Ukraine is just the most obvious example currently. The biggest issue is how the US navy controls all shipping routes outside of the 1IC. There is nothing that China can reasonably do to stop shipment of hardware to Australia, for example. In the end, it's American gear being expended to kill America's enemies.
Ukraine is under existential threat, they don't have a choice. Like Palestine. I don't characterise Palestine as a Chinese proxy that is willing to lay down 100% of their lives for the cause, because they don't have any alternatives.
What covert and overt actions? As far as I've seen, China isn't even willing to punish Ukraine for the Motor Sichs backstab, nor their involvement in the HK riots. What was the response when high level officials called Chinese of "low intellectual potential"?
Well what more do you want than seeing millions of Ukrainians die, flee, have everything they've built up captured or destroyed, which will effectively end their attempt at nationhood?
I don't see how China can do more without committing crimes against humanity.
The Euros are placing second hand sanctions on Chinese companies and banks. Just recently, China banned all export of consumer drones that can be used for military purposes.
It's a real problem that they need to stem the tide through 3rd parties to Ukraine, which has become an insane problem, resold Chinese hardware is killing a ton of people on both sides. If hardware can only go to Russia, it would severely hamper Ukrainian defenses.
Meanwhile, Russia has the balls to send Wagner to support military coups in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso to overthrow pro-West governments.
Who enables Russia to do that, and who coordinates with Russia to move in all their stuff to start extracting resources once the west gets kicked out?
We all know the meme of Xi doing nothing and winning.
Do you really think Xi unironically does nothing? US talks more, but how much have they impacted the living standards or industrial power of China? And vice versa?
US is spamming punches that do little to nothing, like sanctions on products widely available in China, bans on politicians to travel to US, or however many millions to spread misinfo. While nearly every hook China throws out has devastating consequences for living standards in the west, causing dropping wages, recession, whole countries lost to western resource extraction etc.
It's insane to me that anyone would unironically think China did nothing. The world's premier power was simply granted to China by the heavens?
