September 15, 2022

"President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that Moscow understood that China had 'questions and concerns' about the war in Ukraine — a notable, if cryptic, admission..."

"... from Mr. Putin that Beijing may not fully approve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping — in his first face-to-face meeting with Mr. Putin since the invasion began — struck a far more subdued tone than the Russian president, and steered clear in his public comments of any mention of Ukraine at all. Taken together, the remarks were a stark sign that Russia lacks the full backing of its most powerful international partner as it tries to recover from a humiliating rout in northeastern Ukraine last week.... In contrast with Mr. Xi’s circumspect remarks, Mr. Putin railed against the 'unipolar,' American-led world order that he sees Beijing and Moscow aligned against."

The NYT reports.

37 comments:

mccullough said...

Putin is almost as useful an idiot for Xi as Biden.

typingtalker said...

WSJ reports ...

Most notable was Mr. Putin’s public admission that China has concerns about Russia’s war in Ukraine, said Craig Singleton, a former U.S. diplomat and a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative think tank based in Washington. He noted that the Chinese government’s official readout of the meeting made no mention of Ukraine, which signaled that Beijing had no intention of increasing its support for Russia, even as Moscow’s war effort stalls.

“China is also rightly concerned that its continued support for Russia’s invasion has badly damaged both Sino-European relations as well as China’s relationships throughout Central Asia, where most countries are on record as being against Putin’s invasion,” he said.


Russia’s Vladimir Putin Says China’s Xi Jinping Has Raised Concerns on Ukraine War

Gusty Winds said...

When does NATO invade Russia to try and and take over the energy production and the pipelines?

Or is that unnecessary since Europe will soon be fully functional on solar and wind?

Wow, that's both scary and funny at the same time.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

NYT reading the Xi leaves.....

n.n said...

A notable, if cryptic, admission that the Bidan/Maidan/Slavic Spring has been an eight-year long pretense to disenfranchise Ukrainians, assault native deplorables, and to disrupt world affairs through global sanctions and threats of violence.

Mike Sylwester said...

I have not read the NYT article.

I suppose there has been an idea in Russia and China that 1) China is supposed to support Russia's seizure of Ukrainian territory, and 2) Russia is supposed to support China's seizure of Taiwan.

Both seizures are opposed by "the unipolar American-led world order".

As far as I know, China has not done anything significant to support Russia's seizure of Ukrainian territory. Furthermore, it's not obvious what support China might provide.

Likewise, if China tried to seize Taiwan, could and would Russia provide any significant support?

=======

My main criticism of Russia in this situation is that Russia might have been able to cause a referendum to be conducted in Ukraine's Russian-majority regions.

Such a referendum was conducted in Crimea, and the population voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, and so the border was re-drawn rather peacefully.

Similar referendums could have been conducted in the Donbas and any other Russian-majority regions. Russia would have had to exert diplomatic pressure patiently and persistently.

The factor that made a solution urgent was (in Russia's eyes) the possibility that Ukraine might join the European Union and NATO before such referendums were conducted.

=======

The China-Taiwan situation is different in that there is practically no possibility that a Taiwan referendum would vote to join China.

Therefore, China eventually would have to seize Taiwan by force. In such a situation, Russia would not be able to provide any significant support, even if it wanted to do so.

So, why should China support Russia now in Russia's invasion of Ukraine?

Mike Sylwester said...

I suppose that Russia and China might help each other with petroleum supplies.

Now, China might buy more Russian petroleum, which is being boycotted by Europe.

In the future, if China is blockaded during an invasion of Taiwan, Russia might supply petroleum reliably to China.

Kevin said...

Xi was all for Russia when it looked to crush Ukraine and embarrass NATO.

Now the war is creating a playbook for the Taiwanese, and China is not so supportive.

Narr said...

Xi didn't give a wink and nod about Ukraine in order that Vlad would fuck it up.

Or did he? At any rate, neither the Chinese nor the Russians are inclined to pull one another's chestnuts out of fires.

Narayanan said...

who better to advise Putin how to do Tian-An-Men in Moscow when the time comes

Alexisa said...

You can trust any reporting coming out of America, much less the NYTs, about the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine is a money laundering puppet nation of the Deep State. The propaganda supporting Ukraine has been ruthless. To give you an idea, over at Instapundit people like me who SUPPORT Ukraine are slimed as "Putin Bots" simply for questioning reports that seemed too good to be true.

It's crazy. So I advise readers to be hyper-skeptical. Put your filters on, look for mind reading analysis of Russia's motives and thoughts that the writer couldn't possibly know, arrogant assumptions laced with ad hominem, anonymous sources, etc. In short, treat it as Sydney Blumenthal meets Baghdad Bob.

Alexisa said...

You can't trust any reporting coming out of America, much less the NYTs, about the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine is a money laundering puppet nation of the Deep State. The propaganda supporting Ukraine has been ruthless. To give you an idea, over at Instapundit people like me who SUPPORT Ukraine are slimed as "Putin Bots" simply for questioning reports that seemed too good to be true. For a very rabid contingent of Ukie fans it's not enough to cheerlead Ukraine, you must also drink the Kool Aide and don't you dare be the first to stop clapping.

It's crazy. So I advise readers to be hyper-skeptical. Put your filters on, look for mind reading analysis of Russia's motives and thoughts that the writer couldn't possibly know, arrogant assumptions laced with ad hominem aimed at skeptics, No True Scotsman fallacies, anonymous sources, etc. In short, treat it as Sydney Blumenthal meets Baghdad Bob.

It feels like a bunch of Day Traders have invaded the discussion, shameless con artists who will say anything to get grandma to open her checkbook.

Stay frosty out there.

Clyde said...

Poor Putin! A bipolar dictator in a unipolar world!

MikeR said...

"lacks the full backing of its most powerful international partner" Jeepers. With us or against us, I guess. Maybe we should have thought a little more before we assumed that the whole world would just rally around us.

Howard said...

Man this is terrible news. Obviously this is a grand conspiracy by the two greatest totalitarian powers on planet Earth to help give rise to another totalitarian power the Democrat Party in the United States.

If Trump was president we never would have seen this. Instead if Trump had been reelected, Russia would have already completely taken over Ukraine and would have already installed their puppet government. And half of you people would be jumping up and down and cheering that Vladimir Putin ended the corrupt Nazi rain.

Buckwheathikes said...

I've yet to see any convincing media reporting that would suggest a real war is even occurring. CNN ran the attack on Bagdhad live. Nobody doubted an actual war was occurring because they aired it live as it occurred.

Ukraine? Crickets.

This is a wag-the-dog war and further proof that you can fool all of the people all of the time, despite what Lincoln claimed.

Jupiter said...

China needs oil and natural gas. Russia has oil and natural gas, just to the North of China. Unless your skull is a rotting diaper full of maggots like Joe Biden's, it's pretty obvious where this is headed.

JaimeRoberto said...

Russia and China share a long border. They have had border skirmishes in my lifetime. Russia is paranoid that China could move on Russia's resource-rich far east. It's almost certain that Russia and China came to some kind of deal where at a minimum China wouldn't cause trouble on the border while Russia invades Ukraine. However, they both probably expected a quick fight, and the long fight and higher energy prices are causing problems for China too.

Ian Nemo said...

If something good comes out of this, it may be that Xi (or his successors) or Putin (or his successors) or Biden (or his successors) come to realize that war is the mother of lies, even if you're living in the palace; and that most generals are dunderheads; and that they are not in command of history.

Bob Boyd said...

In other China news, President Biden still has the backing of his most powerful international partner in his war on his own people.

Drago said...

A Very Panicked Howard: " Instead if Trump had been reelected, Russia would have already completely taken over Ukraine and would have already installed their puppet government. And half of you people would be jumping up and down and cheering that Vladimir Putin ended the corrupt Nazi rain."

Once again with our resident troll, Trump and conservatives are very, very, very guilty of things that never happened and actually did happen under the New Soviet Democraticals.

The good news, if Howard sticks to form, is that in about 3 months Howard will be on these very boards denying the ChiComs or russkis even exist.

Earnest Prole said...

I have no idea why Putin is making loser noises — just the other day Tucker Carlson’s show told me the war is going very, very badly for Ukraine.

rcocean said...

I haven't read the article. But I assume the walls are closing in on Putin.
20 years and counting. If you read the NYT's.

Shirer in his "Berlin Diary" recounts an interesting experience. He read the Nazi press daily, and knew it was lying horseshit. Yet, after reading it for 4 years, he found himself believing part of it. Gaslighting works. Even when you know you're being gaslite.

The NYT's lies and attacks Putin and Trump 24/7/365 and it has an affect. If we were getting objective news, how many more people would like or be neutral about either man?

Lurker21 said...

Biden ratcheted up the tension to the point where Putin figured the costs of going to war were less than the costs of not going to war. Issues might possibly have been resolved had we not been focused on getting Ukraine into NATO and opposing negotiations.

I don't think it's that China is helping Russia. As somebody said, it's foolish for America to go to China and say, give us help to rein in Russia, when everybody knows that the next step would be to try to rein in China. Putin does want at least a big chunk of Ukraine, and China doubtless does aim at expanding its power, but we have been acting to use our power to achieve goals that have also been regarded as expansionist.

Fredrick said...

"The Walls Are Closing In" is going to become an interchangeable headline if this keeps up.

cubanbob said...

Look at it from China's perspective. The Russians are unable to provide China with a substantial amount of oil and gas anytime soon. China needs Western markets, Russian can never come close to picking up the slack. China needs Western imports as well without them China's economy takes a huge hit. A considerable amount of China's military tech is Russian or derivative of Russian tech and as the Chinese are seeing they have a real problem dealing with NATO tech. China is starting to think that Russia is a slowly sinking ship and they don't want to get sucked in as the Russian ship goes beneath the waves. What can Russia do for China when Russian has to import drones from Iran and purchase ammunition from North Korea. Not a winning look.

n.n said...

Putin doesn't want Ukraine. Russia has legal title in Crimea. Half of Ukrainians have been under assault over eight years since the Slavic Spring, by the illegitimate regime in Kiev, military, and paramilitary axis, so they invited a Russian-led coalition to stand with them in defense of home, grannies, women, and children, too. Russians, to their credit, have not opened mass abortion fields as has been the Kiev regime's choice backed by NATO, which limits their ability to mitigate the regime's progress and collateral damage.

n.n said...

China will always have Tibet, slavery, diversity [dogma], and redistributive change, and has been a desirable ally for ESG outsourcing, corporate interests, and to suppress the perception of progressive prices. Russia is merely a deplorable nation that has historically stood her ground against Chinese, Muslim, etc. encroachment, and, similar to South Africa, possesses natural resources desired my transnational special and peculiar interests. But, Russia is not South Africa, not Serbia, nor Libya.

bobby said...

This might be the most meaningful evidence that the Russians are truly being driven away. China doesn't suffer losers well.

effinayright said...

Buckwheathikes said...
I've yet to see any convincing media reporting that would suggest a real war is even occurring. CNN ran the attack on Bagdhad live. Nobody doubted an actual war was occurring because they aired it live as it occurred.

Ukraine? Crickets.

This is a wag-the-dog war and further proof that you can fool all of the people all of the time, despite what Lincoln claimed.
*******************

I posted a reply to your stupid post on this same ridiculous claim yesterday.

You're just here to push agitprop.

What an asshole.

Dr Weevil said...

It is very easy, though time-consuming, to find out what's going on in Ukraine. Yes, there really is a war, with lots of casualties, and yes, the Ukrainians have been kicking ass for the last week or so, recapturing in 3 days 5-6 times as much area as the Russians captured in the last 4 months, capturing thousands of prisoners and hundreds of undamaged armored vehicles, and finding fresh graves of hundreds of murdered Ukrainian civilians.

If you want to know what's going on, don't bother with the New York Times or Tucker Carlson. There are lots of Tweeters keeping an eye on things, and correcting each other's errors. The six I follow closely (there are plenty of other good ones) are:

@DefMon3 - his picture looks like an American (USS Iowa baseball cap, sunglasses) but someone said he's a Swede. OCD maker of daily-updated detailed maps of exactly where the fighting is going. Boils down huge amounts of satellite data (e.g. a forest-fire satellite system tells you exactly where things are on fire, as long as it's not too cloudy) and other reports.

@TrentTelenko - one of the Chicago Boyz. Particularly interested in logistics. One reason the Russians are losing is they still don't use palettes and forklifts: they load and unload boxcars of ammunition by hand.

(As for correcting each other's errors, these first two are arguing whether the Ukrainians have or have not crossed the Oskil river in force: good points on both sides, and the Ukrainians aren't telling.)

@wartranslated - an Estonian in London who translates Russian websites and tweets, many of them pro-Russian, all now openly blaming Putin and/or his generals for the massive losses they can no longer deny.

'Special Kherson Cat' (@bayraktar_1love) - he's from Kherson and still in the area, and has lots of friends and relatives behind the lines who send him cell-phone pics and videos.

Those are my top four, but I also read Thomas C. Theiner (@noclador) and @Osinttechnical (OSINT=open source intelligence), and follow the links of all six, and look things up on Google Maps. Yes, I probably spend at least a couple of hours a day on this.

There is a huge amount of information coming from cell-phones of soldiers and civilians. Tweeters are still laughing at the fat middle-aged Russian guy in a tiny bathing suit who took a selfie a few weeks ago on the beach in Crimea with a couple of anti-aircraft missile launchers behind him - and his phone's geolocation turned on! I think they were out of range of Ukrainian missiles: otherwise he would likely have died with the launchers within the hour.

Thanks to cell-phones and the web, we can know more about this war than any in the past, it's just a matter of digesting the vast quantities of available information. All you have to do is take the trouble to find out. If you haven't done your homework, you should probably avoid expressing any opinions on the subject.

MadisonMan said...

Why is Putin's middle initial being used? Is there a President Vladimir O. Putin, or Vladimir J. Putin, of whom I am unaware?

Achilles said...

Howard said...

Man this is terrible news. Obviously this is a grand conspiracy by the two greatest totalitarian powers on planet Earth to help give rise to another totalitarian power the Democrat Party in the United States.

If Trump was president we never would have seen this. Instead if Trump had been reelected, Russia would have already completely taken over Ukraine and would have already installed their puppet government. And half of you people would be jumping up and down and cheering that Vladimir Putin ended the corrupt Nazi rain.


Number of Russian invasions when Trump was actually president: 0.

But Howard is a dishonest loser who cannot deal with reality.

The average Trump voter knows why Russia waited until Biden was president Howard.

The average Trump voter is more intelligent than you are.

donald said...

“You can trust any reporting coming out of America, much less the NYTs, about the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine is a money laundering puppet nation of the Deep State. The propaganda supporting Ukraine has been ruthless. To give you an idea, over at Instapundit people like me who SUPPORT Ukraine are slimed as "Putin Bots" simply for questioning reports that seemed too good to be true.

It's crazy. So I advise readers to be hyper-skeptical. Put your filters on, look for mind reading analysis of Russia's motives and thoughts that the writer couldn't possibly know, arrogant assumptions laced with ad hominem, anonymous sources, etc. In short, treat it as Sydney Blumenthal meets Baghdad Bob”.


I am friendly with a married couple, one is Ukrainian, the other is Russian. They are old and funny as hell. Mike Sylwester above just put it all in a nutshell that they would have provided right here if asked. Ukraine IS the money laundering Capitol of the deep state.

donald said...

By the way, Ukrainians and Russians are awesome people as a rule.

Rusty said...

Vladimir did not; a. Know his enemy. b. Prepare for battle. If he had he would now be in on the grift.

veni vidi vici said...

An "admission" that Beijing "MAY" not blahblahblah.

That "may" tells the discerning reader that they're reading an editorial, since Putin's statement (which I watched) did not admit anything of the sort. More wishcasting from the NYT Neocon establishment.

Have they ever actually played it straight in their reporting, or is it just particularly obvious (from their youthful incompetence and pasturing of all the editors) anymore?