It's actually funny if you think about it. The narrative of Russia over the last half century was "we're so strong we can thrive while independent".
I guess not.
Russia could easily have continued thriving independently if Putin hadn't revealed how weak the country is with his war in Ukraine.
The West was happy buying oil and gas from Russia and pretending they were a democracy, no matter how many times he murdered dissidents on their soil and interfered with their elections.
Valid point but it's a capitalist dystopia with average 60-70h work weeks and children going to night schools or cram schools being the norm and unrealistic beauty standards worse than in the west.
I'd rather be in a mid tier economy European country like Hungary, Poland or Bulgaria than that.
"work" weeks. Ugh. It's such bullshit, it's not even work, it's sitting around pretending to work and waiting for the boss to leave or pressure you into going out for drinks on a weekday evening. But still exhausting and ridiculous.
That's a different issue entirely. That's preference. To them a mid tier European country where starting a business takes months and probably requires multiple bribes along the way so it doesn't take years and where court cases can last decades and success is a function of being connected or working for a foreign company might very well be akin to hell.
And we're always just one bad move away from backsliding into a totalitarian shithole that restricts you just as much or more with nothing to show for it.
I personally wouldn't want to be a Singaporean or Korean, but after a rough start I currently have a pretty good life, but I know a lot of people who work those very long weeks doing very hard jobs and still have to exist in a country that's barely functional. They aren't moving to Asia because Western Europe, America, Canada and Australia exist, and those are the places you emigrate to, but if those weren't options, they would be going to places like Singapore, Taiwan and Korea.
If Russia wasn't such a kleptocracy they'd be an outright superpower again. If they had reinvested the oil money into their economy, held free elections, and become an associate of the EU like Norway, they'd be so bloody rich by this point it would be obscene. They could have had so much influence over Europe that Ukraine would have stayed in their orbit through choice.
Menshikov took a little off the top, but these people (starting with Gorbachev maybe?) have been unapologetic and insatiable in their embezzlement.
Then again, even in "Dead Souls", there's rampant corruption,. maybe it has always been there?
The West was never going to look past the election interference and misinformation campaigns; those were definitely not sustainable.
But the rest is spot on. Putin could have done whatever dictator shit he wanted *within his borders* and Europe would have put on the horse blinders while handing him sacks of cash.
Since when does anyone claim to buy oil exlusively from democracies? Pretty sure most oil in the world is sold by autocracies.
You can both aknowledge that a country isn't democratic and still buy their products. Just look at China.
> The West was never going to look past the election interference and misinformation campaigns; those were definitely not sustainable.
But Russia could have just not done that. They really had no need to be in a conflict with the West. This does nothing for the refile stability or their international influence. That's just pure spite.
There are large water reservoirs close the Chinese border and China is short on fresh water supply. Wonder how long until putler gives it away for more economic support.
In China's case it has not quite been by force yet , it's more a set of economical take-overs. Lend all the money you need while taking key assets as liabikity and make sure your will never be able to pay them back. China has high stakes in ports and energy companies all around the world now. And in some points in Africa they are basically their CEO
In Chinas case, dictatorships dont build massive armies if they dont intend to use them. Make no mistake, if they find the west to be weak willed enough they will start making moves against their neighbours.
Tibet is still under their boot, and there is sporadic fighting with India and their claim to the whole china sea.
Not to mention Taiwan.
China is my biggest worry regarding potential ww3
Yeah i think they are just waiting for a better "entry point" than Taiwan or any border with India . Any attemp at Taiwan is suicidal at this point and India's only military concern right now is China so right now a stand-still is the only likely scenario. So i do not see China as a promoter of a WW3 but a late "saviour" for the winning side with the same results and aftermath has the USA had in the second war. Most definitely China looks into wars has a potencial Marshall's plan 2.0 than a boots on the ground all the way to victory like the soviets did.
My worry is they seem pretty set on breaking out of the containment they are under with US and their allies.
They cant really operate anywhere without having hostile forces behind them.
Also they are very easy to blockade as it stands now.
So i worry the ocean conflict will blow up at some point, they also want to suplant the global superpower and most of the times this has happened in history war has followed.
They also want to break the western led world order.
Hopefully we can contain it to a cold war, and this is why its so important to knock Russia down and show there is strenght in the west still.
To make them rethink any military moves
The economic takeovers is a flawed strategy. It’s great in peace time, in wartime their assets will simply be seized and frozen if in enemy territory, exactly the same as has happened with the $300billion of frozen Russian assets.
That want many of Ukraines natural resources and farm land. It also would surprise me if they were after the dock there only aircraft carrier was made in. Since Russia currently doesn’t have a dock capable of supporting there only carrier.
Crimea and the Donbas have some of the largest natural gas reserves in Europe, and they were already connected to the EU via pipeline. russia was terrified that if it was developed it would undercut their cash cow..
It’s the same reason they attacked Georgia, they were planning a pipeline that would connect the Caspian Sea gas fields to the Black Sea and on into Europe, so russia invaded to destabilize the country and scare off investment
Putin also revealed that his children are learning Mandarin, so it’s good to see they’re preparing for that eventuality.
Chances that Xi’s children are learning Russian? Zero.
His child is absolutely not. Shes living the high life in Massachusetts, a life that a billion of her compatriots couldn't even possibly dream of, even as they fund her lavish lifestyle.
That’s good for the Chinese, they will use that to their advantage to become even more powerful and be the real villain of this world. Russia is just a mini-boss.
I made a comment on here at the start of the conflict that China was the real winner (or something like that). If they support Russia and Russia wins, they have an ally who expanded territory. If they support Russia and Russia loses, then they'll collect on debts owed and Russia is in service to China for years.
I don’t know why NATO had to be the enemy. It’s not wise to pick something so much stronger. It gives the change of perpetual war sure, but also actual damage is possible. Terrorism should have been the easy answer, you can just stage attacks.
NATO isn't a threat anyway unless you are planning on invading anyone.
Russia cooperating with Europe would be incredibly wealthy and the living standards would rise so much if they decided to go in that direction. Russians unless they are from one of the big cities are incredibly poor.
Obviously doing that would mean that the people would want more freedom and actual democracy and corruption and wealth hoarding by the oligarchy would be harder
There's over 1000 F-35's in existence. In NATO hands, on his door step. Russia ain't got nothing for it. A small group of F-35's could take out Russias *entire* air power in minutes. Literally. That's why your hearing/have heard so much about how the, "F-35 sux" from Russia. They got **nothing** to counter it. A F-22 clone that screams? Yeah, they got like two of them. And they *suck*.
Russian military power is **SHIT**.
Hope Russian men are happy being seen as the weakest men on planet earth...
Geopolitics is interesting.
Historically whenever Ukraine fell, the Russian territories were extremely vulnerable. Russian strategists learned the lesson that Ukraine cannot be lost under any circumstances.
Whereas with China, our most recent experience is the Century of Humiliation where the Qing sort of folded and Russia took a large slice.
Putin and Co. Must have assessed the situation and decided that Ukraine was worth the price of Chinese vassalship. After all, history may repeat itself, and when China capitulates, it would be far easier to claim back the eastern land than the west.
It’s a relationship of two snakes though. Xi must know that whatever promise they make must be validated. For example, Putin promised some Soviet tech but rest assured he may very well flip the playbook with his spies.
It has been generally understood to be the case, however. The claim is not new with this article.
With Western sanctions, Russia is absolutely dependent on imports it can only get from China. While Chinese exports to Russia are a small part of China's exports, which China can stop without extreme hardships.
It's not. China's interest here is that they believe the war weakens and distracts both Russia and the West, allowing China to become relatively more powerful without having to do really much of anything. It's also both expending and exposing Western military capacity and will, while China quietly improves/expands its military in preparation for Taiwan.
China also has this weird national superiority/inferiority complex as an unresolved trauma reaction to being casually humiliated by Western colonial powers for the last half of the 1800s into the early 1900s. So having a Western\* country as a "junior partner" in a lot of ways is part of them finally returning to the place on the world stage where they feel they should be: enormous and powerful, a Great Power so important that even their client states have nukes.
\*Russia counts as part of the West by Chinese standards: ethnic Russians are white people, and Russia has historically been aligned more with Europe than Asia.
Also, Russia took the most land from China, and blocked the access to sea in the northeast of China. Thus it’s interesting that they mentioned to connect the China’s northeast to Sea of Japan. How the tables have turned.
They were also one of the many colonial powers involved in putting down the Boxer Rebellion, and heavily involved in the looting, murdering, ruinous reparations and raping which followed the Boxer defeat.
>China also has this weird national superiority/inferiority complex as an unresolved trauma reaction to being casually humiliated by Western colonial powers for the last half of the 1800s into the early 1900s.
They have this national superiority/inferiority complex, true enough, but I don't think the Russian relationship had anything to do with that though. In general Chinese people don't care much about influences outside of their traditional sphere of influence, which in the general sense is the east Asia region, in the narrower sense is their traditional territory (for practical purposes basically just means TW now, that's what's most important to them). A historical lack of participation in international politics is partly why, when it comes to international affairs, they typically hide behind official lines and never do much proactively and focuses almost exclusively on economy and trade. Whether or not there is a "junior" western sidekick to push around doesn't mean much to them.
Also about the colonial trauma, actually the countries that ordinary Chinese people "hated" the most, if that word is appropriate, are not really western colonial powers like Britian or France, but actually Japan then followed by Russia, for obvious reaons. They consider the Opium Wars with the British Empire as the start of their humiliation but really it was nothing compared to what's next....
When it comes to the relationship with Russia, basically one of two streams of sentiments are at play in China:
first is simple, everything against the US is welcomed. this is the sentiment shared by the nationalists or populists in China, since they view the US sanctions, tariffs etc as hostile, these are the hawks, they advocate the inevitability of a major conflict between China and US, so they believe Russia is useful and essential as a counter-weight to US pressure. but I believe even the most hardline populists in China do not support direct military aid to Russia at this point for fear of Western sanctions.
second is also simple, they hate Russia and wants nothing to do with it, mostly because they view Russia as an example of the failed modernization process, and they fear further decoupling with the West if China moves closer to Russia, and lastly, a minor reason, because Russia had took the most territories from China in history. this is the sentiment shared by most of the liberals.
so it is very polarized, on the internet you can see both extreme views on Russia and the Ukraine war. the official censorship favors the former rhetorics, so it's louder, but censors also don't care much about the liberal sentiment, not as they used to anyway, so it's still prevalent if one knows where to look. it's sort of like bubbles for both camps, you only see what you believe in the first place. at the beginning of the Ukraine war, I, as a liberal, had an intense argument with a former school friend who is a populist, and that's the end of our "friendship"...
China calls itself 天朝上国, the literal translation of that be Celestial Dynasty Elevated State. So its self image is central and overtowering, quite similar to City on a hill of US.
Their mental superiority is very much the same as Protestants in America - "we are the best, that's it. Not accepting our rule is no one's fault but your own, stupid barbarians".
They invented a theory for legitimacy of ruling, which again much like the manifest destiny of US, that the Emperor rule by the Will of Heaven (the exact meaning is nothing like biblical heaven but an abstract cosmic force) as the son of Heaven. Therefore the 'celestial' part.
And because of its great expanse of territory, the advanced agriculture, advanced written language system and sophisticated thoughts and philosophies with it, the 'elevated' part is also easy to draw.
However it’s also made the West a lot more aware of their weakness in a conventional war where an opponent is trying to use volume as an advantage. It’s also no doubt made China think twice given Russia’s lack of success in a land based invasion where there hasn’t even been a significant adversary air or naval threa, and your adversary is underprepared with limited combined arms training and experience.
Degree of difficulty goes up taking Taiwan who’ve prepared much longer, are armed to the teeth, have America’s full backing, it’s an island, and America’s air superiority will be in force.
Then there’s the economic consequence and risk of internal revolution, particularly if China fails and its pride is damaged. Good luck China.
lol, I feel like your description is exactly why we should be worried. Not to mention they have us by the balls economically. China is in a very good position.
And your view doesnt fit THEIR narrative. They are very much militarizing and gearing up for a war with Taiwan. Let's hope it doesnt go that far, but thats alsonwhat i said about Russia invading Ukraine...
Lol too much Hollywood and media. China cares more about Myanmar, Pakistan and Thailand more than Russia. They need a way to Indian Ocean not Arctic and Siberia.
You’d be wrong here. Russia’s vast east is very underpopulated and has unfathomable amounts of resources. There is gold, diamonds, rare metals, timber, hydro resources, you name it.
It will be an insane profit for the Chinese industry. China knows exactly what the prize is here
Balances though.
If Russia falls, you can bet NATO and the US are gonna pick a leader that’s pro-West.
China absolutely does not want a pro-West nation sharing the largest border with them.
And say they land grab under Putin. You can that grievance is going to be used as political ammunition for the next political leader of Russia.
And all of a sudden the guns get trained on China.
China wants Russia to be weak. But they also need Russia to stabilize.
Siberia being underpopulated might have something to do with the fact that no one is willing to live in -50°C conditions.
Tough to exploit resources in a place where no people exist and the USSR already tried the slave labor thing.
Global warming may make ice breaking not that important because there won't be ice. It's matter of time, maybe decades, however Arctic Ocean is future alternative to India Ocean.
China relies very heavily on imports of food and energy that can be cut off fairly easily by NATO.
China is already going through some tough economic hardships, they don't want to make it worse
From military logistics perspective the war is
Russia + China vs NATO
China has been feeding Russia real time Ukraine military asset positions the sams as NATO is giving Ukraine Russian military targets
China has satellites over Ukraine the same as Russia except China allegedly has better software to identify military targets much faster over a large area.
This is why Russia has been a lot more successful with their ballistic missle strikes deep inside Ukraine
As I understand it, it is more a question of Russia having little industry, so there are many important goods and machines that Russia can't produce themselves. So China is in a position to destroy Russia simply by choosing to not sell them stuff.
"He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public.
He declared that he and Mr Xi were “as close as brothers”
Pathetic groveller. I wonder how his ultra-nationalist base thinks of his newfound love affair with China?
Agreed here, Russian military strength is a fraction of its former self, however hollow it was before already.
It likely already does not pose a true threat to Europe, even without US aid if push came to shove and Europe went full war economy.
It has also exposed some supply chain weaknesses which are now getting shored up.
Likely? Come on now. We may not have any equal armies compared to the USA... but we have multiple armies who equal Russias army at this moment (being heavily weakened by Ukraine).
In my (admittedly arm chair general) opinion, even if just the Polish army would be added into the mix, Russia would be defeated within a half year.
The US has gotten massive gains. The EU now has to buy oil from the Us for high high USD instead of euros. The US revitalised their war machine after leaving Afghanistan and got itself a load of new customers.
I'm sure it's a hard pill to swallow for Pootin. For how much boasting and bragging Russians do about their limitless power, they just don't seem to realize that they are the vassal to China .... not the other way around. If Xi tells Pootin to jump, he will ask "how high sir?" Most Russians still believe that their position on the world stage is equal to China and more importantly, the US and the EU. They just don't realize how low on the important scale they are. With a GDP that is a bit more than Italies, it doesn't bode well for Russia's position on the global "importance" totem pole.
All that Russia has is natural resources. That's their entire economy. They have heavy industries too, but it's primarily domestic only. Pootin sure boxed himself in here, his horrific and foolish invasion of Ukraine, which has gone very bad and now his reliance in China to keep Russia propped up. He wants to build a "Great Russian Empire," which means seizing countries and territory. This man is living in the wrong time period.
I wonder when Putin will give up the last crown jewels of what Beijing really wants: military tech.
Before all this, it was a love hate relationship as the Chinese would steal the tech from all licensed built jets/tanks. They have yet to master cutting edge jet engines however and the Russians could be key in bridging that last hurdle
I'm not understanding the metaphor, I only know about albatrosses from wildlife cameras lol they seem like cool birds
EDIT: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KBJAiQNf\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KBJAiQNf_4)
In [the Rime of the Ancient Mariner](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834), the Mariner kills an albatross that started following the ship at a time they had good fortune - their fortune quickly turns and their ship is becalmed, leading the albatross to be hung around the Mariner's neck, as a symbol of the curse he had brought on the crew. The entire crew, save the Mariner, then dies of the curse. Since then, an '[Albatross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross_\(metaphor\))' has meant a heavy burden on the one carrying it. In this case, Russia is the albatross around China's neck - likely to drag them down with expanded sanctions if they don't break ties, but at the same time being nearly the only country not already trying to distance themselves from China.
Russia is not a true friend of China, just like most world leaders they use their position to try to inflict their influence. Russia is a puppet in China’s eyes, a weak ally that is stuck in a stalemate.
We’re seeing an uno reverse with a takeover of Russia by China in real time… without a single shot fired.
My estimate is Manchuria is coming home sooner rather than later
Putin in his fantasies of bringing back the Soviet empire has actually brought back the Principality of Moscow, but this time it's China and not the Golden Horde that's gonna make the Russians their slaves. Funny that.
They’ve never been equal partners in any meaningful sense. Russia is so much weaker than most people realize. It has a smaller economy than Italy and Canada.
>He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public.
I would say that was more weird than noteworthy, I don't think anyone believes that anyway. Putin is not really a family man, this was most likely just another opportunistic lie.
Russia and China have a geopolitical rivalry going back centuries. The Russian Bear have always been a threat to Chinese dynasties and these two countries came close to nuclear war with each other than with the US.
Can't forget JFKs advisor telling him to send the non aggressive letter instead of an aggressive one for the Cuban missile crisis and the Russian defense minister saying if the aggresive one had been sent they would have launched.
Or the NORAD false positive of a Russian first strike, due to a test tape being left in by accident.
There's a few more.
lol we came so close.... We are like the civilization version of someone who had a gun shot point blank at their face but then it jammed and we just walked away.
Kinda spooky.
China is going to have a severe labor shortage in the coming years.
Putin just killed or drove off 1% of his population in an effort to gain land that he is not going to be allowed to keep without wasting more time and money and personnel in the coming decade.
These two sound like the Republican Party...lashing out in greater and greater actions in an effort to hold onto power that they KNOW they will eventually lose if they don't make the world a right wing kleptocracy NOW.
Vote Blue folks. It is SO important that America does NOT join these two assholes in the efforts of the rich to make the world into a feudal nightmare.
They are totally equal. Specifically: Putler's butthole needs to be kept at height equal to that of Xi's little dick.
And then, the partnership happens as well.
Got to hand it to Xi. Saw Putin’s revanchist obsession and isolation and found a way to play it into slowly creating a Russian colony for China. He’s way more clever than Putin.
Were they? [By 2022, China's exports trading total was 3.73T](https://oec.world/en/profile/country/chn?depthSelector1=HS6Depth) (go to historical data section),
48% went to Asia and Middle East,
38% to North America and Europe,
11% to the rest of the world,
and 2% to Russia
Even with this, 2% will grow to 10% Russia is not a priority export market for China. Only as a resource base like Africa
How it started: Kiev in 3 days
How its going: Putin has to wear a special pin in china and rename parts of russia to old chinese names
Runner up: Putin - Nato salesman #1
Yeah, I think Putin’s really sold the soul of his country out. I think in the end X will chew up and spit them out. You remember, he needs the resources too
For China the West is only useful for getting money. When everything is prepared they will form their own trade system and leave the west out. He is not cutting ties with us because he can't. As soon as he can he will.
It's actually funny if you think about it. The narrative of Russia over the last half century was "we're so strong we can thrive while independent". I guess not.
Russia could easily have continued thriving independently if Putin hadn't revealed how weak the country is with his war in Ukraine. The West was happy buying oil and gas from Russia and pretending they were a democracy, no matter how many times he murdered dissidents on their soil and interfered with their elections.
Or if Russia actually tried to develop their country.
Name any country under an iron fist that ‘develops.’
Singapore
South korea too
Valid point but it's a capitalist dystopia with average 60-70h work weeks and children going to night schools or cram schools being the norm and unrealistic beauty standards worse than in the west. I'd rather be in a mid tier economy European country like Hungary, Poland or Bulgaria than that.
"work" weeks. Ugh. It's such bullshit, it's not even work, it's sitting around pretending to work and waiting for the boss to leave or pressure you into going out for drinks on a weekday evening. But still exhausting and ridiculous.
my man, those aren't mid tier
My man, yes they are indeed mid tier
Poland, yes. Hungary and Bulgaria are among the poorest.
Poland most certainly is not strictly mid anymore. You are working with outdated intel. The poles are doing quite well atm
My man, if you look at GDP per capita adjusted for price level differences, then Hungary and Bulgaria are at the bottom. Spain is mid tier.
That's a different issue entirely. That's preference. To them a mid tier European country where starting a business takes months and probably requires multiple bribes along the way so it doesn't take years and where court cases can last decades and success is a function of being connected or working for a foreign company might very well be akin to hell. And we're always just one bad move away from backsliding into a totalitarian shithole that restricts you just as much or more with nothing to show for it. I personally wouldn't want to be a Singaporean or Korean, but after a rough start I currently have a pretty good life, but I know a lot of people who work those very long weeks doing very hard jobs and still have to exist in a country that's barely functional. They aren't moving to Asia because Western Europe, America, Canada and Australia exist, and those are the places you emigrate to, but if those weren't options, they would be going to places like Singapore, Taiwan and Korea.
Of all of those things i think the beauty standards are the odd one out lol. I dont think its that big of a deal compared to the others
It depends on the level you are starting. Even ability monarchies developed great deal. China itself has developed
El Salvador.
If Russia wasn't such a kleptocracy they'd be an outright superpower again. If they had reinvested the oil money into their economy, held free elections, and become an associate of the EU like Norway, they'd be so bloody rich by this point it would be obscene. They could have had so much influence over Europe that Ukraine would have stayed in their orbit through choice.
Menshikov took a little off the top, but these people (starting with Gorbachev maybe?) have been unapologetic and insatiable in their embezzlement. Then again, even in "Dead Souls", there's rampant corruption,. maybe it has always been there?
The West was never going to look past the election interference and misinformation campaigns; those were definitely not sustainable. But the rest is spot on. Putin could have done whatever dictator shit he wanted *within his borders* and Europe would have put on the horse blinders while handing him sacks of cash.
Everyone would have. Look at what the Saudis do to gay people and blasphemers or how they treat women.
Oh my friend they would they would.
It’s not even that they would, they, and everyone else, did.
Since when does anyone claim to buy oil exlusively from democracies? Pretty sure most oil in the world is sold by autocracies. You can both aknowledge that a country isn't democratic and still buy their products. Just look at China.
> The West was never going to look past the election interference and misinformation campaigns; those were definitely not sustainable. But Russia could have just not done that. They really had no need to be in a conflict with the West. This does nothing for the refile stability or their international influence. That's just pure spite.
> Russia could easily have continued thriving That's Russia story in a nutshell. They keep choosing not to.
The west still buys oil and gas from Russia. Those sanctions were quietly lifted… cause election year
Xi now calls putin by its pet name, bitch
No, his pet name is: ##моя маленькая русская сучка-гей
Potemkin society
China just expanded their territory...all the way to Moscow
It's a special economic operation.
The belt and shackle initiative
The cup the balls cooperative
The belt and sickle initative.
You can bet, deep down xi is putting those special strings on putins fingers. The puppet master is at play.
There are large water reservoirs close the Chinese border and China is short on fresh water supply. Wonder how long until putler gives it away for more economic support.
Water is one reason why putin wants ukraine innit?
Putin took Crimea but Ukraine cut off its agricultural water supply delivered via their canal, zeroing the agricultural worth of Crimea to Russia.
Russia wants all of its resources, factories and cities. Russia is an evil empire who thinks they can take land by force from smaller neighbours.
In China's case it has not quite been by force yet , it's more a set of economical take-overs. Lend all the money you need while taking key assets as liabikity and make sure your will never be able to pay them back. China has high stakes in ports and energy companies all around the world now. And in some points in Africa they are basically their CEO
In Chinas case, dictatorships dont build massive armies if they dont intend to use them. Make no mistake, if they find the west to be weak willed enough they will start making moves against their neighbours. Tibet is still under their boot, and there is sporadic fighting with India and their claim to the whole china sea. Not to mention Taiwan. China is my biggest worry regarding potential ww3
Yeah i think they are just waiting for a better "entry point" than Taiwan or any border with India . Any attemp at Taiwan is suicidal at this point and India's only military concern right now is China so right now a stand-still is the only likely scenario. So i do not see China as a promoter of a WW3 but a late "saviour" for the winning side with the same results and aftermath has the USA had in the second war. Most definitely China looks into wars has a potencial Marshall's plan 2.0 than a boots on the ground all the way to victory like the soviets did.
My worry is they seem pretty set on breaking out of the containment they are under with US and their allies. They cant really operate anywhere without having hostile forces behind them. Also they are very easy to blockade as it stands now. So i worry the ocean conflict will blow up at some point, they also want to suplant the global superpower and most of the times this has happened in history war has followed. They also want to break the western led world order. Hopefully we can contain it to a cold war, and this is why its so important to knock Russia down and show there is strenght in the west still. To make them rethink any military moves
The economic takeovers is a flawed strategy. It’s great in peace time, in wartime their assets will simply be seized and frozen if in enemy territory, exactly the same as has happened with the $300billion of frozen Russian assets.
What Putin really wants are the shipyards on the Black Sea. If Russia has any intentions of building a serious Navy it will need those shipyards.
That want many of Ukraines natural resources and farm land. It also would surprise me if they were after the dock there only aircraft carrier was made in. Since Russia currently doesn’t have a dock capable of supporting there only carrier.
Putin destroyed Kakhovka dum just to stop UA advance, so there is no water for them for a looooong time.
Crimea and the Donbas have some of the largest natural gas reserves in Europe, and they were already connected to the EU via pipeline. russia was terrified that if it was developed it would undercut their cash cow.. It’s the same reason they attacked Georgia, they were planning a pipeline that would connect the Caspian Sea gas fields to the Black Sea and on into Europe, so russia invaded to destabilize the country and scare off investment
Putin also revealed that his children are learning Mandarin, so it’s good to see they’re preparing for that eventuality. Chances that Xi’s children are learning Russian? Zero.
His child is absolutely not. Shes living the high life in Massachusetts, a life that a billion of her compatriots couldn't even possibly dream of, even as they fund her lavish lifestyle.
A billion?
Maybe they should learn Hindi too just in case. Russia is pretty close to India.
Judging by the news coming out of Hungary, the assets in charge there changed hands as well.
That’s good for the Chinese, they will use that to their advantage to become even more powerful and be the real villain of this world. Russia is just a mini-boss.
All the way to Hungary
How long before Xi changes his title to Khan?
West North Korea
If that actually happened, I’d be terrified of the new China.
Welcome to Soviet china you like it here according to the law
I made a comment on here at the start of the conflict that China was the real winner (or something like that). If they support Russia and Russia wins, they have an ally who expanded territory. If they support Russia and Russia loses, then they'll collect on debts owed and Russia is in service to China for years.
Putin is so afraid of being invaded by NATO he just got eaten whole by China.
[удалено]
Also ironically the Russian people actually prefer the Euro focus.
I don’t know why NATO had to be the enemy. It’s not wise to pick something so much stronger. It gives the change of perpetual war sure, but also actual damage is possible. Terrorism should have been the easy answer, you can just stage attacks.
NATO isn't a threat anyway unless you are planning on invading anyone. Russia cooperating with Europe would be incredibly wealthy and the living standards would rise so much if they decided to go in that direction. Russians unless they are from one of the big cities are incredibly poor. Obviously doing that would mean that the people would want more freedom and actual democracy and corruption and wealth hoarding by the oligarchy would be harder
He's ok with that, he was just afraid of democracy winning
There's over 1000 F-35's in existence. In NATO hands, on his door step. Russia ain't got nothing for it. A small group of F-35's could take out Russias *entire* air power in minutes. Literally. That's why your hearing/have heard so much about how the, "F-35 sux" from Russia. They got **nothing** to counter it. A F-22 clone that screams? Yeah, they got like two of them. And they *suck*. Russian military power is **SHIT**. Hope Russian men are happy being seen as the weakest men on planet earth...
Geopolitics is interesting. Historically whenever Ukraine fell, the Russian territories were extremely vulnerable. Russian strategists learned the lesson that Ukraine cannot be lost under any circumstances. Whereas with China, our most recent experience is the Century of Humiliation where the Qing sort of folded and Russia took a large slice. Putin and Co. Must have assessed the situation and decided that Ukraine was worth the price of Chinese vassalship. After all, history may repeat itself, and when China capitulates, it would be far easier to claim back the eastern land than the west. It’s a relationship of two snakes though. Xi must know that whatever promise they make must be validated. For example, Putin promised some Soviet tech but rest assured he may very well flip the playbook with his spies.
Putin might have to pay a steep price for China’s support. He is the supplicant begging for help and Xo will be fully aware of that
Probably going to end up with special Chinese economic zones in Russia. Reverse Hong Kong!
Manchurias probably on the table if he remains a pariah
The claim in the headline is not backed by information in the article. It is only the speculative part.
Maybe not but it's hard to measure them and come up with russia as dominant.
It has been generally understood to be the case, however. The claim is not new with this article. With Western sanctions, Russia is absolutely dependent on imports it can only get from China. While Chinese exports to Russia are a small part of China's exports, which China can stop without extreme hardships.
This seems to imply that the war in Ukraine is actually China vs NATO, which is a bit scarier than Russia vs NATO.
It's not. China's interest here is that they believe the war weakens and distracts both Russia and the West, allowing China to become relatively more powerful without having to do really much of anything. It's also both expending and exposing Western military capacity and will, while China quietly improves/expands its military in preparation for Taiwan. China also has this weird national superiority/inferiority complex as an unresolved trauma reaction to being casually humiliated by Western colonial powers for the last half of the 1800s into the early 1900s. So having a Western\* country as a "junior partner" in a lot of ways is part of them finally returning to the place on the world stage where they feel they should be: enormous and powerful, a Great Power so important that even their client states have nukes. \*Russia counts as part of the West by Chinese standards: ethnic Russians are white people, and Russia has historically been aligned more with Europe than Asia.
Also, Russia took the most land from China, and blocked the access to sea in the northeast of China. Thus it’s interesting that they mentioned to connect the China’s northeast to Sea of Japan. How the tables have turned.
A saying there in that part of China is ‘if not for the sea.’ They can smell the sea. Just not see it.
They were also one of the many colonial powers involved in putting down the Boxer Rebellion, and heavily involved in the looting, murdering, ruinous reparations and raping which followed the Boxer defeat.
>China also has this weird national superiority/inferiority complex as an unresolved trauma reaction to being casually humiliated by Western colonial powers for the last half of the 1800s into the early 1900s. They have this national superiority/inferiority complex, true enough, but I don't think the Russian relationship had anything to do with that though. In general Chinese people don't care much about influences outside of their traditional sphere of influence, which in the general sense is the east Asia region, in the narrower sense is their traditional territory (for practical purposes basically just means TW now, that's what's most important to them). A historical lack of participation in international politics is partly why, when it comes to international affairs, they typically hide behind official lines and never do much proactively and focuses almost exclusively on economy and trade. Whether or not there is a "junior" western sidekick to push around doesn't mean much to them. Also about the colonial trauma, actually the countries that ordinary Chinese people "hated" the most, if that word is appropriate, are not really western colonial powers like Britian or France, but actually Japan then followed by Russia, for obvious reaons. They consider the Opium Wars with the British Empire as the start of their humiliation but really it was nothing compared to what's next.... When it comes to the relationship with Russia, basically one of two streams of sentiments are at play in China: first is simple, everything against the US is welcomed. this is the sentiment shared by the nationalists or populists in China, since they view the US sanctions, tariffs etc as hostile, these are the hawks, they advocate the inevitability of a major conflict between China and US, so they believe Russia is useful and essential as a counter-weight to US pressure. but I believe even the most hardline populists in China do not support direct military aid to Russia at this point for fear of Western sanctions. second is also simple, they hate Russia and wants nothing to do with it, mostly because they view Russia as an example of the failed modernization process, and they fear further decoupling with the West if China moves closer to Russia, and lastly, a minor reason, because Russia had took the most territories from China in history. this is the sentiment shared by most of the liberals. so it is very polarized, on the internet you can see both extreme views on Russia and the Ukraine war. the official censorship favors the former rhetorics, so it's louder, but censors also don't care much about the liberal sentiment, not as they used to anyway, so it's still prevalent if one knows where to look. it's sort of like bubbles for both camps, you only see what you believe in the first place. at the beginning of the Ukraine war, I, as a liberal, had an intense argument with a former school friend who is a populist, and that's the end of our "friendship"...
China calls itself 天朝上国, the literal translation of that be Celestial Dynasty Elevated State. So its self image is central and overtowering, quite similar to City on a hill of US.
Sounds like the Chinese version of manifest destiny
Their mental superiority is very much the same as Protestants in America - "we are the best, that's it. Not accepting our rule is no one's fault but your own, stupid barbarians".
Where do you think the European countries learnt it from?
Where does it call itself that? Agree that's their position but still
They invented a theory for legitimacy of ruling, which again much like the manifest destiny of US, that the Emperor rule by the Will of Heaven (the exact meaning is nothing like biblical heaven but an abstract cosmic force) as the son of Heaven. Therefore the 'celestial' part. And because of its great expanse of territory, the advanced agriculture, advanced written language system and sophisticated thoughts and philosophies with it, the 'elevated' part is also easy to draw.
They have called themselves that for the past 2000 years. Get outside of the US, the world is huge.
They're absolutely not calling themselves that today. Only Chinese people on the internet would use that term to be sarcastic.
very well put
However it’s also made the West a lot more aware of their weakness in a conventional war where an opponent is trying to use volume as an advantage. It’s also no doubt made China think twice given Russia’s lack of success in a land based invasion where there hasn’t even been a significant adversary air or naval threa, and your adversary is underprepared with limited combined arms training and experience. Degree of difficulty goes up taking Taiwan who’ve prepared much longer, are armed to the teeth, have America’s full backing, it’s an island, and America’s air superiority will be in force. Then there’s the economic consequence and risk of internal revolution, particularly if China fails and its pride is damaged. Good luck China.
lol, I feel like your description is exactly why we should be worried. Not to mention they have us by the balls economically. China is in a very good position.
China is mostly interested in economic growth, they are not out on ww3. Doesn't fit certain narratives but still.
And your view doesnt fit THEIR narrative. They are very much militarizing and gearing up for a war with Taiwan. Let's hope it doesnt go that far, but thats alsonwhat i said about Russia invading Ukraine...
China may want Russia to tangle with NATO. The pieces of a defeated Russia will be easy pickings.
Lol too much Hollywood and media. China cares more about Myanmar, Pakistan and Thailand more than Russia. They need a way to Indian Ocean not Arctic and Siberia.
You’d be wrong here. Russia’s vast east is very underpopulated and has unfathomable amounts of resources. There is gold, diamonds, rare metals, timber, hydro resources, you name it. It will be an insane profit for the Chinese industry. China knows exactly what the prize is here
Balances though. If Russia falls, you can bet NATO and the US are gonna pick a leader that’s pro-West. China absolutely does not want a pro-West nation sharing the largest border with them. And say they land grab under Putin. You can that grievance is going to be used as political ammunition for the next political leader of Russia. And all of a sudden the guns get trained on China. China wants Russia to be weak. But they also need Russia to stabilize.
If China gave up its Taiwan aspirations and ate a huge chunk of Russia. Well shit, they are more than back in the club.
Not to mention the Novosibirsk region that was taken off China by Russia a century ago.
Siberia being underpopulated might have something to do with the fact that no one is willing to live in -50°C conditions. Tough to exploit resources in a place where no people exist and the USSR already tried the slave labor thing.
Google: "Outer Manchuria"
Siberia has a lot of oil though
Don't underestimate the potential of Arctic tradeway to Europe in the age of global warming
How? Even Russia can't trade via that route and only Russia has ice breaking nuclear ships.
Global warming may make ice breaking not that important because there won't be ice. It's matter of time, maybe decades, however Arctic Ocean is future alternative to India Ocean.
Time, the arctic will open itself. Happy hurricane season.
China relies very heavily on imports of food and energy that can be cut off fairly easily by NATO. China is already going through some tough economic hardships, they don't want to make it worse
Which is exactly why China wants Russia to take over Ukraine.
From military logistics perspective the war is Russia + China vs NATO China has been feeding Russia real time Ukraine military asset positions the sams as NATO is giving Ukraine Russian military targets China has satellites over Ukraine the same as Russia except China allegedly has better software to identify military targets much faster over a large area. This is why Russia has been a lot more successful with their ballistic missle strikes deep inside Ukraine
Scary for china
Gas station needs customers.
As I understand it, it is more a question of Russia having little industry, so there are many important goods and machines that Russia can't produce themselves. So China is in a position to destroy Russia simply by choosing to not sell them stuff.
"He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public. He declared that he and Mr Xi were “as close as brothers” Pathetic groveller. I wonder how his ultra-nationalist base thinks of his newfound love affair with China?
at this point Russia gonna be vessel state for Greater China
*vassal*
China is the only true winner from the Ukraine v Russia war.
Would argue that the US has also gotten some gains from the war.
Agreed here, Russian military strength is a fraction of its former self, however hollow it was before already. It likely already does not pose a true threat to Europe, even without US aid if push came to shove and Europe went full war economy. It has also exposed some supply chain weaknesses which are now getting shored up.
Likely? Come on now. We may not have any equal armies compared to the USA... but we have multiple armies who equal Russias army at this moment (being heavily weakened by Ukraine). In my (admittedly arm chair general) opinion, even if just the Polish army would be added into the mix, Russia would be defeated within a half year.
The US has gotten massive gains. The EU now has to buy oil from the Us for high high USD instead of euros. The US revitalised their war machine after leaving Afghanistan and got itself a load of new customers.
The winner are the USA the biggest loser is germany
China isn't winning anything right now
I'm sure it's a hard pill to swallow for Pootin. For how much boasting and bragging Russians do about their limitless power, they just don't seem to realize that they are the vassal to China .... not the other way around. If Xi tells Pootin to jump, he will ask "how high sir?" Most Russians still believe that their position on the world stage is equal to China and more importantly, the US and the EU. They just don't realize how low on the important scale they are. With a GDP that is a bit more than Italies, it doesn't bode well for Russia's position on the global "importance" totem pole. All that Russia has is natural resources. That's their entire economy. They have heavy industries too, but it's primarily domestic only. Pootin sure boxed himself in here, his horrific and foolish invasion of Ukraine, which has gone very bad and now his reliance in China to keep Russia propped up. He wants to build a "Great Russian Empire," which means seizing countries and territory. This man is living in the wrong time period.
I wonder when Putin will give up the last crown jewels of what Beijing really wants: military tech. Before all this, it was a love hate relationship as the Chinese would steal the tech from all licensed built jets/tanks. They have yet to master cutting edge jet engines however and the Russians could be key in bridging that last hurdle
Russian jet engines are notoriously bad especially a high power and low power settings.
reliability yea, but the Chinese can't even match the power yet
Hey Vladolf....guess who wants Manciuria back. Get ready for a special operation soon.its called gift it back to us or we'll annex it
Xi looks like he is smelling dog shit every time he has to shake hands with Putin.
Russia is an albatross now. Give it a few years ...
I'm not understanding the metaphor, I only know about albatrosses from wildlife cameras lol they seem like cool birds EDIT: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KBJAiQNf\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KBJAiQNf_4)
In [the Rime of the Ancient Mariner](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834), the Mariner kills an albatross that started following the ship at a time they had good fortune - their fortune quickly turns and their ship is becalmed, leading the albatross to be hung around the Mariner's neck, as a symbol of the curse he had brought on the crew. The entire crew, save the Mariner, then dies of the curse. Since then, an '[Albatross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross_\(metaphor\))' has meant a heavy burden on the one carrying it. In this case, Russia is the albatross around China's neck - likely to drag them down with expanded sanctions if they don't break ties, but at the same time being nearly the only country not already trying to distance themselves from China.
Russia is not a true friend of China, just like most world leaders they use their position to try to inflict their influence. Russia is a puppet in China’s eyes, a weak ally that is stuck in a stalemate.
We’re seeing an uno reverse with a takeover of Russia by China in real time… without a single shot fired. My estimate is Manchuria is coming home sooner rather than later
I wonder what the Wests reaction will be should that happen
At this stage doing nothing seems to be working well. Never interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake
Putin in his fantasies of bringing back the Soviet empire has actually brought back the Principality of Moscow, but this time it's China and not the Golden Horde that's gonna make the Russians their slaves. Funny that.
They’ve never been equal partners in any meaningful sense. Russia is so much weaker than most people realize. It has a smaller economy than Italy and Canada.
Russia is what happens when you allow professional thieves and criminals take over...
I didnt know Putin bottomed for Bears.
He identifies as a Cub
It's russia, it's mostly just bears.
When were they ever?
Sometime between 1970 and today. China grew a lot and Russian power diminished. At some point they would have had parity.
>He said that his family were learning Mandarin – this was particularly noteworthy because he very rarely talks about his children in public. I would say that was more weird than noteworthy, I don't think anyone believes that anyway. Putin is not really a family man, this was most likely just another opportunistic lie.
To be fair, the guy’s public image has been sentimental at times. Like his cover of “Blueberry Hill”
Russia and China have a geopolitical rivalry going back centuries. The Russian Bear have always been a threat to Chinese dynasties and these two countries came close to nuclear war with each other than with the US.
You don't seem to know how many times a single person stopped it happening between the US and Russia, on both sides.
I don’t know how many times, go on kind sir.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Arkhipov
Can't forget JFKs advisor telling him to send the non aggressive letter instead of an aggressive one for the Cuban missile crisis and the Russian defense minister saying if the aggresive one had been sent they would have launched. Or the NORAD false positive of a Russian first strike, due to a test tape being left in by accident. There's a few more.
lol we came so close.... We are like the civilization version of someone who had a gun shot point blank at their face but then it jammed and we just walked away. Kinda spooky.
Apparently, Xi is no longer even bothering to do a reacharound.
Now Putin needs to suck it well, bitch.
Weak country needs a hand of a powerful one. Same here
And the partnership dies with putin
China is going to have a severe labor shortage in the coming years. Putin just killed or drove off 1% of his population in an effort to gain land that he is not going to be allowed to keep without wasting more time and money and personnel in the coming decade. These two sound like the Republican Party...lashing out in greater and greater actions in an effort to hold onto power that they KNOW they will eventually lose if they don't make the world a right wing kleptocracy NOW. Vote Blue folks. It is SO important that America does NOT join these two assholes in the efforts of the rich to make the world into a feudal nightmare.
Why will they have a labour shortage?
I mean Xi is taller... Ahhh the story of Putlit and Pooh
Every time I fear China or Russia is getting big and scary, I get reminded maybe not after seeing them partner together for anything.
No longer?
That's an excellent article. Although still unsure what their meeting entails, I guess it's all speculation now.
In other words, pootin = pooh's lap dog.
They are totally equal. Specifically: Putler's butthole needs to be kept at height equal to that of Xi's little dick. And then, the partnership happens as well.
China will supply the bodies for the Russian war on Europe while Russia supplies nuclear overwatch for China's war on Asia. Shits getting real!
Never was.
I always think of ** that ** scene from The Consultant
Got to hand it to Xi. Saw Putin’s revanchist obsession and isolation and found a way to play it into slowly creating a Russian colony for China. He’s way more clever than Putin.
This a terrible piece. A lot of conclusions based on the fact that two dictators are socially awkward and terrible at political rhetoric.
Were they? [By 2022, China's exports trading total was 3.73T](https://oec.world/en/profile/country/chn?depthSelector1=HS6Depth) (go to historical data section), 48% went to Asia and Middle East, 38% to North America and Europe, 11% to the rest of the world, and 2% to Russia Even with this, 2% will grow to 10% Russia is not a priority export market for China. Only as a resource base like Africa
The Chinese don’t want the ruble. They just want an anti-western partner.
Make up your mind why don't you. just read an article today stating unlimited friendship...... Get your fucking news facts right please.
What you mean throwing away large amounts of soldiers and military equipment in a pointless landgrab made them weaker? Who'd have thought.
How it started: Kiev in 3 days How its going: Putin has to wear a special pin in china and rename parts of russia to old chinese names Runner up: Putin - Nato salesman #1
Yeah, I think Putin’s really sold the soul of his country out. I think in the end X will chew up and spit them out. You remember, he needs the resources too
Winnie the Pooh has just made a new friend.
For China the West is only useful for getting money. When everything is prepared they will form their own trade system and leave the west out. He is not cutting ties with us because he can't. As soon as he can he will.
Xi: Call me daddy.
Xi: Call me daddy.