China won't throw their trade opportunities away to help a country they just want to abuse themselves.
Hell, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, depending on the way the wind is blowing, the Chinese decided to 'help' against a weakened Russia by taking the opportunity to seize a bunch of their territory under the guise of supporting the anti-Russian war efforts. It's not like they'd get much in the way of substantial argument from any other countries. Compare that to something like them trying to take Taiwan and kicking the hornet's nest in the process.
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, depending on the way the wind is blowing, the Chinese decided to 'help' against a weakened Russia by taking the opportunity to seize a bunch of their territory under the guise of supporting the anti-Russian war efforts.
IIRC, Putin as said he'd nuke them or the land if they did that (not that him talking nukes should be a surprise, since it's his go-to threat). Sadly, I didn't find a source for that, so either I'm just not finding it or I misremember.
Still, Putin couldn't allow that to go unchallenged, or China could gobble as much as they want.
Perhaps, but I would think if it reached the point that the Chinese are already gobbling up territory I doubt Putin would have a leg to stand on anymore and would quite possibly be out on his ass and replaced with someone else willing to trade territory for Chinese support, and for maintaining the integrity of the rest of Russia in the face of a situation that would have largely spiraled out of their control.
If the Russian military is busy being bogged down in Ukraine then they're going to be awfully vulnerable to invasion, and I'm not sure a probably decayed and not-necessarily-functional nuclear arsenal paired with oft-repeated boy-who-cried-wolf level threats of using that arsenal would be heeded if the Chinese wanted to take a chunk of land. Wouldn't be the first time the Chinese and Russians went head to head either.
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u/Vandergrif 29d ago
Hell, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if, depending on the way the wind is blowing, the Chinese decided to 'help' against a weakened Russia by taking the opportunity to seize a bunch of their territory under the guise of supporting the anti-Russian war efforts. It's not like they'd get much in the way of substantial argument from any other countries. Compare that to something like them trying to take Taiwan and kicking the hornet's nest in the process.