Russia-Ukraine War (Threadbanned in op)

Dependent on China for golf buggies and scamblers as they deplete their soviet stock?

From a trade point of view Putin being gone would make Europe-China rail transport far easier, especially important with Trump potentially returning to sabre rattle.

That is how insane the decision they made truly is.

Calm down there. This is not an attack on whatever China persecution complex that is - I'm simply pointing out the facts.

China's trade is now so large and predominant with Russia, and Russia is so dependent on the parts it's providing - that many analysts have pointed out, quite obviously, there is a huge imbalance there.

It's not an "equal" partnership. China has almost full access to the West whereas Russia pretty much doesn't. Russia's existing unsanctioned trade with Europe are down to fumes and it's energy exports to Europe (a few outliers aside) are steadily going the way of the Dodo. Pretty impressive considering just over two years ago we were massively reliant on Russia for our energy (which kept flowing evenly during the height of the Cold War).

Who knows, maybe one day Xi Jinping will tire of his new vassal and issue orders to wind up their war.

Will be raised communally north Korean style and see whichever dictator for life of Russia is as their father.

We'll also see the proposed childless tax where a tax has to be payed if single men or women refuse to provide drone children to the regime.

Kursk this evening

More confirmation of the situation down south

Hmmm…

No, just an awareness that history isn't a Hollywood movie that always delivers neat endings

I'm going to have to partially disagree with you here. I might have mentioned this before, but China's foreign policy is still massively influenced by the "Century of Humiliation", and one of Beijing's aims since the 1950s has been to never again be in a position where it would be at the risk of being subjugated by foreign powers. This, together with Mao's fanaticism, was one of the driving forces behind the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, and is still an active motivation behind Beijing's actions today. So just viewing China's support for Russia's war in Ukraine as a gambit to weaken the west is a bit simplistic as far as I'm concerned.

Their support is equally aimed to weaken Russia and keep them in a state where the Kremlin is more or less dependent on Beijing to keep their nation running. Keep in mind that there have been significant border clashes between those two countries in the past. The PRC government is likely all too aware that a hyper-nationalist government like the Putin regime would sooner or later try to flex its muscles in its far eastern regions and will do their best to keep Russia just weak enough to prevent that. So the current situation of a "forever war" in Eastern Europe that keeps both the West and Russia off-balance is just what the doctor ordered, as far as Beijing is concerned.

Incorrect dates, post deleted

I get where you're coming from, but I fear that your point falls into a trap I see western commentators on China make again and again. Namely, they see China's foreign policy through a western view point, which is of course understandable. The thing is that China is effectively unlike any other country on this planet. It has been a contiguous empire, more or less within its modern borders, since before the rise of the Roman Republic here in Europe. Unlike pretty much all other founding myths of great empires past and present, China's creation myth is not one of creation but of reunification, which would indicate at a history of empire even beyond the current records. And even when you take into consideration the numerous periods of internal schisms, the warring states period, etc., there was always a continuous tradition of administration & government going back to the mists of time. A country can't step away from several millennia worth of tradition, and even the CCP wasn't able to do so after they took power. Seriously, even Mao's little red book reads at times more like an old imperial text than a communist pamphlet.

As such, China's foreign policy is rooted just as much in the ancient imperial practice of "managing barbarians" as it is in the modern "realpolitik" that we're used to. It's been a while since I read Henry Kissinger's "On China" (Which is a very definite reading recommendation by the way), but as far as memory serves, China has always seen itself as the one real nation on Earth. The concept of Tianxia, roughly translated to "Under Heaven", holds that all of the lands on Earth were appointed to the Chinese Sovereign by divine mandate, with the Tianzi, or "Son of Heaven", or as we would know him, the Emperor of China standing at the center of this world. Concentrically outward from this nadir, you'd have the numerous levels of Chinese bureaucrats within the empire proper, the tributary states and finally the "barbarians". And while everyone who submitted to the "Mandate of Heaven" would be accepted as part of the Chinese worlds, those that remained outside it could never be seen as equals.

This is why, for much of Imperial China, foreign policy as a concept did not exist, because there simply were no other "real" countries. Right up until the fall of the empire in the early 20th century, China's approach to dealing with outside nations was akin to dealing with invaders coming in from the steppes of central Asia:

• First, try to buy them off.
• If that doesn't work, set them against each other
• If this also fails, welcome them in and assimilate them

The latter had worked on numerous occasions as invading nomadic tribes had often been won over by Chinese society and eventually submitted to the Mandate of Heaven, although that concept obviously fell flat on its face once the Western European colonial powers showed up from the 1830s onwards.

Naturally, China's position towards other countries changed and evolved towards the latter years of the 19th century and in the 20th century, and both the Kuomintang and the CCP have taken a much more pragmatic approach to international politics. But as I said earlier, you can't just divorce yourself from several millennia of history and tradition, and for all their pragmatism, in many ways, even the CCP leadership subconsciously continue this tradition. I guess if one wanted to be extreme, you could consider the CCP just the next Imperial Dynasty ruling China, especially given that XI Jinping seems to be leaving behind some of the pragmatism of earlier post-Mao leaders and rekindling the concept of Tianxia.

Another power plant gets heated up

Yes, you are correct…. I was going by the headline here under:- It was only when I checked it, I saw the date on the bottom of the post.

"Today's #protest in #StPetersburg, #Russia, where protesters blocked Nevsky Prospekt avenue:"

Russian ammo/oil burning