re: #147 ckkatz

Richard Engle tweeted a NYT article about this earlier today.

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My guess is that China is using Russia to see if the US is in retreat. Which would allow China to grab up portions of Asia, such as Taiwan, without risk.

From the article:

The Biden administration plans to build up global coalitions to counter a pact between Vladimir V. Putin and Xi Jinping, portending a new type of Cold War.

nytimes.com

Yeah, the long and short of it is that Beijing is likely to take advantage of any damage done to the Russian economy to feather their own nest, but this is not the beginning of a new Russo-Sino Alliance. They’ll happily buy up Russian oil and gas while it’s cheap, and they might provide some materiel help, but they’re not going to help Moscow defy any economic sanctions or launder their money through Chinese banks.