Why China Isn't Helping Russia: A Tale of Sovereignty, Geopolitical Jockeying, and Money - Wm Spaniel

[TexasTowelie]

In March 2023, Xi Jinping visited Moscow for a historic summit with Vladimir Putin. Many thought this would usher in a new era of military cooperation between the countries. Instead, Russia received no clear promises of military assistance. What happened? The answers perhaps lie in a complicated problem with Taiwan, political jockeying within their own relationship, and money. It is always the money.

0:00 China's Summit with Russia
1:32 Sovereignty, Ukraine, and Taiwan
4:39 Strengthening Russia to Hurt the West
7:32 Politically Manipulating the West
9:51 Russia-China Coalitional Conflict
11:51 China and Economic Growth
16:30 Have Sanctions Become Permanent?
20:26 Will Things Change?
21:56 Solutions to #wheresputin

[Warpy]

1. They aren't helping Russia much because there isn't much in it for China

My guess the major help is the protracted sabre rattling over Taiwan, a fight Xi knows they're unprepared to fight right now. It's a ploy to distract the big, bad US away from supplying Ukraine while making China's navy more ready, no downsides there.

The war they are prepared to fight is the one against a Russia that is weakened by sanctions and bloody and battered from banging their heads into the brick wall known as Ukraine. They want their own "historical territory" back, and that means Upper Manchuria, including Russia's main Pacific port of Vladivostok.

So while the potential for some trigger happy yahoo on either side to cause an incident is there, at this point I don't think China will kick up too much of a fuss once their ships run low on diesel and return to port. I hope I'm right about that one.

[Irish_Dem]

3. China's major goals are its economy, global power, and Taiwan.

Everything is seen through that lens.

Russia is an important ally in that quest.
Russia takes the west, China the east.

They spent decades weakening western democracies.
And now they are moving forward.

Russia's invasion was a major set back for China.
But this will never stop China. Just delay it.

China is probably walking a tightrope now.
On the one hand it wants to keep Putin in power.
On the other hand it does not want the war to go on indefinitely and erode China's reputation.
And sap its resources helping Russia.

[Warpy]

4. Russia has been exposed as a paper bear

I agree with your statement of their goals, but their economy keeps running into trouble, their military isn't ready to bully all of Asia, let alone the whole planet, and until they fix these two things, they're not ready to take on Taiwan.

Now fighting a short but really nasty war with a depleted power like Russia could fix a lot of their woes, it's sparsely inhabited land with massive timber, oil, gas, and mineral deposits, which is what China needs to secure more economic growth and supply its military with energy and raw materials.

Other leaders of the PRC have played the long game with Taiwan, knowing that as soon as they can offer them a better deal than the west can, Taiwan will willingly rejoin the mainland. Xi is an impatient man, like most authoritarians. It all depends what his general say is the better bet, a war against a weak country to regain a huge amount of stolen land or a long and very costly war against a large and wealthy island with a lot of larger and wealthier allies.

Or I could be answering "the cube root of 64" when somebody asks me to add 2+2.

[Irish_Dem]

6. I was just talking about China's vision, goals and relationship with Russia.

I didn't get into the domestic reality.

Yes they are experiencing a great deal of economic problems.
Their municipal debt burden and low consumer purchasing is a big problem.
Merging socialism with capitalism is not a walk in the park like Xi thought it would be.

I do think China might have been able to take Taiwan if they could have done it quickly.
Take over communications, kill all leaders, take the airport, but the Chinese flag on the capital building.
There are enough Chinese puppets in Taipei, it would have been civil war. Half the country fighting
for China.

But Putin ended those plans with a big dose of reality.

China is building an extremely large military, but is untested.

I just don't see Xi taking on Putin right now. Xi cannot afford to have a pro western, pro peace
replacement. So I don't see him going to war with Russia for the time being. But Putin is going
to owe Xi big time, so maybe something will be worked out behind the scenes.

Yes I agree, the Chinese plan is most likely to buy Taiwan off. And get it that way.

Xi is a mixed bag, the Chinese play the long game. But the clock is ticking on him personally and he
wants a legacy like Putin does. Which may make him impetuous. Also like all fascist rulers they
are surrounded by yes men, so get tunnel vision and lack reality based information.

I think our discussion and thoughts are legitimate ideas.
100% guaranteed that folks in the state dept and pentagon are having the same talks.
Of course they have access to classified intel, we are just spit balling it.

[Irish_Dem]

2. Good analysis.

Thanks for posting.

[TexasTowelie]

5. You're welcome.

The creator of the video is not a prolific producer of videos, but every video that he produces has been top notch in my opinion.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Yes I totally agree.

He is an amazing talent, very accurate and able to distill information into salient, understandable sound bites.