Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "What does Putin have to offer China that makes it worth alienating the US and the EU? | DW News" video.

  1. Which is ironic really, because China is probably a bigger threat to Russia than Russia thinks the west is. But for now, China is happy to take advantage of Russia weakness, on cheap oil, gas and other things. A weak Russia after all, allows China to extend more control over Russia and Russia is putting themselves in a position where they have to bend to the will of China, and that will probably get worse as the cost of the war gets higher for Russia, and considering the natural resources Russia has, there's a lot for China to play for and China likely knows that a weaker Russia is something they can take advantage off, something they've already been doing on cheap oil and gas. So it's not really about whether Russia or China sees each other as a threat, it's more about China taking advantage of a weaken Russia for its own ends, which you do really have to wonder, how much are the Russian people willing to get under the thumb of China, especially considering that Russians overall are westerners, so it's going to be interesting to see over the coming years as Russia becomes weaker. So yes, there is a level of cooperation, but it's becoming very one-sided in favour of China, mostly thanks to the western weakening Russia by isolating them and the sanctions, which is making Russia more desperate to turn to whoever they can, China in this case, but it's not a level playing field by a long shot. Russia also has less at stake, China on the other hand wants to drum up business and trade, that means having good trading relations around the world and ideally with the rich markets like the EU and US and China would be a lot weaker as a country if trade becomes a lot more isolated, which is more or less what the US wants to do whereas the EU are more natural on that, so China needs to be careful with it's options, it doesn't like the west, but it also trades a lot with them, so it's a balancing act.
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