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The United States Cannot Defeat Iran
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this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse
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Russia and China are unlikely to provide direct military support, but they obviously aren't going to stand by and provide both political and material support. China wasn't engaged in Ukraine directly either, but certainly wouldn't say they just stood by this whole time either.
How did the PRC contribute?
They helped stabilize Russian economy, replaced sanctioned goods, and gave access to a lot of tech such as drones and chips that are necessary for modern military production.
What special measures did the PRC take in the case of this war? Or are you talking about standard trade between Russia and the PRC that was already taking place?
EDIT: In case you were simply referring to trade, then it can also be said that the PRC contributed to NATO's effort by trading with them.
To my knowledge, the PRC didn't do anything special here, as the PRC didn't even ignore the sanctions.
The special measure they took was to ignore western edict on cutting trade with Russia. That was literally the deciding factor in this war.
The PRC did not ignore the sanctions. Some of the trade did get shut down because of the sanctions.
On the other hand, NATO didn't completely stop trading with Russia. Does that mean that NATO also contributed to the war effort against itself and should be thanked for that?
Yeah they very much ignored the sanctions, particularly on oil and gas, as well as on exporting high tech to Russia. If you genuinely can't see the difference between NATO trade with Russia and China there's really no point continuing this discussion.
They didn't, and I'm not sure why you keep claiming this. In particular, PRC's banks are often mentioned as refusing to work with Russia because of the sanctions.
What I am trying to understand is what you meant when you said that the PRC didn't just sit this one out. So far, you have only mentioned trade that was already happening instead of being some sort of special measure done to support Russia in the war, and which the PRC has also been conducting with NATO (and the PRC seems to have mostly been trading with NATO). This trade also most likely benefits the PRC much more, as Russia is a semi-peripheral state that relies on exporting natural resources (rather than manufacturing and using or exporting finished goods).
If your claim to the PRC supposedly taking an active part in this war was by doing what it was already doing (trading with Russia on better terms than NATO's), then it's fair to conclude that the PRC opted to stand by and let things happen (especially considering that it did let its companies refuse to deal with Russia on the basis of the sanctions). Considering that the PRC trades more with NATO than with Russia, by your logic we could conclude that the PRC has been helping NATO this whole time - including in the context of this war.
Give substantial examples of how China followed western sanctions. The fact that you just keep doubling down on this is frankly incredible. Talk to anybody in Russia and you'll see whether they think China helped or not. Why do you think this might be happening? https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/world/europe/drifting-from-the-wests-orbit-russians-find-a-new-role-model-in-china.html
I've explained to you precisely what I meant already multiple times. The fact that you're trying to create some sort of equivalence between trade with China which went up by hundreds of billions and remaining trade with NATO is truly incredible.
It's not, and Russia never asked PRC to do this. I'm not sure why you'd even suggest that they should be taking an active part in this war.
I've already addressed this earlier. PRC provides Russia with technology that it would not be accessible to Russia otherwise. For example, practically all cars are imported from China at this point, and that's just one example. The whole point of NATO sanctions was to cut Russia off from tech it needs. China prevented this from happening.
Didn't expect to engage in an argument on this matter, so I will need some time to dig up something more serious than stuff like this:
https://carnegieendowment.org/russia-eurasia/politika/2023/05/how-sanctions-have-changed-the-face-of-chinese-companies-in-russia?lang=en
https://www.rbc.ru/business/17/04/2024/661f4a3c9a7947ce48d663ca
This does seem to have been going since at least 2014, as well:
https://tass.com/economy/751008
Notably, I didn't say anything like this about your inability to substantiate your blindly optimistic claims, but if you want to escalate, sure, I can bite back. Are you sure you want to keep escalating?
Well, I would have said that I'm in luck due to where I live, but out of the people in my social vicinity, I'm overwhelmingly likely the most informed one by far (and likely the only socialist). Notably, I first heard about PRC's companies refusing to work with Russia because of sanctions from Russian communists.
The answer(s) to that seem to include things like the following: Russia's bid to join NATO has failed, NATO's attempts at cutting Russia off have been more successful domestically and less successful in the PRC which - due to having nukes and an economy which NATO depends on - is a lot harder for NATO to threaten, Russia has no serious consumer electronics and other relevant industries to speak of (and has no way of developing them without either losing access to relevant goods from the PRC that will be of higher quality, or having to compete with those higher-quality goods from the PRC while at a massive disadvantage) which means that it is highly dependent on the PRC, and so on, and so forth.
Notably, though, the PRC has been trading more with NATO than with Russia, NATO (including Ukraine, to my knowledge) has also not abandoned trade with Russia completely, and the PRC has not ignored the sanctions.
If it's just trade, then you have to contend with the fact that it was happening either way, and the PRC both trades with NATO much more than with Russia and also refuses to rid NATO of access to important resources. This is rather clearly a case of the PRC standing by.
You did say that you are confident that the PRC did not just 'stand by' during this war, but aided Russia:
Either the PRC did take Russia's side and took action to aid Russia against NATO, or the PRC did not take any relevant action. If the 'action' in question is just trading, then you have to contend with the fact that the PRC trades more with NATO and refuses to remove NATO's access to relevant resources.
Notably, the PRC also provides NATO with resources and technologies, and relevant trade happens in greater volume there.
Also, Russia being forced to import things because it has no relevant industries to speak of has been the reality for decades now. An actually helpful move would be assisting Russia in developing those industries (which won't happen because that would hurt the PRC's ability to export things).
The whole point was to hurt Russia's economy. A complete cutting off from relevant technologies wouldn't have ever happened.
In terms of hurting Russia's economy, the sanctions seem to have been (at least partially) successful, as Russia has been suffering from high inflation.
Yeah that's just not as exciting as you seem to think it is. Some companies in China do trade with the west and don't want to lose that. That doesn't change the fact that China actively supported Russian war effort. Don't take my word for it though. Here's an interview with a Russian drone developer who says that China has been quietly allowing mass shipments of drones and supporting tech into Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmfNUM2CbbM
I'm not sure what you want me to substantiate here, the numbers speak for themselves https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/01/13/china-russia-trade-hit-record-high-in-2024-a87590
You can bite back, but you can't seem to produce a coherent argument.
In other words, China is filling the gaps left by the west and ensuring that Russian economy keeps functioning without taking any major hit as a result of sanctions.
Again, not sure why you think this is some sort of a gotcha.
And I've provided concrete examples of that happening which resulted in trade jumping astronomically between Russia and China throughout the course of the war.
I'm honestly not sure what you'd be expecting China to do that would qualify as not standing by in your mind.
That very obviously did not happen, and China was the main reason for that.
Ah yes, just look at all the suffering from high inflation. The World Bank just reclassified Russia as a high income country https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/world-bank-country-classifications-by-income-level-for-2024-2025
Meanwhile, the IMF forecasts that Russian economy is set to grow faster than all the western economies https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/russia-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-advanced-economies-in-2024-imf.html
The reality is that Russia provides a shield for China in the west. Despite what you might think, Chinese are not imbeciles, and they realize that they need a stable and functioning Russia to prevent being surrounded from the west and cut off from critical resources. Hence why China is actively supporting Russia and ensuring their economy stays stable.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: