2024-07-05 China: Ukraine's Natural Ally

It may sound odd to you, but China is a natural ally to Ukraine and it is paying off.

Geography

Neighbours. Everybody needs good neighbours. With a little understanding, you can find the perfect blend.

Now Russia has run over Ukraine’s dog Bouncer but before that, they took over their other neighbours back garden before developing amnesia about it.

The concept of mirroring is one where you project how you are onto others to try to understand them. You mirror yourself and put yourself in their circumstances. As members of democracies, we look to others and project ourselves and we become united. We see the autocrats of Russia and China and we see them as natural friends. This is mirroring. They are not friends. Autocrats are out for themselves.

If you want to understand China, you need to stop looking at Russia and start looking at China. There were three super powers, USA, China and Russia, but Russia has broken itself on Ukraine, who is backed by the super block Europe and the US. There will be three super powers again, and that third will be India, but that is a different story. For China, the global rival is the USA, but the local rival is Russia.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?… no. The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. You may hear this phrase but you can ignore it. None of this matters. What matters is strength in negotiation.

What does China want? It wants Taiwan and it wants to face off with the United States. What facilitates that? Access to the Sea of Japan. China wants to show its strong with military aggression and China wants Manchuria back. Why hasn’t it done it yet? Well actually it kind of has begun with the claiming of the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island. Russia has now also agreed "joint development” in that region, which is how ‘strong men’ secede territory. Now there is something else China wants as a secondary consideration to the political ideology, the very practical oil and gas.

Oil and Gas

Revolutions start when the middle class is at risk of death. As long as China was growing, people will accept anything to be part of that growth, and be less poor. China is economically tied to the rest of the rich world and it needs oil and gas to keep manufacturing. China however does not have any natural deposits and so needs to import to keep the economy turning over. The biggest risk to a war with Russia isn’t nukes, it’s the oil and gas turning off, the economy tanking and the kids asking why they don’t have the freedoms you get in a democracy.

Russia however is dependent on selling it to keep afloat and the only big buys in the neighbourhood are India and China. India is playing the market and gets it cheap from Russia but Russia really needs the massive demand from China. It also needs the Chinese currency the Renminbi as the Ruble is worthless as no one wants it. Russia pumps in oil and gas and gets paid in Renminbi, which is currency that is global, stable in value and actually can be used to buy things like golf carts. This suits both Russia and China. China however is also led by another ‘strong man’, and unfortunately for Putin, he is a stronger man. This must really do one on the Russian racist ego. So Russia showed its desperation and built a pipeline to China and now China wants the gas inside it at cost, or it won’t connect the pipeline. China can wait. Russia cannot. Now Russia might be thrown a bone if China liked Russia, but sadly for Russia...

China Hates Russia

Most of NATO was sleeping. Taiwan had missiles but China could have potentially taken the island. Russia has woken up NATO’s spending budgets and Ukraine is leading the world in asymmetrical warfare. The use of drones both on the sea and on the land, plus the ramped up NATO budgets, means that NATO has woken up and is modernising. China’s ambition for Taiwan has just gotten a lot harder. China is not impressed. It also wants access to the Sea of Japan that Russia was blocking, originally to box China in, but now as it’s desperate to train shells from North Korea to Vladivostok. As Russia is so weak, they have seceded the river Tumen to China.

How is it paying off for Ukraine?

I said earlier that China being a natural ally to Ukraine is paying off. How so?... you may ask. Russia has been receiving golf carts end e-scooters for its troops. These are not delivered by Alibaba, signed for with the Chinese delivery service before scooting home again. They are delivered at the state level and I’ll tell you this. If China can deliver 100 golf carts, it can deliver 100 tanks. It hasn’t. Europe is a super bloc but most of what they economically drive is made in China. If China wanted to solve Russia's shell supply problem, or any supply problem, it could do it very quickly. It hasn’t.

Ukraine can’t lose with Europe backing it up and Europe will forever support Ukraine because Ukraine is the shield that protects Europe from war. The one potential exception to this is if Russia has China’s economic might behind it. If that was true, it would just be a matter of time before we’re in WWIII. However, China likes Russia weak, so it can militarily dominate Russia, and even if it’s not at war with Russia, the military disparity means China enjoys all the strength position in negotiations. So out of that self-interest, China will never arm Russia. Russia is alone, and begging North Korea for help. Putin would not need to do that if China was onside.

The crazy geopolitics mean that the USA doesn’t want Russia so weak China sweeps North to “support the newly independent Siberian Republic” and reach the arctic, taking the oil fields and expanding China. Also in this scenario, in attacking Russia, China sides with Ukraine to divide Russia’s war effort.

Russia needs to point its nukes at China, China knows it and knows Russia weak be Russia is alone and so will lose this war in Ukraine.