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So much for “the whole world” condemning Russia. While it’s hardly surprising that a genocidal dictatorship like the one in Beijing would back Putin, it’s something I’ve noticed a lot of here on this board— people take the attitudes in the US, and in NATO member states, and assume that those can be extrapolated across the wider world when in reality that simply isn’t the case, and are then baffled when countries like China or India refuse to jump aboard with Biden’s efforts.
I've been surprised how cool China has been in their response honestly, especially the refusal to send equipment to Russia. I think they see the writing on the wall and don't want to get dragged down with the sinking ship. Not that their response is even close to praise worthy, but initially I was worried China would fully side with Russia and prolong the war. India isn't surprising given the reasons you gave. I mean look how much bullying it has taken to move Germany over. Economic interests can be pretty hard to overcome.Believing we could appeal to the better angels of a communist-cum-de facto fascist government like that of China's is an inane hope. China is a major partner of Russia, and while India is a liberal democracy, it has had good relations with Russia since its independence and relies on them for most of its military equipment.
Probably a relationship we should reconsider, seeing as Saudi Arabia is an illiberal dictatorship that oppresses minorities and has been committing war crimes with weapons purchased from the US in Yemen.They would no more throw that relationship in the gutter than we would toss aside the Gulf States.
I would have been surprised if China sent arms as they are deeply secretive of their military capabilities. Imagine spent, lost or damaged Chinese armaments on Ukrainian soil, quickly boxed and shipped to the United States for analysis... not something China would want. That said, how do we know they are not providing other equipment? I find it hard to believe that, sensitive technologies aside, if Russia is willing to pay for equipment, China wouldn't accept the order.I've been surprised how cool China has been in their response honestly, especially the refusal to send equipment to Russia. I think they see the writing on the wall and don't want to get dragged down with the sinking ship. Not that their response is even close to praise worthy, but initially I was worried China would fully side with Russia and prolong the war. India isn't surprising given the reasons you gave. I mean look how much bullying it has taken to move Germany over. Economic interests can be pretty hard to overcome.
Probably a relationship we should reconsider, seeing as Saudi Arabia is an illiberal dictatorship that oppresses minorities and has been committing war crimes with weapons purchased from the US in Yemen.
Believing we could appeal to the better angels of a communist-cum-de facto fascist government like that of China's is an inane hope. China is a major partner of Russia, and while India is a liberal democracy, it has had good relations with Russia since its independence and relies on them for most of its military equipment. They would no more throw that relationship in the gutter than we would toss aside the Gulf States.
That having been said, I do not care that the fascists are not on our side. We in the free world can and should continue to sanction the Russians to make their ability to continue their warfighting that much more costly and difficult, and we should keep arming and equipping the Ukrainians to bleed Russia white. Long live a free Ukraine.
Oh, we certainly will. The problem is that the Russians might not actually care about said sanctions, especially if China continues to step up its support—and from the sounds of it, the CPC has decided to make backing Putin a priority.
Doubtless. But all I care about is the efficacy of their war machine. The Russians have spent the last three decades integrating themselves into the global economy only to have the rug pulled out from under them. I have no doubt that they will still be able to produce their weaponry and arm and supply their military, but I would wish to make it as costly for them in every sense of the word to do so.
They are now an occupier of a country that hates them and which is receiving massive amounts of advanced military aid. And if Ukrainians believe that their only choice is a fight to the death because the Russians will execute any man of fighting age, rape and murder their women and orphan their children, fight to the death they shall. If we go by the lowest estimates of their military losses, they have just lost twice the number of soldiers we did in Afghanistan and Iraq combined over twenty years in just under six weeks.
Now, I know the Russians are not down for the count. And I know that the Russians are able to endure suffering to a degree few are able to imagine, because they have no choice but to endure. And I know that for all their blunders, they have a mighty war machine that can level whole cities. At the present rate of loss, I am sure the Russians might well be willing and able to endure a hundred thousand dead per year (double that in wounded) for the next decade. But at a certain point, the sinews of war snap, and whatever the fighting spirit of the military, the ability to continue paying the material costs of an invasion simply dissipates. I do not think mortgaging themselves to China as their arsenal of tyranny is going to ensure them victory in the end.
I've been surprised how cool China has been in their response honestly, especially the refusal to send equipment to Russia. I think they see the writing on the wall and don't want to get dragged down with the sinking ship. Not that their response is even close to praise worthy, but initially I was worried China would fully side with Russia and prolong the war. India isn't surprising given the reasons you gave. I mean look how much bullying it has taken to move Germany over. Economic interests can be pretty hard to overcome.
Probably a relationship we should reconsider, seeing as Saudi Arabia is an illiberal dictatorship that oppresses minorities and has been committing war crimes with weapons purchased from the US in Yemen.
“While Russian troops have battered Ukraine, officials in China have been meeting behind closed doors to study a Communist Party-produced documentary that extols President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as a hero.
The humiliating collapse of the Soviet Union, the video says, was the result of efforts by the United States to destroy its legitimacy. With swelling music and sunny scenes of present-day Moscow, the documentary praises Mr. Putin for restoring Stalin’s standing as a great wartime leader and for renewing patriotic pride in Russia’s past.
To the world, China casts itself as a principled onlooker of the war in Ukraine, not picking sides, simply seeking peace. At home, though, the Chinese Communist Party is pushing a campaign that paints Russia as a long-suffering victim rather than an aggressor and defends China’s strong ties with Moscow as vital.
Around the country, the Communist Party has organized sessions for officials to watch and discuss the history documentary. The 101 minute-long video, which was completed last year, does not mention the war in Ukraine but argues that Russia is right to worry about neighbors that broke away from the Soviet Union. It describes Mr. Putin as cleansing Russia of the political toxins that killed the Soviet Union.
“The most powerful weapon possessed by the West is, aside from nuclear weapons, the methods they use in ideological struggle,” says the documentary’s stern-voiced narrator, citing a Russian scholar. The documentary was marked for internal viewing — that is, for audiences chosen by party officials and not for general public release — but the video and script have recently surfaced online in China.
“ But China has so far refused to condemn Mr. Putin for the war, which has killed thousands of civilians. Despite pressure from other world leaders to use its influence over Moscow to help end the crisis, Beijing has done little besides call for peace. And on Thursday Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, expressed his country’s commitment to strong ties with Moscow during talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in China.
The Biden administration has cast the war as a contest between democracy and authoritarianism. Chinese officials are mounting a counternarrative that American-led domineering is the source of conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere. They regard China and Russia as both menaced by “color revolution,” the party’s phrase for insurrections backed by Western governments. President Biden’s recent comments calling for Mr. Putin’s ousting are likely to reinforce Beijing’s view.
“They actually believe their own narrative about color revolutions and tend to see this whole situation as a U.S.-led color revolution to overthrow Putin,” said Christopher K. Johnson, the president of the China Strategies Group and a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst of Chinese politics.
“Both domestically and internationally, Xi has been peddling this dark narrative since he took power,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview. “It allows him to justify his accumulation of power and the changes he’s made by creating this sense of struggle and danger.”
The documentary depicts the collapse of the Soviet Union as a lesson to Chinese officials not to be seduced by Western liberalism. China, the documentary says, must never follow the course taken by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader who had started glasnost, or openness, and engagement with the West.”
“ The party’s demands for conformity over the crisis will make it harder for any dissent to coalesce into a pushback against Mr. Xi.
“There’s an ‘either we hang together or we hang separately’ attitude that comes into play,” Mr. Johnson, the former C.I.A. analyst, said of Chinese leaders. “If it’s a strong nationalist approach, then who in the party doesn’t want to be a good nationalist?”
Bristling Against the West, China Rallies Domestic Sympathy for Russia (Published 2022)
China’s Communist Party is mounting an ideological campaign aimed at officials and students. The message: The country will not turn its back on Russia.www.nytimes.com
So much for “the whole world” condemning Russia. While it’s hardly surprising that a genocidal dictatorship like the one in Beijing would back Putin, it’s something I’ve noticed a lot of here on this board— people take the attitudes in the US, and in NATO member states, and assume that those can be extrapolated across the wider world when in reality that simply isn’t the case, and are then baffled when countries like China or India refuse to jump aboard with Biden’s efforts.
China has been doing that crap since at least the mid to late 80s.
Believing we could appeal to the better angels of a communist-cum-de facto fascist government like that of China's is an inane hope. China is a major partner of Russia, and while India is a liberal democracy, it has had good relations with Russia since its independence and relies on them for most of its military equipment. They would no more throw that relationship in the gutter than we would toss aside the Gulf States.
That having been said, I do not care that the fascists are not on our side. We in the free world can and should continue to sanction the Russians to make their ability to continue their warfighting that much more costly and difficult, and we should keep arming and equipping the Ukrainians to bleed Russia white. Long live a free Ukraine.
...
AW, Biden took a big risk with this strategy... Calling Putin Out... And it looks like he was right...I usually like the memes of yours that I come across,
but this one's a dud.
I would have been surprised if China sent arms as they are deeply secretive of their military capabilities. Imagine spent, lost or damaged Chinese armaments on Ukrainian soil, quickly boxed and shipped to the United States for analysis... not something China would want. That said, how do we know they are not providing other equipment? I find it hard to believe that, sensitive technologies aside, if Russia is willing to pay for equipment, China wouldn't accept the order.
As I've mentioned before, the situation with India is unfortunate but very much the West's doing. For reasons I have never been able to explain, Democratic administrations in the US have always been cold to India. This was one of the vanishingly few things I liked about the Trump administration, and about Bush 2's administration as well. If you're in India's shoes, you have on one hand Russia being a reliable partner and friend going all the way back to your independence, and on the other hand you have the United States, its warm-and-cool vacillations, and its deep economic investment in your enemy China and military investment in your enemy Pakistan. You'll pick Russia every time. If the west wants a closer orbit with India, it needs to understand that pivot also means reconsidering selling fighter jets to Pakistan.
I think most of what you said about India's attitude to the US is probably right, especially concerning the US blowing hot and cold.
What I don't agree with is the idea that if India isn't satisfied with its relationship with the US, the logical thing to do is to turn to Russia. Russia is a minor player in the world, with an economy smaller than that of the state of Texas. If India were to seek a strategic partner besides the US, the EU would make more sense.
The EU is hardly a viable partner at this point. It takes the US’ institutional foreign policy bipolarness up to 11
India and Russia have had close relations basically since India’s independence. Russia’s supplied India with everything up to and including an aircraft carrier. That’s why the Indians have been reluctant, to say the least, to get involved.
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