I agree that unregulated capitalism- the American specialty- is and always has been the wrong way to go. But, all Putin has shown to date is that, outside of chemical weapons and nuclear warheads is that the Russian military is highly overrated. Russia is the classic 'paper tiger' but with one exception- nukes as claws. Assuming those were even maintained while the rest of the military rusted away.
Nor do I believe that China and Russia are all that close- China doesn't need an alliance with Russia, just such things as coal and other natural resources. Putin has a military that Xi laughs at. After Putin fails in Ukraine, China may well decide that Russia is nothing more than one of its vassal states and do as it pleases with Russia, regardless of who is their current "leader". The Chinese government is smarter, by far, than Putin's and it has nothing to fear from the "Bear" to its north. And the percentage of China's exports to the U.S. is 6% but they must retain Europe and the U.S. as customers because without all of us selfish Americans spending so much money, it couldn't survive as an international power. Which is why it's working so hard to rebuild the famed "Silk Road" in a modern way- it loans nations money to build the transportation infrastructure and when said nation can't repay, it claims that piece of ground as its own and slowly gains influence across south Asia and into much of Africa. Like a classic Mob boss/money shark lender.
Most computers we buy are made in Taiwan or S. Korea, clothing in Vietnam and Singapore. But, for the time being, it has large reserves of rare earth metals that modern electronics need to be built. But the U.S. is exploring new sources for those metals, especially lithium, in the U.S. and they can be obtained from other nations. At a higher cost, of course. And China has a lot of coal, that it burns because other than its off-and-on enemy, India, no one really buys coal, anymore.
I strongly suspect Xi will wait for the outcome in Ukraine before it decides if it needs an alliance with faltering Russia more it needs the huge of dollars that U.S. and Europe provide. Xi isn't stupid. He'll side with the winner because of that.
While keeping the 5-year plans and the 25-year plans and the 21st century plan rolling along. agree that we have a lot of uniformed/ignorant people in this country, and that has been intentional: public educations goal for the past 70 years or so has been to turn out 'good citizens' as in good worker drones, people not taught to think for themselves. People who can do that ask questions and the American Oligarchy can't allow that. It may well cost them their ridiculous wealth in comparison to most- 99.5%+ -Americans.
My point is woven into all those words that I went in a tangent, but it is that Russia's military is not a threat, but their nukes are, and that China has no need to supply little man Putin with military assistance. Russia may beg China for help, in exchange for military assistance but it's unlikely Xi would make that concession. China needs the West more than it need Russia and as wise, forward- looking businesspeople, they would, and do, see that keeping good relations with the West is the fastest route to taking it over to make the 21st century the China century. Something they saw well-practiced by the ruling class here that keeps them in power- work from within the system and tweak it to get the desired results.
Example: Trump supporters. He said that he "loves dumb people", and they vote.
