With US distracted by Ukraine, Xi is plotting his own invasionBy Steven W. Mosher
March 5, 2022
Xi Jinping is acting out an ancient Chinese stratagem. It’s called “Sitting on the mountaintop watching the tigers fight.”
Or, as we say in the US, albeit much less poetically: “Let’s you and him fight.”
From his perch on the mountaintop, Xi is closely following the fighting in Ukraine and the world’s reaction. There is no doubt Xi hopes that Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in taking the former Soviet country. After all, Xi hopes one day soon to launch his own “special military action” against the island of Taiwan.
China’s strategic alliance with Russia has already begun to pay dividends for Xi: Putin’s Ukrainian adventure has diverted America’s attention from Asia to Europe. President Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night hammered Russia on Ukraine for minutes on end. China, where a deadly virus originated that killed millions across the world, was scarcely mentioned.
While China’s foreign minister Wang Yi publicly “laments” the “outbreak of the conflict” in Ukraine, let’s not forget that Putin flew to Beijing, as the Winter Olympics were starting, to meet with Xi and sign no fewer than 15 different agreements on trade, including oil and natural gas. Then, just as Putin’s panzers began rolling into Ukraine, China opened its doors to Russian wheat. The two countries even coordinated the timing of the attack, with Putin agreeing to delay his invasion until the Beijing games were over.
In other words, Putin set about expanding his empire knowing that the Chinese Communist Party had his back and would help to ease the pain of the economic sanctions that were sure to follow the invasion.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2022/03/05/with-us-distracted-by-ukraine-china-plots-its-own-invasion/
