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Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several

Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several times, is a multi-polar world, so (for example), a world with the US vs Russia vs China (again, just as an example). The US is doing its best to make this into a world of US vs China+Russia thing. That’s also the thing, blockading something by sea only makes sense if you blockade something of real value, so to speak. Right now that would work against China because they bring many valuable things by sea, a big part of that being mineral resources (iron from Australia, I guess copper from South America, oil from the Persian Gulf). If China can bring that stuff by land instead of by sea (so from Siberia/Russia instead of Australia and Chile) then a maritime blockade will have almost no discernible effect. And lastly, I think money is not an issue for countries like China in this type of situations/scenarios, as in they’re not doing a cost/benefits analysis based on financial reasons, so to speak, they’ll be thinking along the lines of “does spending all this money make us just a little more ready against a war with US, no matter how unlikely?”, and if the answer is “yes” I think they’ll go for it, they’ll put that way above the financial well-being of the Chinese population (who will bear the costs for this). At the limit, that’s how a country like North Korea has been functioning since its inception, that’s how the former USSR was functioning at the height of the arms races against the West in the ‘70s and ‘80s, that’s how the West itself functioned for short periods of time in the past (during WW2, for example). That’s why when I see so many analyses (and I’m not targeting your comment, I’m thinking mostly about the Western media) that focus first and foremost on the economic thing in this type of scenarios I strongly believe that they fail to see the true nature of this confrontation.

ericmay 4y ago
> Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several times, is a multi-polar world, so (for example), a world with the US vs Russia vs China (again, just as an example). Sure, but that means then that Russia also doesn't want to sell resources to the west, because wanting this "multi-polar world" means exactly that. Also, why in the hell would it be a multi-polar world where Russia is a prominent player? Because they have nuclear weapons? Not convincing. In a multi-polar world it would be something more akin to the US, China, Brasil, the EU, India, etc. - Russia would just be a minor player with not much economic or (now that we know) military clout. > The US is doing its best to make this into a world of US vs China+Russia thing. I don't see how you can argue this in good faith when you have Xi Jingping and Vladimir Putin meeting and talking about their "unlimited friendship". Maybe, just maybe, China and Russia made it a China + Russia thing because they thought that they could gang up and bully Europe and that the US and NATO were weak. > That’s also the thing, blockading something by sea only makes sense if you blockade something of real value, so to speak. Right now that would work against China because they bring many valuable things by sea, a big part of that being mineral resources (iron from Australia, I guess copper from South America, oil from the Persian Gulf). If China can bring that stuff by land instead of by sea (so from Siberia/Russia instead of Australia and Chile) then a maritime blockade will have almost no discernible effect. Transport via land is more expensive than by sea. China would have to build out this infrastructure at great cost, and you're assuming that they could obtain sufficient resources. Not sure that they can. > That’s why when I see so many analyses (and I’m not targeting your comment, I’m thinking mostly about the Western media) that focus first and foremost on the economic thing in this type of scenarios I strongly believe that they fail to see the true nature of this confrontation. I certainly agree and I think that's why so many (not myself) were surprised by Russia invading Ukraine. On the other hand, though, if China didn't care about economic interests so to speak, then they would have also launched an attack on Taiwan or otherwise did something when Russia attacked Ukraine. I think the CCP is more mercantile, even if they are nationalist, than Russia is. China has also had opportunities to do things like continue to trade with Russia, and there are many instances of Chinese suppliers abandoning Russia out of fear of being the recipient of US and EU sanctions. So I agree with you certainly with Russia, but I think it would then be a mistake to apply the same calculation to China.

ericmay 4y ago

> Not being on the US side does not immediately correlate with being on China’s side, or, more exactly, it shouldn’t mean that. What Russia said it wants, several times, is a multi-polar world, so (for example), a world with the US vs Russia vs China (again, just as an example). Sure, but that means then that Russia also doesn't want to sell resources to the west, because wanting this "multi-polar world" means exactly that. Also, why in the hell would it be a multi-polar world where Russia is a prominent player? Because they have nuclear weapons? Not convincing. In a multi-polar world it would be something more akin to the US, China, Brasil, the EU, India, etc. - Russia would just be a minor player with not much economic or (now that we know) military clout. > The US is doing its best to make this into a world of US vs China+Russia thing. I don't see how you can argue this in good faith when you have Xi Jingping and Vladimir Putin meeting and talking about their "unlimited friendship". Maybe, just maybe, China and Russia made it a China + Russia thing because they thought that they could gang up and bully Europe and that the US and NATO were weak. > That’s also the thing, blockading something by sea only makes sense if you blockade something of real value, so to speak. Right now that would work against China because they bring many valuable things by sea, a big part of that being mineral resources (iron from Australia, I guess copper from South America, oil from the Persian Gulf). If China can bring that stuff by land instead of by sea (so from Siberia/Russia instead of Australia and Chile) then a maritime blockade will have almost no discernible effect. Transport via land is more expensive than by sea. China would have to build out this infrastructure at great cost, and you're assuming that they could obtain sufficient resources. Not sure that they can. > That’s why when I see so many analyses (and I’m not targeting your comment, I’m thinking mostly about the Western media) that focus first and foremost on the economic thing in this type of scenarios I strongly believe that they fail to see the true nature of this confrontation. I certainly agree and I think that's why so many (not myself) were surprised by Russia invading Ukraine. On the other hand, though, if China didn't care about economic interests so to speak, then they would have also launched an attack on Taiwan or otherwise did something when Russia attacked Ukraine. I think the CCP is more mercantile, even if they are nationalist, than Russia is. China has also had opportunities to do things like continue to trade with Russia, and there are many instances of Chinese suppliers abandoning Russia out of fear of being the recipient of US and EU sanctions. So I agree with you certainly with Russia, but I think it would then be a mistake to apply the same calculation to China.