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kapock's avatar

The U.S. media reported early on that Putin had informed Xi of the start date when he was in Beijing for the Olympics. I’m just mentioning those reports because they existed, not because they were true or credible. The reports looked to me like just Legion of Doom-type stuff at the time, not factual or plausibly sourced, and I agree that such a briefing probably didn’t occur.

But I don’t think I agree that China is peeved about that. If Marko knew a big military action was coming, and could inform nobodies like me via A-E, then Beijing knew it too. And Russia’s waiting until the Olympics were done and everyone had a couple of days to leave looked to me like deference to China. So I don’t see ruffled feathers there.

However, also thanks to A-E, I see the war as being fundamentally about Russia’s idea of itself, the East Slavs, Rus’, human and natural resources … or at least Putin’s ideas about all that stuff. While decades of U.S./NATO prodding and provocation created the conditions to induce such a drastic step, this isn’t really a fight that other countries (even Belarus) will see as their own. Even if it had gone well it wasn’t going to help China or really hurt the U.S. … and much less so as a quagmire.

China doesn’t care about all the sacred Ukrainian blah blah that the West pretends to esteem so highly, but since this is Russia’s own fight, I think China just wanted it settled quickly, and they’re irritated that the opposite has happened.

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Blackledge's avatar

I live in Asia. One change I've noticed here is that the Chinese turned pretty quiet with their threats to take Taiwan "by force if necessary" as Russia's battlefield fortunes took a bad turn for the worse. They seem to understand that even a weakened Empire can still defeat anyone trying to paint a target on them. As Marko has said before, "it's what they do best."

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