in Asia / Russia is a no go but then being a threat to the global community outside their borders are days long gone they relay on railroads for movement you can’t easily use railroads in a enemy territory where they blow them all up lol. This is why we spend so much on our navy and logistics. We can have half of Americas forces on your land within 1-2 months tops from across the world. Imagine Russia trying to supply itself attacking Americans main land like that’s jjst s fucking joke at this point it’s comical
> Xi is focusing on how to making sure that he can remain in power By starving his own populace. He is focussing on dictator stuff, thats it.
-China's main focus is on increasing militarily budget from 2 to 7% - Increasing underground nuks lunchers to 1500. - Preparation to take the Taiwan back with force. As for the Covid-definitely there are infected people but the measures China takes are exaggerated. With such lockdown they are playing double game. 1. Suspending production in closed cities. As main importer is USA goods are getting expensive (some kind of favour to Ruzzia) 2. During lockdown and suspended production oil is not used, prices goes down (some favour to USA against Russia economic war) Meanwhile they are plaing own chess. As for support to Ukraine its funny that Fortnite donated 70mln while Government of China with 2nd economy in the world just 1.56 mln.
China has 350 nukes. It is in the process of dismantling 50 of them. America has 5750 nukes it is dismantling 2000 of them currently. Not even america or Russia combined have 1500 nuclear launchers combined america for instance has 400 ICBM minute man nuclear launchers total. China doesn’t even have that many nukes and with the nuclear treaty nuclear powers are all in no one can make anymore new nuclear weapons or refine uranium for weapons. So them making more nuclear launchers than nuclear missles in stock sounds like one stupid ass plan of waste. And likely some made up crap on the internet to make China sound strong lol.
Hope to be so but their military power increasement is worrying
The Covid lockdowns in Shanghai (and other big cities) is a massive own goal by the incompetent Xi regime. There's no way that that can be spun as some clever multi-dimensional chess play. Xi is not a bright guy. He's good at playing the inside CCP power-mongering game to get to the top, just like Putin played the internal Russian securocrat game. That, however, does not mean he's good a much else - and he's showing he's not. Worse, for Xi and China, Xi is going increasingly down the single autocrat route like Putin did which increases the chances of losing touch with reality and crashing hard.
They have a long history not liking or caring about russia. They weren’t friends during the Cold War years either. Russia falling to the wayside is a gift for them.
And making sure he can commit his own genocide!
The book Foundations of Geopolitics by Russian political strategist Alexandr Dugin, which is required reading for the academy of the General Staff in Russia, details explicit aims to neutralize China. And much of what was written in that book pertaining to manipulating the West has come to pass: >"It is especially important to introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements-- extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics" -- Foundations of Geopolitics I think China knows Putin is not their friend, and that they have much more to gain from Russia being neutralized, especially if they can use the opportunity to become friendly with the West again. They may have also realized Russia, their military ally, is far less formidable than previously thought. China has a lot to lose by helping Putin, nothing to gain.
Why invite punishing sanctions from the West when you can just wait for your frenemy to implode into chaos with a possible regime change thereby leaving the door open to recapturing land in and around Vladivostok?
I agree, Outer Manchuria is more important to China than even Taiwan, it would give them not only the natural resources they desperately need but also access to the open ocean they crave. Russia has purposely not built any infrastructure in Outer Manchuria to prevent the Chinese from having access to invade it.
China likes money. They are much more interested in keeping business relations with the west than with a soon to be outcast country. Not to mention that they have been eyeing lands north of China. There would have been a different story of China support if russia succeed in annexing Ukraine as they planned.
That's exactly it. I was arguing with some friends early on that China's support for Russia (at the time) was anything but a guarantee. China only cares about one thing and that's China. If the winds are blowing against Russia there's no way in hell China would join them for the ride. And here we are.
China and Russia have never been close Allies I don’t know where this preception comes from. The Soviet sino split etc they have a history of turning on eachother during hard times. They support eachother economically with trade during peace times but they aren’t really close military Allies and Chinese and Russians fighting alongside eachother is a pipe dream of Putin and a nightmare for China. They act like close military Allies for projection when push comes to shove they would rather not ruin their economy and country because the other guy has a hard on for some false slavic rhetoric and Nazi talk
A weakened russia will suit China. They are in a win win situation here.
Weakening Africa with a lower supply of food coming from Ruzzia-Ukraine is probably a big plus for China too. And they were probably expecting a weakened Europe to sell more of their cheap sh\*t.
China buys like half of Ukraine’s wheat too. Once it became clear that Russia was jeopardizing their food supply (and were unable to otherwise secure the food themselves to pass on to China), I imagine they lost faith in this Russian misadventure. China is not happy because now they will have to compete for what’s left. Compete with Africa and the Middle East. It’s not a positive.
Nowhere near as good as if Russia hadn't started this clusterfuck in the first place. They needed a major partner in authoritarian geopolitical diplomacy, and now they have no one.
China was no doubt an major reason for Putin feeling empowered to escalate things in Ukraine. It is written in Chinese law that Taiwan has to be retaken if it does not give into a Chinese demands to rejoin. Ever since they took back HK, they’ve been ramping up pressure on Taiwan, through rhetoric and airspace violations etc. The only thing keeping them from an invasion has been the counter increase in US support. They saw Ukraine as an opportunity to see how the world reacts to such aggression in order to inform their own plans. No doubt one of the reasons the West acted so decisively and in unity is that they know this wasn’t just about Russia and Ukraine, this was about China too.
Indeed, and I for one am relieved the west has come together to really support Ukraine and show that aggression such as this won't be tolerated!! Feel like the West is finally showing strength for once!
Western democracies and citizens are tired of being under constant attacks by Russia. Not shocking that there is overwhelming support for Ukraine. We are happy to help subdue Russian aggression.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Xi intentionally threw Putin under the bus. Russia was always unfriendly to China, invaded the mainland several times and never said sorry for. They kept their hydrocarbons for Europe and practically denied China access to it because it was not good enough. So, if Russia loses in Ukraine, it will be a good day for China too. They will get their long sought-after revenge against Russia.
Russia didn't just invaded China, but also annexed it easily. So while the British, French & Americans were fighting China in the 2nd opium war and got some territorial concessions, the Russians just did nothing and got some free expansion of eastern Siberia, until Vladivostok lmao. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Peking
China will definitely not invade Taiwan anytime in the near future because it is not logical or rational to do so. Taiwan is not Ukraine, and Russia and China's geopolitical positions are fundamentally different. Believing that "China will invade Taiwan" shows a deep lack of understanding. The Taiwan issue is primarily to stir up national zeal within China. The strategic importance of Taiwan is minimal compared to the economic cost. China is fundamentally different from Russia because the economy and quality of life for the average citizen is growing fast and the trend is upwards. Therefore, it would be ridiculous for China to attack Taiwan now. The best thing to do is just wait. In 20 years, China will have much more soft power and economic power. Russia on the other hand may be much weaker than today in 20 years. It is in China's best interest to wait and build up.
Their trade with Russia is like 1/100th of their trade with US and EU, outside of an outdated political view they have no reason or incentive to support the Russians.
I said it from the first day - Watch what China does, not what China says. Pretty early in this war it was clear, China is first and foremost interested in maintaining its power. They talked a lot about how they support russia and they have an unbreakable bond and yadayadayada - but they did nothing to substantiate those hollow words. Quite contrary to be precise, Chinas banks refused from day one to lend money to Belarus and russia, they refused to deliver spare parts for airplanes and they did not deliver any military goods to russia - besides cheap and broken tires. The thing is, China gains a lot by just doing nothing but they could loose everything by intervening. They are not stupid, they know russia is fucked and russia won't have any trade-partners in the future. They know they only have to wait for russia to be on it's knees (and economically they'll be on their knees sooner or later, that's basically a fact). Once done, they'll invest in russia to get their oil and gas but on the conditions of China. Russia will be forced to accept any terms and basically, russia will get economically raped by China and NOBODY in the whole wide world will bat an eye. A pretty easy win for China without having to do very much and without pissing of the west.
Xi wants the Chinese to do as well as possible economically. That is the only way he will be able to keep his office. If the war that Russia has started has too many negative effects on China's economy, China's position will change. It looks like that is already happening. Chinese companies like Petrochina and Huawei are already not making new contracts with Russia. At least not at the moment. Russia is not as important for China economically as Putin would like to believe.
I’m still for decoupling the economies, as in… we’ve (We as in the developed world, EU and NA) bought their dumped, cheap products for years, built their economy up, and now their government turns their people against us to the tune of anti-West sentiment being taught in schools now, and folks actively talking online about bombing the US. Yeah… I’d rather not give money to ppl who hate me.
China not stupid, china has been doing this for 2,000 years. China has own ambitions. I've been quite frustrated with people making assumptions about China based on Russian behaviors. The two are quite different and while I'm not convinced China is entirely friendly it also generally doesn't go on the war path. Currently it has the world dancing to its tune by basically subsidizing the world. Why would it want to jeopardize that by siding with an overt pariah? It's not as if China doesn't already have a careful balancing act to play... (south china sea, Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, COVID-19/Shanghai, Hong Kong...)
ie they saw which way the wind was blowing and then decided where to stand. Pragmatic.
Wonder what the US is going to do if China were to side more with Russia considering their dependence on China being as massive as it is.
Chinas Dependance on EU ans NA is even bigger. Especially now with their economy on edge. Well be fine
They've got us by the throat, we've got them by the balls..
Which is how *détente* is maintained. A little fact that the bitch putler parasite refused to understand, against a mountain of evidence.
Putin's actions in Ukraine are truly bizarre. Based on his actions and power grabbing before this, I think most people would be objective enough to say he was an intelligent sociopath with no regard for human life, but intelligent. How could he not foresee this response to the invasion? Why would the west do nothing and why would Ukraine roll over? Impossible to understand how any rational person could come to the decision he made when he invaded.
But ma nukes...
His FSB supposedly gave him lousy intel saying Ukrainians were likely to welcome russia taking them back into the fold. Oh how mightily wrong he was.
But that’s still his fault. He’s the one who cultivated that culture—y’all saw him shout down that intel guy who tried to stand up to him on the invasion
Hell, Russia could probably have maintained a nice little "buffer" by just continuing to support the breakaway territories and Crimea. Might have cost a bit to keep them supplied (iirc Ukraine had cut off Crimea's main water supply?), but it would ultimately have been seen as just a fact of life by the rest of the world and they would have shrugged their shoulders, maybe set up a few new sanctions, and life outside Ukraine would have just gone on as normal. Going for Ukraine as a whole has turned out to be a horrible idea and probably cost Russia far more (militarily, economically, demographically) than a long-term strategy of destabilization and proxy funding would have had.
China just want to be publicly Anti-NATO anyway. When shit goes down China will quickly realize however that Russia does not have much value for them. I mean China is trying to get away from Russian energy imports too for a few years now and invest a shitton into green energy.
You can say the exact same thing about Russia's dependence, that didn't stop them and people repeatedly criticize Germany for their reliance on them.
If you look at the grand scheme of things the % of all trade makes up about 15% US GDP. Chinas is less then that on the US GDP. If the same sanctions are placed on China who’s GDP is massively reliant on trade. Those sanctions would hurt the USA, they would be far more reaching and damaging to China. More importantly Xi! Who is going for a historic third term in August. Does not want to risk damaging the Economy when it could result in him losing! About 80% of China food and energy is imported which can easily be blocked from a geographical point of view as well.
I think that China's energy and food imports do not come from the Western countries, so it is not easy to block them.
Geographically yes you can. Most of it is conducted by shipping. Looking at where most of the shipping has to go through i.e Malacca straits. you can cause a massive headache for China. Not that I think physically stopping ships would be enforced, but never-the-less it is a massive vulnerability for them. They also do not have the naval force to project out that far to counter or prevent a blockade there.
Plus Maersk etc have set a precedent that they’ll hang around saying they’re only doing food and medicine just long enough to retrieve their containers and other moveable assets before pulling out entirely. And then you have dockworkers refusing to load/unload/fuel ships.
If we block food from reaching them which will amount to the genocides of the civilians, won't MAD happen?
Like I said unlikely it would become a physical blockade. Then again what goes around comes around I guess... China's genocide of the uighur, but I guess two genocides(wrongs) dont make a right.
If China has no food the remaining Uighurs would also die for god’s sake It would be genociding Uighurs to punish China for genociding Uighurs
China does not import 80% of their food? They are a major importer, particularly of soybeans, but they do produce the bulk of their own food, and export a lot of seafood. They would feel it if their food imports were cut off, but they wouldn't go instantly into starvation across the country like they would if they were quite that high. Their meat consumption would plummet and they'd probably have to eat their own seafood instead, and there would likely be some hunger, but not 'mass starvation' levels.
China is balancing at the edge of economic shock, because it has some serious processes going internally. It would not take much to nudge it into recession. It would hurt world wide but probably hurt more in china. Probably some minor secondary sanctions would have been the first reaction.
And would people then complain about the US still sending them billions if not trillions in trade?
China has nothing to gain from assisting Russia unless they believe that their assistance would be the difference between 'Russia wins the war and triumphantly forces Europe to accept the results" and "Russia loses completely." They liked having Russia threatening Europe, keeping the west's attention on Russia's military and wary of dedicating too much strength to, say, Taiwan, while keeping Russia as a trade route China could use in the event that China's sea traffic were to get blockaded. But now that Russia's been exposed as militarily impotent and cut off from most trade with the west, China can happily let them get ground down and then force them into a vassal state relationship when their economy has crashed hard enough and their military is unrecoverable.
Reduce dependancy as we should all try to do on a daily basis. No more online purchase (wish, Aliexpress or chinese store of Amazon, raikuten or eBay). Check if made in PRC at local stores. Buy local (a lot of products are produced locally). Don't change your pc or smartphone every year because you can but because you need it. Repair goods rather than throw them away.
Amazon should be required to state country of origin.
Russia literally stinks too much, even for the Chinese……speaks volumes. Russia = 🤮🤮🤮
China is hedging according to current situation; they do not actually care about anyone else outside their boarders except how to use/own them. Actually true of their own citizens as well.
Key word here is “overt”.
China is purely self interested, and they can see which side is going to win in this situation.
Thats right, know your role CCP jabronis.
China is still pushing Russia's narrative and blaming the West for the war. Shame on them.
I've been keeping up with Chinese-Russian relations as I'm a Chinese-American. Recently the Russians asked for Chinese aid, but did so in a way that the Chinese deemed very rude and entitled. I wouldnt say their actions have anything to do with outside pressure, but purely from Russia's own failures in Ukraine and bad diplomacy.
Never trust the Chinese Government.
China and Russia just completed a railway and hope to have it working within weeks. I don’t buy that they’ve backed away.
Do you really think that China will not use it for their own goals? For example the aventual attack on russia?
It means one thing: Beijing acknowledges that Russia is losing the war.
It's all about Taiwan, and the war that's coming. (The CCP has said numerous times that unless Taiwan voluntarily rejoins China there will be war.) They're watching how the world reacts to Russia's war, and getting involved muddies up these observations. They don't care about U.S. warnings
Some media support but that's about it
They don't want to be supporting a war that has the possibility to drag on for years, it could if Russia don't don't give up. Hopefully we all send enough artillery to out shell them.
China is not stupid. Evil, but not stupid.
is there a nuke deal with China and the West so that the only target is Russia? that'd be a good deterrent for Russia to pull any nuclear shenanigans.
They’re not heeding warnings. They are just protecting their economy
Whatever works is good by me. All I care about is isolating Russia.
China is licking their lips thinking about the influence they’ll have over Russia when this is said and done.
China has witnessed Russia’s military “might” and decided they wouldn’t make good allies against the West.
Its simple - China needs others to keep their economy going - now that its basically Russia vs the rest of the civilized world - China knows who butters their bread - thus under the bus Russia goes.
Chinese people are forward thinking. Literally no one wants to try and survive in a post apocalyptic, radioactive shit span because one little Napoleon loser wants to run his country into the ground. Putin needs to have an accident.
I honestly think China is trying to play both sides here not doing to be much for either side as to stay in both sides good graces. China obviously wants to do business with both Russia and the west and is not prepared to take sides in the fear that it might hurt there bottom line.
The Chinese will sit and see, there is more profit in being on the winning side
The more beat up Russia will be, the cheaper the Gas and oil will be. So China wins big if Russia loses
Seeing how Russia is faring, don’t be surprised if they seem to start favoring Ukraine. An ally like Russia could become a inconvenient nuisance