In the meantime, China is shifting from neutral to pro-Russia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/china-xi-give-most-direct-backing-putin-invasion-ukraine/
No sign that it's anywhere as much significantly helping out Russia than it's targetted at furthing pure Chinese interests, though. Perhaps a non-subtle backstop against which to leverage China's interactions with the rest of the (nominally sane) world. Putin isn't gaining much more from this (alone). And the Russia-China bridge opened last week with much ceremony was not in response to current needs (the fireworks/etc might have been adjusted a bit to current political detente).
China really has the advantage in the modern world, as a whole. The days when the Soviet Union was the prime Second-World influencer in the Third-World is long-gone, with Belt-And-Road stuff from the new juggernaut of the world in most products (except food? ...not sure how they are in the food game, even against the now broken breadbaskets of .ru/.ue). Perhaps why they tried to grab-back the First-World Aspirant (or even Achiever). And while hydrocarbons are still something Russia has not (by both its own efforts and the majority of Western countries) fully stemmed the flow of towards the previously willing partners in trade, pretty much everything else has been slammed into touch by one or other sanction/boycott actions.
Once the oil and gas thing is rearranged, assuming the need isn't relaxed before the final valves are fully closed, the 'free world' will still have its dependency upon the Chinese market-regions like Shenzhen or via the Cantonese Expo/etc. Russia has nothing like it.
(They have the 'industry' of Baikonur, which hasn't yet been overtaken by Jiuquan, but with NASA/ESA/etc facilities already taking the slack up (space-agency or corporates like SpaceX and the other up-and-coming hopefuls from Bezos, Branson and others that don't
necessarily start with Bs). They no longer even have the monopoly in man-rated launches like they did post-Shuttle, though China has not done too much to 'export' their capability in that, and prior to Boeing proving itself properly we're left with just Elon's ride for to-/beyond-orbit possibilities.)
Author
Topic: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Personal Diary & Mutual Support (Read 136970 times)