Why isn't China criticized for not condemming Russia?

What is China's position? It hasn't really been reported much in the US media. China wants to be a major player in the world community. It is the second largest economy in the world. Maybe China is ok with redrawing other countries' bounaries with military force like in the "good old days". Why does China get a free pass on all this? If they joined in on the economic and diplomatic pressure againt Russia it would go a long way toward resolving this peacefully and also preserving the legitimate sovereignty of Ukraine. Or are their thoughts more about Taiwan?

Am I just being a Karen again? Sorry.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

China is keeping discreetly quiet about the Ukraine because she and the Russian Federation are rather unlikely allies - their economic systems totally opposite.

They are on friendlier terms than when Russia was also Communist, when the USSR and PFR armies eyed each other warily across the River Amur - their border - and did occasionally exchange shots.

There may be a propaganda imperative here, too. For China to criticise the Russian Federation for taking over Ukraine would be seen by the rest of the world as hypocritical at the very least, given its stated desire to take back Taiwan, and its denied desire to destroy its own Uyghurs' culture. It surely must know this of course - Presidents Xi and Putin are not fools, however deceitful and duplicitous these two tyrants are.

China has another reason to let the Russian Bear feed as it wishes (as long as it doesn't forage for what Beijing might think its own). The Beijing government has a gigantic political/economic plan it calls its Belt & Road Initiative, whose central plank is securing transport links around the world. It already [i]owns[/i] the Greek port (hence land and waters?) of Piraeus, has built at least one railway across Tibet and Mongolia to join Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway, cutting off a huge distance, and is building a highly controversial motorway in Macedonia.

This may be why China is hounding its own Muslims yet making friendly overtures to the Taliban: the Chinese colony that is Tibet has a short border with Afghanistan; and a look at any map of the world shows the strategic potential of Beijing's influence there.

At the same time, President Putin hankers after the former USSR's vassal territories; whilst also fearing NATO's expansion Eastwards - such expansion would be wrong under the terms of a treaty made between NATO and the USSR anyway.

It's all part of China's wish, quite likely to succeed, to become the world's Number One economic and political power. Where that would leave the Russian Federation, which is not as wealthy as it seems despite its physical area, is open to question; but it is in the interests of both nations to be pals. After all, both have huge mineral reserves and transport routes very valuable to both.

It comes down to a cold fact: a struggle for dominance between the highly-capitalist Russian Federation, the highly-Communist People's Republic of China, and a rather delicate Western alliance based largely on the wishes of the highly-capitalist USA. A struggle in which the luxury of single-party or single-leader dictatorships is that of the opportunity to think and plan for decades ahead, free of worrying about the next party-political election.

And Heaven help the poor, struggling countries geographically between them.

irishmolly72 · 56-60, F

@ArishMell Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. I'm not sure I would characterize Russia as capitalist under any definition a westerner would use. It's more like a kleptocracy or a National Socialist system in the sense that there are a small number of oligarchs who are watched closely by the supreme leader, Putin. Hitler organized Germany almost the same way economically. Russia was so corrupt at the time Soviet communism fell that most of the existing wealth of the country went to a few well connected people.

Do you think any of these oligarchs would do or say a thing contrary to Putin's wishes? That's hardly what I would call capitalism or a free market.

Anyone can say what they want about Trump, but he was ON to China. The American people should remember who stood with us and who did nothing in 2022.

Thanks again. I owe you a beer (or do you prefer vodka? :) ).

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@irishmolly72 Thank you! Yes, I see your point, and since I posted that reports on President Putin's TV appearances have made his character a lot clearer.

Basically, though he's probably not as paranoid and cruel as Hitler and Stalin were, he still wants to be surrounded by mere yes-men frightened to question him. Or who find it advantageous in business terms to be yes-men.

I used "capitalist" really to make the point that the Russian Federation is not Communist, whatever else it is. I could not really think of a suitable word that encapsulates the contrast.

In the end though, it does not make much difference within their own lands. Russia and China have never been democracies, and the 20C Russian and Chinese Revolution, and then the collapse of the USSR, only replaced dictatorial ideologies with other ones.

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Regarding China, I do wonder if the West fell for a huge con-trick. After Chairman Mao Tse-Tung's death, the government realised his "Cultural Revolution" had been a gigantic mistake - never mind also immensely cruel, as that would not bother them - and also that the country needed to open up a bit to the outside world.

It seemed to be turning into a freer country with a welcoming economy, and ever so happy to become the world's leader in mass-produced goods. Even major Western European and American companies started having their goods manufactured in supposedly free-economy firms in China, with much lower labour and overheads costs.

It's very likely whatever you are reading this on, was designed in the USA or Europe and carrying that firm's badge, but made in China - possibly, and ironically, on production-machinery made in the West.

Then the Party Line changed, Britain had no choice under treaty and international law but to return Hong Kong to China, Xi's rule hardened. Although the factories are still busy making products for Western companies, Beijing's dislike of the "West".

With the strategic advantage of a strong and coherent regime of harsh single-party rule, a country can plan a long way ahead. Those three, perhaps four, decades of apparent open-ness had given China her opportunity to gain vast international power and influence. She can now do whatever she likes at home, and try that abroad too, probably judging she has sufficiently weakened the opposition.

The West helped her, too, unwittingly, by so believing in the old "inward [i][sic][/i] investment" canard that vast chunks of countries' industries and even public services are now owned by foreign companies, Russian and Middle Eastern oligarchs, and indeed [i]nations[/i] - including the People's Republic of China.

So, I wonder if China's domestic and international situation now was the planned result of policies created long ago, back when President Nixon made his famous visit to the country.

(Russia seems to have missed her equivalent chance, with Putin more interested in restoring his country's old Eurasian imperialism than gaining world-wide power.)

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A pint of beer would be very good, thank you!