China’s paramount leader Xi Jinping is meeting Russian thug Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week for his or her first meeting since they announced an “unlimited” partnership just weeks before Moscow launched its war to beat Ukraine.
In other words, all of the discuss how US support for Ukraine by some means weakens us vis-à-vis China ignores the incontrovertible fact that Beijing is support Moscow. Looking down on Putin can also be looking down on Xi.
It has all the time been obvious that Putin, at Xi’s request, held off the invasion until the top of the Beijing Olympics on February 20 last 12 months.
On February 21, Russia sent more “peacekeepers” to occupied Lugansk and Donetsk; On February 24, its forces entered free Ukraine.
And the “no caps” deal included an enormous increase in energy imports from Russia to China – replacing upfront markets that the sanctions would soon lose to Putin.
Chinese state media echo the Kremlin’s stance on a “special military operation.”
Beijing has to date avoided sending deadly weapons to Moscow, but has generously provided other aid.
The 2 leaders share a determination to show the other way up a world order that’s centered in America and Europe and extends to Australia and Japan.
Putin intends to revive Russia’s empire of tsars and commissars; Xi intends to develop into a world power and absolutely the ruler of East Asia, Taiwan and the South China Sea, including.
Each goals require breaking the alliance with the greater West, which could indeed break if Ukraine collapses.
Xi wants Putin to win.
The meetings next week are clearly about what China will do to assist achieve this while maintaining the looks of neutrality.
(If Xi later sits down with Ukraine’s Volodomyr Zelensky, it’ll only be to make Xi fare well and maybe intimidate Zelensky as well. Last month’s call for a ceasefire by China and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are just about the identical thing.)
Ukraine surprised the world by stopping a chilly invasion a 12 months ago.
Putin switched to a long-term strategy, pondering he would exhaust the desire of the West to support his immediate victim and finish the job later.
Unfortunately, President Joe Biden’s approach has been to present Ukraine barely enough help to maintain fighting — not the weapons Zelensky says he needs to really win.
Nevertheless, directly defeat Invading Moscow is the very best technique to bring each partners back to no-limits, proving that the West shouldn’t be as decadent and weak as they thought.
Before Putin and Xi fell in love, Poland and Slovakia agreed handy over Soviet MiG-29 fighter jets to Kiev.
The remainder of the West should greet the BFF meeting with equally dramatic latest support for Ukraine.
This shouldn’t be an either-or proposition.
Helping Ukraine fight Russia helps us fight the greater threat from China.
Face the actual fact of “unlimited” alliance and stop allowing Chinese games.