3 ms·

China wins in all cases; everybody else is a loser.

Traster 5y ago
China has already lost from this conflict. Before Ukraine there was a widely accepted view in the west that China wanted terroritories such as Taiwan and that Western democracies were too fractured to oppose it. The Russian conflict has directly shown that's not the case and that western democracies will put themselves through significant hardship to oppose strategic aggression. It was possible that China could have pushed its agenda slowly and acheived its objectives, but it's probably a decade further away from that now thanks to Russia, and the west is pretty much in agreement it needs to find ways to move away from dependence on the East for essential goods like semiconductors (which tbf, was starting to happen before this). It's also shown that Chinese officials will personally be foregoing all their western luxuries if this happens. In return for this, it's got a sclerotic ally in the form of Russia begging for MREs and selling cheap oil. If you want to look at winners from this, look at Trump impotently shouting about Germany's defense budget, and then look at Germany's new commitments to spending. This aligned NATO in an unprecendented way.
powerapple 5y ago
Both Ukraine and Russia have reasonable friendship with China, China benefits more from a stable relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Who is losing in this? Ukraine, and Russia. Don't forget Europe, it needs to spend more money in military and higher price in energy. Who is winning? The only U.S. and A. The US has been pushing Europe to expand their military spending, and Europe is depending on US even more, meaning a lot more weapon sales in coming years; Russia's power is declining; US will benefit as an energy exporter as well. For China it is all bad news, except the SWIFT sanction on Russia will show to other players, and the future trade currency could be more diverse, China can lower the risk of being sanctioned by the US.

China has already lost from this conflict. Before Ukraine there was a widely accepted view in the west that China wanted terroritories such as Taiwan and that Western democracies were too fractured to oppose it. The Russian conflict has directly shown that's not the case and that western democracies will put themselves through significant hardship to oppose strategic aggression. It was possible that China could have pushed its agenda slowly and acheived its objectives, but it's probably a decade further away from that now thanks to Russia, and the west is pretty much in agreement it needs to find ways to move away from dependence on the East for essential goods like semiconductors (which tbf, was starting to happen before this). It's also shown that Chinese officials will personally be foregoing all their western luxuries if this happens. In return for this, it's got a sclerotic ally in the form of Russia begging for MREs and selling cheap oil. If you want to look at winners from this, look at Trump impotently shouting about Germany's defense budget, and then look at Germany's new commitments to spending. This aligned NATO in an unprecendented way.

powerapple 5y ago

Both Ukraine and Russia have reasonable friendship with China, China benefits more from a stable relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Who is losing in this? Ukraine, and Russia. Don't forget Europe, it needs to spend more money in military and higher price in energy. Who is winning? The only U.S. and A. The US has been pushing Europe to expand their military spending, and Europe is depending on US even more, meaning a lot more weapon sales in coming years; Russia's power is declining; US will benefit as an energy exporter as well. For China it is all bad news, except the SWIFT sanction on Russia will show to other players, and the future trade currency could be more diverse, China can lower the risk of being sanctioned by the US.