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© Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Russia, China show off ties amid maneuvering over Ukraine
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52 Comments
JeffLee
Welcome to Cold War 2.0. Anti-globalists like me saw this coming many years ago.
Sadly, communist China - having absorbed all that Western and Japanese technology handed to them for free by our globalism-loving "multinational" corporations - is set to become the world's dominant economic power. This is not going to end nicely, especially if you live in Taiwan.
dagon
Which is why they are not communist and jailing student socialists speaking out against inequality now in China.
https://www.ft.com/content/fd087484-2f23-11e9-8744-e7016697f225
They owe much more to a neo-liberal technocratic vision formed in Singapore.
https://thediplomat.com/2015/03/lee-kuan-yew-the-father-of-modern-china/
And like the former Soviet Union's modern oligarchic capitalism is much more aggressive and dangerous.
Moonraker
Mr Putin, meet your new overlords.
stormcrow
That figures!
Dictators- R- Us
Michael Machida
They make a handsome couple of nuts.
Superlib
China is looking forward to having Russia under its thumb.
quercetum
China will present its Ukraine peace plan, which will include a ceasefire and halt of arms supplies from the west to Ukraine; Ukraine and the US will reject the Chinese peace proposal out of hand. The EU will remain silent.
UChosePoorly
quercetum - because we are not going to stop supporting Ukraine from being able to defend herself against invaders. Russia needs to leave all occupied Ukrainian territory.
quercetum
Right and because China’s peace plan has been rejected by the US and Ukraine, China might see this as the excuse it needs to supply arms to Russia. China will not make a big announcement or lots of noise about it, but this will happen quietly. Bliken and Biden will make lots of noise about it. The Russians will be quiet about it.
Russia survived economically almost unscathed because of Europe bungled big time and needed Gas and Oil in huge quantities for 9 months of the year. China gave a yuan buttress and trade structure to Russia and kept a massive line of materials coming into Eastern Russia by land routes. I suspect those materials will include arms.
UChosePoorly
Do you think China wants to be sanctioned by the west? I'm guessing no.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_China
Madverts
Both despotic regimes play the whiney victims...
But only Putinistan is so weak and foolish to see Chinese designs on seizing all of Russian territory some point soon.
Let's not forget Soviet Russia was happy to deal up Europe with Adolf Hitler before he turned on them.
deanzaZZR
Perhaps China should fight for its "historic frontiers" in Siberia and Sakhalin that Czarist Russia now occupies. Repeat for pretty much every other country.
"During a speech at a patriotic concert, Putin on Wednesday hailed Russia's “heroic” troops and claimed Moscow's forces were fighting for the country's “historic frontiers” to protect its “interests, people, culture, language and territory.”"
quercetum
No, China is all about money and building to make money.
China won't openly give military support to Russia. The EU and US are huge markets for China.
Right now most of EU businessmen think the US is and EU leaders are volatile. So they will cooperate in every way to bypass rules to trade with China. Thus China still receives record investments from Europe.
JeffLee
The entire country is run by members of the Communist Party, who have proclaimed at the recent Party Congresses that they are actively working to create a "Marxist-Leninist State with Chinese features." (their words, not mine)
You may not think China is communist, but the people who actually run the country certainly think it is.
Marx predicted this. He wrote that socialism would take over the world only after advanced capitalism had run its course. And China is poised to be No. 1 in the global economy, according nearly all the analysts. Prescient or what?
deanzaZZR
Xi is most certainly a Leninist. Plenty of people is leadership positions in China most certainly are not.
Desert Tortoise
Xi Jinping is a devout Maoist. Lenin, Marx and the other Russian and German ideologues behind European Communism developed an ideology aimed at nations of industrial workers living in squalor in big European cities. China in those times was primarily a nation of rural peasants. Industrial labor was a very minor part of the Chinese population. Mao adapted Marxist/Leninist ideology to Chinese conditions so they are not quite the same thing. Having said that Xi very much believes capitalism is on the way out and indeed Maoist ideology says that a communist/socialist nirvana (not that such a thing exists) cannot be achieved until capitalism is gone.
quercetum
Only China is not Japan.
There is more than one way to skin a cat. You can fight and exert power and come to a draw or you can collaborate and go for the win and win. That’s the business contract. Both sides get something out of it.
Russia and China are developing Eastern Russia and Northeastern China. There are currently 2,760 projects with a total investment of US$107.6 billion being implemented in the Far East using state support measures. They have put the past behind.
Japan, on the other hand, is still stuck on the Northern Territories and we read the comments on the Treaty of San Francisco here ad nauseum.
China settled with Russia long ago. China should do the same with Japan and the Senkaku’s.
itsonlyrocknroll
There is no honour amongst depots.
The Government of China view Russian support, the war and crimes against humanity, as a means to an end to divide and undermine any semblance of global democratic government.
The Government of China charades are a policy of playing both the US and Russia off against each other, that's ultimate primary political goal, to sow disorder and fan the flames of discontent.
UChosePoorly
Eastman - Ukraine is now able to hit targets in Mariupol for the first time in a while, so no, the defenders of Ukraine are not taking a break.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/world/europe/ukraine-mariupol.html
bass4funk
This is just bad on all levels, like I said, not in the least surprised by this, and it will only get worse, the perfect time for these two to get together.
Nemo
If the Chinese start supplying weapons to Russia, the U.S., the EU, and Japan will all “re-evaluate” their China ties meaning no more investment sanctions, re-touring their supply chains.
The Chinese have been or will be told quietly “You can have our trade ties, or you can provide Russia with weapons. You cannot have both. Make your choice.”
Desert Tortoise
It is time for the west to unite and stand up to Russia and especially to China. If the Chinese provide military support to the Russians then they lose their trade with the US and its allies.
You are the one constantly whining about how the US is not standing up to Russia or China but the second they do, you have a fit about that too. Do you stand for anything or do you just mindlessly oppose anything and everything a democrat proposes?
Desert Tortoise
No breaks. But since you asked, here is a little motivational viewing for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OatUqsKcGnA
Nemo
It’s possible that they’re running low on Russians to kill.
Mini-me better hurry up and get his cannon meat to the front!
deanzaZZR
@Desert Tortoise By Leninist I am referring to the leadership style with the Party as the vanguard and Xi calling all the shots and not brokering internal dissent. I was not referring to an economic model but certainly Xi's China is now much more urbanized and the Communist Party does play an increasing role in industry which is unfortunate.
quercetum
Biden’s response has driven Putin and Russia into the arms of China and created the most Anti-American block in history.
They have the world’s largest land mass, natural gas reserves, population, and economy. They can control raw material supplies and trade routes while commentators here still only think of China as Walmart toys.
Russia and China coming together diminishes the U.S. There is a reason the US chose the PRC over the ROC in 1972. The best days of US foreign policy certainly is not in the current administration.
Peter14
The world would be stabilized if it wasn't for Russia and China raising tensions in the first place. These people are highly delusional, unstable and dangerous to everyone around them. Thank goodness for the West and the stability it provides to the world. Without it the world would be forever in a state of war or forever without freedom while being dominated by these disgusting regimes.
Exactly!
How is this the best time to get together when nothing will be resolved?
Russia will not give up an inch of what it has taken.
Ukraine will not allow Russia to take any of its territory.
Ukraine will not give up its right to join NATO and the EU if it can qualify to join.
Ukraine will not disarm itself and it has no Nazi's in government.
Ukraine will not realign to Russian influence after the war crimes Russia has committed against the people of Ukraine.
So in what way is this the perfect time to get together when both sides honestly seem to believe they will win?
ClippetyClop
Presumably you have an idea of what Biden's response should have been to prevent this?
I hear lots of people here saying 'Don't do that', but when asked what should be done they fall silent.
UChosePoorly
People gonna be just dying to get into that new authoritarian Russia/China mash-up, I can tell already. Are you there already, Quercetum? Or are you still foolishly living in a democracy?
Nibek32
Russia is a lot of land, but is actually a very small country economically, similar to Italy. We’ve also seen their military is weak and getting weaker by the day.
When it comes down to it, China will not isolate themselves from the world and throw away their ties to the west to bail out Russia, it would only accelerate the decline China is already in.
bass4funk
I think the Chinese will make both choices
quercetum
I don’t see how that is relevant.
That’s a good point. It’s much easier for the mice to suggest hanging a collar bell on a cat. The execution is the problem.
The answer is to improve relations with one or the other or both. This was certainly not the desired outcome. The U.S. has lost Russia. Russia will never trust the U.S./NATO. China is still wishing to improve relations but the US is saying no thanks.
Hindsight here but to answer your question, it was not planned very well. The Americans did not cover their bases.
In the 1970s and 1980s - almost 80% of all Industrial Components were manufactured in 5 Countries - USA, Germany, Japan, UK and the USSR.
Today 71% of the world's industrial components are manufactured in China.
Russian Industries have the Energy and the Components from China and Vietnam and their own base in almost all areas except a handful like commercial aircraft Industry.
This was the biggest miscalculation by the West
Biden foolishly believed Russia would be strangled industrially but didn't realize that China controlled the world's industrial supply today and that it was no longer G7 like it was in the 1970s or the 1980s.
What Biden should have done was to get China on board instead of being neutral. China is like the typical Japanese who doesn’t want to get involved thinking of future consequences. The US is pushing China in the wrong direction. Getting China on board would have made it much harder for India to be opportunistic and certainly would make it hard for Russia.
Biden showed his administration foreign policy weakness in Afghanistan but his handling of Russia Ukraine and subsequently China is worse.
Usually you solve one problem but create another. Biden can’t solve the problem and has already created another problem that to me is bigger than the original problem in global geopolitics.
Biden should have known it was no longer the G7 like it was in the 1970s Or 1980s. Many commentators here comment as if China was the China of the 60’s or the 80’s, understandably so because that’s the period of their life in which they had more direct experience or knowledge of China, but China is a major player today. The U.S. needs Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, the UK, India and possible NATO to take on China. The Biden administration underestimate or should have gauged China’s leverage and realize a strong quick response to stop Putin would be hard to implement without China’s cooperation.
Biden should have known it was no longer the G7 like it was in the 1970s Or 1980s. This meant China had to cooperate with the Sanctions.
They didn't , so that was game over right there
Notice all the chip bans and Anti-China behavior intensified tenfold after China maintained the same trade status with Russia and refused to sanction Russia.
Likewise India and China kept the oil flow going, ensuring those wells kept providing and flowing with oil.
This may not be the answer you’re looking for but Biden and his administration is paid to do this. I am afraid they have failed.
China has been doing this since the Warring States period roughly 500 BCE. 三国志 Sangokushi is still a popular game in Japan today. The U.S. drove a wedge and played the dragon against the bear half a century ago. This is hardly unique to China.
snakebyte
KniknaknokkaerToday 11:42 am JST
It looks like Wang has kept his hand and arm close so making Putin reach out to him.
deanzaZZR
Sure. Don't lecture China like Blinken always does. Treat China as a major power. Pull a Kissinger and draw China in the direction of The West at the expense of the Russians who are the true aggressors here and have brought war back to Europe, a thing unimaginable only a few years ago.
Presumably you have an idea of what Biden's response should have been to prevent this?
Fredrik
Wang Yi visiting Putin? It seems like Xi didn't bother to go himself.
ian
Enemy of my enemy is my friend
Busby
So Russia and China meet.
They're just missing one other member of the "dictator admiration society"...someone who praises both their leaders;
"I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, 'This is genius.' Putin declares a big portion ... of Ukraine, Putin declares it as independent," Trump said in an interview Tuesday on the conservative Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show.
“He’s now president (Xi) for life, president for life. And he’s great,” Trump said, according to audio of excerpts of Trump’s remarks at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida aired by CNN. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great.
Numan
Honestly, this just all for show. Both countries have shown time and time again that they will not honor an agreement with any nation. Putin has looked weak attacking Ukraine. He has eye set on some easier targets.
These two countries camaraderie lies in the fact that they both want to weaken the US , so they can replace it as the most powerful country in the world. Biden has made all 3 countries (North Korea, too!) look weak. A far cry to sniveling, bootlicking, idolizing, and capitulating that trump did. This photo looks like a support group for people going through depression.
Both countries at some point still need to stab the other in the back to be the top dog. Germany and Japan had a similar relationship!
Now, China is just waiting to give Russia the "reacharound" when it least expects it. Even in the first photo Wang Yi has the power handshake attempting to show dominance over a weakened Putin.
PTownsend
With a US elections coming up, it will be intreresting to see if the pro-Putin Republicans, who've claimed to be ant-China, continue to be supportive of Russia. Will lead Republican, TPG keep his businesses and bank accounts in China, and continue to pay taxes in China while dodging those in the US.
Numan
When Biden visited Ukraine the other day, Putin try to pull a lil Kim North Korean move a fire a missile to brag during Russia's "State of the Union" speech.
Pretty sad when Russia can't even manage to keep up with N. Korea in military achievements.
As stated, this weapon is a late construction Soviet Union designed missile, that means it is well over 30-40 year old design. Most likely not mentioned is the warhead is likely a holdover weapon from the same era. Most people don't grasp just how much PM's are required to keep these weapons in a working state. So even if it launched, would it make it to the intended target location, would be questionable. Then, the next big question would be, will the warhead function or fizzle, remembering that these warheads are most likely 30–40 years old with questionable upkeep for decades at a time. The US Navy made a good decision to go with solid fuel missiles, they are simple and reliable. The Air Force kept with the liquid fuel Missiles, which were cheaper to build outright but the upkeep for the handful of missiles now days exceeds the cost of the full Trident missile submarine program. Today ONE Trident SSBN has equal the firepower of the Air Force Ballistic missile program in total. Liquid fuel missiles, no matter who builds them are cheap to build but over time are a nightmare to maintain in working condition. Hint, the Russian missiles are liquid fueled with only a handful of exceptions.
Expect a few more mysterious fallings from hotel windows.
Seth M
It's entirely USA reckless behaviours, esp. the 2014 Ukraine coup, that ultimately led to where we are right now. Everyone isdoubling down, now China joined, not that they wanted, but the escalating situation leaves them no choice. It's scary how today's world is so much like pre WW1 Europe
FizzBit
Regrettable but wise seeing how Biden & Friends and the corporate Dems are bent on kicking off WW III…..or at least get the yuuge Defense/MIC campaign cash.
invalid CSRF
Yrral
Fizzbit as a party members, nobody wants World War 3,their a chance Biden will not run for re election, because Party members are openly saying,he to old and he do not have support of minorities
Yrral
Putin thinks since Biden,will not President,the next time around,give him a second life,it can happen it Biden do not get his act together, having to campaign and run Ukraine,is enough for anyone
Jasper Cole
So this is how China is going to maintain peace in Ukraine??
1glenn
Bring out the popcorn, this is getting to be real good show.
Bob Fosse
“We’ve never been closer to WW3 than we are now”
Well, it’s true I guess. But it’s also true about any future event. I’ve never been closer to tomorrows breakfast that I am right now.
Blacklabel
quire relevant article. Only 1% more of Americans today think Ukraine will win.
That’s down from 10% more who thought so last fall.