What's your guess as to China's role in the Ukraine crisis?

China might be playing, “Russia”, “the west” and “Europe”. Then backstabbing all later on. It would be my guess that they have interest in Ukraine’s grain market with the rare earths and other commodities that they had secured from the planet.

^Agreed. China is likely to be a sideline observer. But. Will take advantage of any situation, which subsequently will advance their interest.

Letting the West kill each other, and weaken their expansionist rival Russia, is difficult not to see as a strategic benefit.

The wild card, is nuclear weapons. At the wheel of that control, is ultimately Putin…

Nobody would benefit from even a small nuclear weapons exchange, from Russia and the US… Perhaps if China saw that as inevitable, they would be more invested/involved in trying to prevent such a thing.

Putin as a bully saying that he wants the bigger piece of the pie, then imagine China
as a another bully who will not allow Putin to take it all.

I can see China’s goal is to expansion instead, as China already has a far advanced technology than Russia has.

China had, at one time in History had possession of larger areas than Russia ever did
and why wouldn’t China want those back as well.

China will win in this land grab for sure, they are playing Russia and the world at the
moment .
China porbably deduced by now that soon Russia will point their nuclar weapons on
them one day, so might as well put a stop to that land grab as quick as possible.

I see it as two Kings on a chess board batteling it out.
Lose lose for all.

They’ll be uneasy allies until it’s time for the two of them to duke it out. China will win. Putin is kind of a useful idiot in the context of their scheming.

“A useful idiot.” Like trump. But he isn’t really stupid. trump was/is.

….and this Q has nothing to do with Trump. The Trump train wreck is in the past. That shipwreck has sailed or… um.. sunk. Putin is like Trump, he apparently has an ego problem that is getting in the way of better judgement. Trump really was not dumb, he was a jackass with said ego.
It’s hard not to see China playing Putin like a fiddle though.

China doesn’t want nukes flying.

I think they’re happy to let Putin wreck his economy and trash is military force, making him completely dependent on the PRC. That said, if it comes down to having a lasting friendship with Russia and losing access to the West, or leaving Putin high-and-dry while maintaining it’s massively profitable status as a major producer of the world’s goods, I think they’ll choose the latter.

My guess is they’ll try to walk the tightrope of exploiting Russia’s desperate financial situation for their own gain, without crossing any lines that could get it sanctioned.

China is too smart to play Putin’s game. They know what side of their bread is getting buttered, and who is buttering it! They might be Socialists, but money talks.

Last night I heard China is having some covid problems and limiting the movement of their people in some places so gas consumption is way down and so they aren’t needing as much oil from Russia as usual, which is further hurting Russia economically.

I don’t think Putin cares if Russians are hurting economically. Look at North Korea, people starve there, have no real freedom, the leaders don’t care.