Comment by alephnerd

> The article cites Russian involvement again, followed by mentioning the Yi Peng 3 anchor-dragging accusations.

> It seems unlikely that the Chinese would get involved at the behest of the Russians. Russia depends on China now and not vice versa

1. Russia still has significant autonomy and is not a "client state" yet.

The Russia-Ukraine War itself was a major blow for Chinese ambitions - much of China's naval (eg. Aircraft carriers [0]) and aerospace technology (eg. Turbofan Jet Engines [1]) exists thanks to Ukraine's defense industry in the 2000s and 2010s. Ukraine was also one of China's largest Belt and Road Initiative (BRI/OBOR) partners in Europe [7], which has all now gone to smoke.

Russia's rapprochement with NK is also worrisome for China, as China is trying to negotiate a three-way free trade agreement [2] with South Korea and Japan which collapsed as both view North Korea as an existential threat [3], and North Korea has pivoted towards Russia for military cooperation because China has also unofficially committed to North Korean denuclearization in order to unblock the China-South Korea-Japan FTA [4]

2. The crew on the ship were Russian nationals. The ship was China flagged, and realistically this was probably a Russian operation. This fiasco came at a horrible time, as European policymakers are in the process of adding additional tarriffs on China and de-coupling from China, and this fiasco only proved that point.

3. Even Russia doesn't want to become a client state of China. This is why Russia has been wooing North Korea as leverage as NK has become increasingly anti-China [5], and diversifying trade relations by leveraging India, especially because it was Russia that mediated between China and India during the 2020 Galwan Crisis which almost became a China-India War [6]

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All in all, the Russia-Ukraine War was a massive failure for Chinese ambitions, and treating Russia and China as part of a single axis doesn't make sense.

[0] - https://galeapps.gale.com/apps/auth?userGroupName=mlin_oweb&...

[1] - https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/CASI/documents/R...

[2] - https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade/China-Japan-and-South-...

[3] - https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d01007/security-tensions-...

[4] - https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2024/05/844fe5afa077-japa...

[5] - https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25278704

[6] - https://www.deccanherald.com/world/how-russia-and-singapore-...

[7] - https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/259271