The War in the Ukraine

xypher said:

It's not. China actually benefits more from continued war, unlike the West.

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Thats true if it means more cheap Russia gas, and more time for China to prepare for Taiwan with a preoccupied NATO on Russia.

But in reality, defeating Russia is part of NATO's long term strategy towards China. China's plan for Russia, where the latter becomes a "junior partner" can happen without the Ukrainian war that will leave Russia weakened, humbled, and NATO alliance further consolidated.

And China obviously understands that a significantly weakened Russia is inconsistent with its own long term interests as it negatively impacts US - India - Russia relationship, China - EU relationship, etc... For the US, Russia must be defeated; removed from Ukraine's south. It's military humbled, economy in shambles. After that US and allies will turn its full focus on Asia.

Petrolicious88 said:

Thats true if it means more cheap Russia gas, and more time for China to prepare for Taiwan with a preoccupied NATO on Russia.

But in reality, defeating Russia is part of NATO's long term strategy towards China. China's plan for Russia, where the latter becomes a "junior partner" can happen without the Ukrainian war that will leave Russia weakened, humbled, and NATO alliance further consolidated.

And China obviously understands that a significantly weakened Russia is inconsistent with its own long term interests as it negatively impacts US - India - Russia relationship, China - EU relationship, etc... For the US, Russia must be defeated; removed from Ukraine's south. It's military humbled, economy in shambles. After that US and allies will then turn its full focus on Asia.

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It is not about cheap Russian gas, it is about keeping the inflationary pressure on Western economies - in addition to the debt-driven fire they started themselves, the energy prices are also piling on top. Moreover, Europe is currently deindustrializing with power hungry manufacturing fleeing to the US and China, which will further weaken them. It is essentially a win-win - prolonged war leads to both weakened Europe and Russia, the former will diminish as a threat due to increased unrest caused by the deep recession that is looming over Europe while the latter will be more and more dependent on China because they burned bridges with the West & also sustained economic damage. Russia's value to China won't increase or diminish based on the outcomes of war - they will still hold the nuclear arsenal and they will still sell energy, so it literally does not matter.

xypher said:

It's not. China actually benefits more from continued war, unlike the West.

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Russia winning slowly or quickly is in both China's interests but Russia losing isn't. Russia being defeated leads to NATO turning their entire attention to the Pacific or a regime change into a puppet that opens their airspace to NATO overflight.

The best case scenario for China is Russia becomes something like a nuclear armed and more independent Canada, but with aligned economic and foreign policies with China. Most of all, Russia guaranteeing that their airspace will be closed to foreign incursion, and that their markets remain open from political interference, is important. Russia winning in Ukraine slowly or quickly doesn't matter for that, only losing does.

I think it’s safe to assume that everything is okay for Russia


Also China should only have little interest in supporting Putin or even getting dragged into this mess.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Russia winning slowly or quickly is in both China's interests but Russia losing isn't. Russia being defeated leads to NATO turning their entire attention to the Pacific or a regime change into a puppet that opens their airspace to NATO overflight.

The best case scenario for China is Russia becomes something like a nuclear armed and more independent Canada, but with aligned economic and foreign policies with China. Most of all, Russia guaranteeing that their airspace will be closed to foreign incursion, and that their markets remain open from political interference, is important. Russia winning in Ukraine slowly or quickly doesn't matter for that, only losing does.

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You can't conventionally defeat a nuclear power... the moment you threaten its core territories, it is either MAD or you get whatever you can salvage which won't be much since the West expended most of its leverages on sanctions. Chance of a puppet regime is also very low because there are no suitable candidates to prop that way for the West, even their pet Navalny was in the "Crimea is ours" camp.

xypher said:

You can't conventionally defeat a nuclear power... the moment you threaten its core territories, it is either MAD or you get whatever you can salvage which won't be much since the West expended most of its leverages on sanctions. Chance of a puppet regime is also very low because there are no suitable candidates to prop that way for the West, even their pet Navalny was in the "Crimea is ours" camp.

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After seeing Gorbachev and the weakness of Putin's resolve, Chinese confidence in Russian political toughness is not high. No candidate now doesn't mean none in the future. The worst case scenario is Russia being puppetized and opening their airspace for foreign air forces to pass through like Saudi Arabia did against Iraq.

xypher said:

It is not about cheap Russian gas, it is about keeping the inflationary pressure on Western economies - in addition to the debt-driven fire they started themselves, the energy prices are also piling on top. Moreover, Europe is currently deindustrializing with power hungry manufacturing fleeing to the US and China, which will further weaken them. It is essentially a win-win - prolonged war leads to both weakened Europe and Russia, the former will diminish as a threat due to increased unrest caused by the deep recession that is looming over Europe while the latter will be more and more dependent on China because they burned bridges with the West & also sustained economic damage. Russia's value to China won't increase or diminish based on the outcomes of war - they will still hold the nuclear arsenal and they will still sell energy, so it literally does not matter.

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Any result in which Russia remains opposed to the west is positive for China. The only danger of a prolonged war and Russia losing is that a pro US regime might be installed in Moscow. The territory of Ukraine makes little difference to the power of the west and the Ukrainian workforce is already emigrating to the EU, which will slightly reduce the speed of deindustrialisation. Ending the war as soon as possible, no matter what the final borders are, without humiliating Putin is in the interest of China. Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and a lack of heating this winter in Ukraine will do severe damage to Ukraine, but its economy was never large anyway

Is difficult to follow what is going on.

At the end of the day all will depend who Army is exhausting themselves more.

Is A: The Ukranians are grinding their whole army to conquer a few kilometers.
or B: Is the Russians who are grinding themselves more to protect a few kilometers.

I think anyone that thinks China's neutrality in this conflict is beneficial to them is correct (at least in the short term). But we cannot forget that the rest of the world is watching this conflict with interest and seeing how the US helps a country that is not even a very close partner and how China helps one of its closest partners. If China really wants to take on the West (or survive their attacks), it's going to need more allies, and if it don't helps Russia in any form, it shows the global south that it can't be a reliable partner.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Russia winning slowly or quickly is in both China's interests but Russia losing isn't. Russia being defeated leads to NATO turning their entire attention to the Pacific or a regime change into a puppet that opens their airspace to NATO overflight.

The best case scenario for China is Russia becomes something like a nuclear armed and more independent Canada, but with aligned economic and foreign policies with China. Most of all, Russia guaranteeing that their airspace will be closed to foreign incursion, and that their markets remain open from political interference, is important. Russia winning in Ukraine slowly or quickly doesn't matter for that, only losing does.

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Russia is a major nuclear power, arguably with even more openly declared nukes than even China. That means they have hostage taking power over the world or at least the whole west.

Yes, Russia will lose heavily in reputation, but they will not be couped or lose any core territory. Anymore than US was couped after Korea or Vietnam.

If Russia is defeated, they will go back to Feb 24 borders, declare that Ukraine has already been "de nazified" and threaten to attack with the full Russian army + tactical nukes if Ukraine dares to cross the Feb 24 borders.

Perhaps given how badly the Putin/Yeltsin successor government has handled the question of modernization in the Russian economy, a shake up against United Russia is in Chinese interests. China needs strong allies, not stagnating countries with Western levels of corruption and horrible procurement issues.

Maybe an Ukraine leaning ceasefire can bring about the pressure needed to revive the communists. In order to kickstart the exporting of social revolution again, a retreat to Feb 24 for Russia is a small price to pay. The question is, is the CPC ready to take on an international organizational role?