dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

concordtom said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

Me either!

I'll take my lumps & eat some well-deserved crow; I didn't think that Putin would be stupid enough to go on his rant about restoring the old USSR. In proving his NeoCon critics correct, he's crossed a dangerous line.

It remains to be seen if he'll attack a NATO Member country. I doubt that he will, as that would invite a direct U.S. military response. Personally, I don't think he's likely to take that step.


If he does, then this might be the first phase of The Great Realignment. Then China will soon be annexing Taiwan, and U.S. defense pacts with many nations will be put to the test. China would be Putin's partner in a massive realignment of the world economy, with the U.S. defaulting on its Treasuries held by China, the end of the USD as the world's reserve currency, and the collapse of the U.S. import-based economy.

All existing relationships between U.S. corporations and China will need to be reconsidered, since the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China and its neighbors for manufactured goods. The U.S. economy remains extremely vulnerable, and China is holding all the cards. The political alignment of Japan, S. Korea, Philippines, and all of Southeast Asia are at stake. Current U.S. satellites will be faced with a choice of alignment with the U.S. military empire, or China's Belt & Roads.

Even with all the Covid-related supply disruptions, U.S. corporations have done little to invest in U.S. domestic manufacturing. That will be disastrous for the U.S. -- IF this keeps going on its current course.

---

Looks like it's going to be USA+Europe vs China+Russia.
We need to get some super poor nations to do our manufacturing for us, then cut China out. USA+Europe are the consumers.
India has a lot of people, let's align with them and shift all manufacturing there, or to African or Latin American populations who will work for cheap (and need development).

Quote:

---

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

Edward Wong - NYTimes
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:29 AM

WASHINGTON Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between U.S. and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy did not return requests for comment.

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning after recognizing two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.
Some U.S. officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognized for decades.

The growing alarm among U.S. and European officials at the alignment between China and Russia has reached a new peak with the Ukraine crisis, exactly 50 years to the week after President Richard Nixon made a historic trip to China to restart diplomatic relations to make common cause in counterbalancing the Soviet Union. For 40 years after that, the relationship between the United States and China grew stronger, especially as lucrative trade ties developed, but then frayed due to mutual suspicions, intensifying strategic competition and antithetical ideas about power and governance.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, U.S. officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine."

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's fiery anti-American remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbor stunned some current and former U.S. officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb. 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against U.S.-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the NATO alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticized NATO in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order." Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-U.S., blaming NATO and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration. "The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the U.S. and their ties with Europe?"

The Biden administration's diplomatic outreach to China to try to avert war began after President Joe Biden and Xi held a video summit on Nov. 15. In the talk, the two leaders acknowledged challenges in the relationship between their nations, which is at its lowest point in decades, but agreed to try to cooperate on issues of common interest, including health security, climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, White House officials said at the time.

After the meeting, U.S. officials decided that the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine presented the most immediate problem that China and the United States could try to defuse together. Some officials thought the outcome of the video summit indicated there was potential for an improvement in U.S.-China relations. Others were more skeptical, but thought it was important to leave no stone unturned in efforts to prevent Russia from attacking, one official said.

Days later, White House officials met with the ambassador, Qin Gang, at the Chinese Embassy. They told the ambassador what U.S. intelligence agencies had detected: a gradual encirclement of Ukraine by Russian forces, including armored units. William J. Burns, the CIA director, had flown to Moscow on Nov. 2 to confront the Russians with the same information, and on Nov. 17, U.S. intelligence officials shared their findings with NATO.

At the Chinese Embassy, Russia's aggression was the first topic in a discussion that ran more than 1 1/2 hours. In addition to laying out the intelligence, the White House officials told the ambassador that the United States would impose tough sanctions on Russian companies, officials and businesspeople in the event of an invasion, going far beyond those announced by the Obama administration after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. officials said the sanctions would also hurt China over time because of its commercial ties.
They also pointed out they knew how China had helped Russia evade some of the 2014 sanctions, and warned Beijing against any such future aid. And they argued that because China was widely seen as a partner of Russia, its global image could suffer if Putin invaded.

The message was clear: It would be in China's interests to persuade Putin to stand down. But their entreaties went nowhere. Qin was skeptical and suspicious, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials spoke with the ambassador about Russia at least three more times, both in the embassy and on the phone. Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, had a call with him. Qin continued to express skepticism and said Russia had legitimate security concerns in Europe.

The Americans also went higher on the diplomatic ladder: Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Wang about the problem in late January and again on Monday, the same day Putin ordered the new troops into Russia-backed enclaves of Ukraine.

"The secretary underscored the need to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a State Department summary of the call that used the phrase that Chinese diplomats like to employ in signaling to other nations not to get involved in matters involving Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all considered separatist problems by Beijing.

U.S. officials met with Qin in Washington again on Wednesday and heard the same rebuttals. Hours later, Putin declared war on Ukraine on television, and his military began pummeling the country with ballistic missiles as tanks rolled across the border.

2022 The New York Times Company

---

---

Trump's Tariffs did successfully move some manufacturing from China to Mexico, India, and Malaysia. Not everything he did was bad although he got a lot of heat here for these tariffs for a "tax on poor Americans and subsidizing large farms." Unfortunately, I have to declare that I am not saying his tariffs were perfect, and I am not whole-heartedly defending Trump either. He sucks. I don't want to be attacked just because I am defending a major aspect of his tariffs.

---

How is that a win for Americans in any way?

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

concordtom said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

Me either!

I'll take my lumps & eat some well-deserved crow; I didn't think that Putin would be stupid enough to go on his rant about restoring the old USSR. In proving his NeoCon critics correct, he's crossed a dangerous line.

It remains to be seen if he'll attack a NATO Member country. I doubt that he will, as that would invite a direct U.S. military response. Personally, I don't think he's likely to take that step.


If he does, then this might be the first phase of The Great Realignment. Then China will soon be annexing Taiwan, and U.S. defense pacts with many nations will be put to the test. China would be Putin's partner in a massive realignment of the world economy, with the U.S. defaulting on its Treasuries held by China, the end of the USD as the world's reserve currency, and the collapse of the U.S. import-based economy.

All existing relationships between U.S. corporations and China will need to be reconsidered, since the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China and its neighbors for manufactured goods. The U.S. economy remains extremely vulnerable, and China is holding all the cards. The political alignment of Japan, S. Korea, Philippines, and all of Southeast Asia are at stake. Current U.S. satellites will be faced with a choice of alignment with the U.S. military empire, or China's Belt & Roads.

Even with all the Covid-related supply disruptions, U.S. corporations have done little to invest in U.S. domestic manufacturing. That will be disastrous for the U.S. -- IF this keeps going on its current course.

---

Looks like it's going to be USA+Europe vs China+Russia.
We need to get some super poor nations to do our manufacturing for us, then cut China out. USA+Europe are the consumers.
India has a lot of people, let's align with them and shift all manufacturing there, or to African or Latin American populations who will work for cheap (and need development).

Quote:

---

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

Edward Wong - NYTimes
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:29 AM

WASHINGTON Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between U.S. and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy did not return requests for comment.

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning after recognizing two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.
Some U.S. officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognized for decades.

The growing alarm among U.S. and European officials at the alignment between China and Russia has reached a new peak with the Ukraine crisis, exactly 50 years to the week after President Richard Nixon made a historic trip to China to restart diplomatic relations to make common cause in counterbalancing the Soviet Union. For 40 years after that, the relationship between the United States and China grew stronger, especially as lucrative trade ties developed, but then frayed due to mutual suspicions, intensifying strategic competition and antithetical ideas about power and governance.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, U.S. officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine."

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's fiery anti-American remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbor stunned some current and former U.S. officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb. 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against U.S.-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the NATO alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticized NATO in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order." Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-U.S., blaming NATO and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration. "The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the U.S. and their ties with Europe?"

The Biden administration's diplomatic outreach to China to try to avert war began after President Joe Biden and Xi held a video summit on Nov. 15. In the talk, the two leaders acknowledged challenges in the relationship between their nations, which is at its lowest point in decades, but agreed to try to cooperate on issues of common interest, including health security, climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, White House officials said at the time.

After the meeting, U.S. officials decided that the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine presented the most immediate problem that China and the United States could try to defuse together. Some officials thought the outcome of the video summit indicated there was potential for an improvement in U.S.-China relations. Others were more skeptical, but thought it was important to leave no stone unturned in efforts to prevent Russia from attacking, one official said.

Days later, White House officials met with the ambassador, Qin Gang, at the Chinese Embassy. They told the ambassador what U.S. intelligence agencies had detected: a gradual encirclement of Ukraine by Russian forces, including armored units. William J. Burns, the CIA director, had flown to Moscow on Nov. 2 to confront the Russians with the same information, and on Nov. 17, U.S. intelligence officials shared their findings with NATO.

At the Chinese Embassy, Russia's aggression was the first topic in a discussion that ran more than 1 1/2 hours. In addition to laying out the intelligence, the White House officials told the ambassador that the United States would impose tough sanctions on Russian companies, officials and businesspeople in the event of an invasion, going far beyond those announced by the Obama administration after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. officials said the sanctions would also hurt China over time because of its commercial ties.
They also pointed out they knew how China had helped Russia evade some of the 2014 sanctions, and warned Beijing against any such future aid. And they argued that because China was widely seen as a partner of Russia, its global image could suffer if Putin invaded.

The message was clear: It would be in China's interests to persuade Putin to stand down. But their entreaties went nowhere. Qin was skeptical and suspicious, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials spoke with the ambassador about Russia at least three more times, both in the embassy and on the phone. Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, had a call with him. Qin continued to express skepticism and said Russia had legitimate security concerns in Europe.

The Americans also went higher on the diplomatic ladder: Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Wang about the problem in late January and again on Monday, the same day Putin ordered the new troops into Russia-backed enclaves of Ukraine.

"The secretary underscored the need to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a State Department summary of the call that used the phrase that Chinese diplomats like to employ in signaling to other nations not to get involved in matters involving Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all considered separatist problems by Beijing.

U.S. officials met with Qin in Washington again on Wednesday and heard the same rebuttals. Hours later, Putin declared war on Ukraine on television, and his military began pummeling the country with ballistic missiles as tanks rolled across the border.

2022 The New York Times Company

---

---

Trump's Tariffs did successfully move some manufacturing from China to Mexico, India, and Malaysia. Not everything he did was bad although he got a lot of heat here for these tariffs for a "tax on poor Americans and subsidizing large farms." Unfortunately, I have to declare that I am not saying his tariffs were perfect, and I am not whole-heartedly defending Trump either. He sucks. I don't want to be attacked just because I am defending a major aspect of his tariffs.

---

How is that a win for Americans in any way?

---

Less manufacturing reliance on an IP stealing imperialistic global competitor is a win for Americans.

---

You are really playing on the fringes here

---

DiabloWags said:

---

Here's my short-term remedy when it comes to energy sanctions.

China is a big importer of our Nat-Gas.

Cut that off and send it to our NATO allies in Europe, since they get 40% of their nat-gas from the Russians.

At the same time, the U.S. cuts off Russian imports of oil, which I believe amounts to 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. Offer some incentives to our fracking industry in the Permian Basin who have been underproducing because they've decided to change their business model from well head growth to conserving cash and returning capital to investors.

The Saudi's dont care about us and are aligned with the Russians given their 2016 OPEC Agreement, so F-them. Stop selllng them military arms and equipment. Let them know that we arent happy with them not helping us out. They have 2 million barrels per day of production capacity and they dont give a rat's ass.

The Dagger in the Heart will be banning the Russians from the SWIFT banking platform.
This is what they use to sell their commodities and oil.

We dont need to play this card yet, and in the meantime need to get our allies (like Germany and France) on board with this before we do. But it's a HUGE playing card to have in our back pocket and will create a ton of PAIN for not only the Russians, but for American's at the pump as well.

---

golden sloth said:

---

DiabloWags said:

---

Here's my short-term remedy when it comes to energy sanctions.

China is a big importer of our Nat-Gas.

Cut that off and send it to our NATO allies in Europe, since they get 40% of their nat-gas from the Russians.

At the same time, the U.S. cuts off Russian imports of oil, which I believe amounts to 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. Offer some incentives to our fracking industry in the Permian Basin who have been underproducing because they've decided to change their business model from well head growth to conserving cash and returning capital to investors.

The Saudi's dont care about us and are aligned with the Russians given their 2016 OPEC Agreement, so F-them. Stop selllng them military arms and equipment. Let them know that we arent happy with them not helping us out. They have 2 million barrels per day of production capacity and they dont give a rat's ass.

The Dagger in the Heart will be banning the Russians from the SWIFT banking platform.
This is what they use to sell their commodities and oil.

We dont need to play this card yet, and in the meantime need to get our allies (like Germany and France) on board with this before we do. But it's a HUGE playing card to have in our back pocket and will create a ton of PAIN for not only the Russians, but for American's at the pump as well.

---

I found this interesting regarding Europe's reliance on Russian energy. Particularly at the 4:15 mark.



Bottom line (and as an example), Lithuania receives 100% of their gas comes from Russia, but only 11% of their energy comes from gas. Point being Europe is not as reliant on Russian energy than most people might the import percentages might suggest. Not only that, Europe has been building up backup plans for the last 15 years, and Europe only needs to last until April. Its tough, but doable.

---

golden sloth said:

---

oski003 said:

---

golden sloth said:

---

DiabloWags said:

---

Here's my short-term remedy when it comes to energy sanctions.

China is a big importer of our Nat-Gas.

Cut that off and send it to our NATO allies in Europe, since they get 40% of their nat-gas from the Russians.

At the same time, the U.S. cuts off Russian imports of oil, which I believe amounts to 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. Offer some incentives to our fracking industry in the Permian Basin who have been underproducing because they've decided to change their business model from well head growth to conserving cash and returning capital to investors.

The Saudi's dont care about us and are aligned with the Russians given their 2016 OPEC Agreement, so F-them. Stop selllng them military arms and equipment. Let them know that we arent happy with them not helping us out. They have 2 million barrels per day of production capacity and they dont give a rat's ass.

The Dagger in the Heart will be banning the Russians from the SWIFT banking platform.
This is what they use to sell their commodities and oil.

We dont need to play this card yet, and in the meantime need to get our allies (like Germany and France) on board with this before we do. But it's a HUGE playing card to have in our back pocket and will create a ton of PAIN for not only the Russians, but for American's at the pump as well.

---

I found this interesting regarding Europe's reliance on Russian energy. Particularly at the 4:15 mark.



Bottom line (and as an example), Lithuania receives 100% of their gas comes from Russia, but only 11% of their energy comes from gas. Point being Europe is not as reliant on Russian energy than most people might the import percentages might suggest. Not only that, Europe has been building up backup plans for the last 15 years, and Europe only needs to last until April. Its tough, but doable.

---

Almost 25% of their energy comes from gas and almost 40% comes from oil and almost all of it comes from Russia.

---

Did you watch the video? Do you dispute the numbers the speaker cites, because I trust him a lot more than I trust you?

---

NVBear78 said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

Anarchistbear said:

---

sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

The Putin appeasers are Biden and NATO- both of whom committed publicly to not fighting for Ukraine while indulging the fantasy that Ukraine was going to be admitted to NATO.. Given that, the only deterrence was sanctions. I thought Putin would just bleed the Ukraine to death but apparently sanctions are less important than the West believes.

---

LOL. Never change, Anarchistbear.

---

Obviously you can't refute my points.

---

Given how badly wrong you've been on this topic to date, I'll just let the march of time do it.

---

The two most wrong on this subject are Obama and Biden. And you just say your opinion and everyone is supposed to agree without you offering any substance?

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

concordtom said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

Me either!

I'll take my lumps & eat some well-deserved crow; I didn't think that Putin would be stupid enough to go on his rant about restoring the old USSR. In proving his NeoCon critics correct, he's crossed a dangerous line.

It remains to be seen if he'll attack a NATO Member country. I doubt that he will, as that would invite a direct U.S. military response. Personally, I don't think he's likely to take that step.


If he does, then this might be the first phase of The Great Realignment. Then China will soon be annexing Taiwan, and U.S. defense pacts with many nations will be put to the test. China would be Putin's partner in a massive realignment of the world economy, with the U.S. defaulting on its Treasuries held by China, the end of the USD as the world's reserve currency, and the collapse of the U.S. import-based economy.

All existing relationships between U.S. corporations and China will need to be reconsidered, since the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China and its neighbors for manufactured goods. The U.S. economy remains extremely vulnerable, and China is holding all the cards. The political alignment of Japan, S. Korea, Philippines, and all of Southeast Asia are at stake. Current U.S. satellites will be faced with a choice of alignment with the U.S. military empire, or China's Belt & Roads.

Even with all the Covid-related supply disruptions, U.S. corporations have done little to invest in U.S. domestic manufacturing. That will be disastrous for the U.S. -- IF this keeps going on its current course.

---

Looks like it's going to be USA+Europe vs China+Russia.
We need to get some super poor nations to do our manufacturing for us, then cut China out. USA+Europe are the consumers.
India has a lot of people, let's align with them and shift all manufacturing there, or to African or Latin American populations who will work for cheap (and need development).

Quote:

---

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

Edward Wong - NYTimes
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:29 AM

WASHINGTON Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between U.S. and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy did not return requests for comment.

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning after recognizing two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.
Some U.S. officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognized for decades.

The growing alarm among U.S. and European officials at the alignment between China and Russia has reached a new peak with the Ukraine crisis, exactly 50 years to the week after President Richard Nixon made a historic trip to China to restart diplomatic relations to make common cause in counterbalancing the Soviet Union. For 40 years after that, the relationship between the United States and China grew stronger, especially as lucrative trade ties developed, but then frayed due to mutual suspicions, intensifying strategic competition and antithetical ideas about power and governance.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, U.S. officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine."

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's fiery anti-American remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbor stunned some current and former U.S. officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb. 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against U.S.-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the NATO alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticized NATO in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order." Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-U.S., blaming NATO and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration. "The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the U.S. and their ties with Europe?"

The Biden administration's diplomatic outreach to China to try to avert war began after President Joe Biden and Xi held a video summit on Nov. 15. In the talk, the two leaders acknowledged challenges in the relationship between their nations, which is at its lowest point in decades, but agreed to try to cooperate on issues of common interest, including health security, climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, White House officials said at the time.

After the meeting, U.S. officials decided that the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine presented the most immediate problem that China and the United States could try to defuse together. Some officials thought the outcome of the video summit indicated there was potential for an improvement in U.S.-China relations. Others were more skeptical, but thought it was important to leave no stone unturned in efforts to prevent Russia from attacking, one official said.

Days later, White House officials met with the ambassador, Qin Gang, at the Chinese Embassy. They told the ambassador what U.S. intelligence agencies had detected: a gradual encirclement of Ukraine by Russian forces, including armored units. William J. Burns, the CIA director, had flown to Moscow on Nov. 2 to confront the Russians with the same information, and on Nov. 17, U.S. intelligence officials shared their findings with NATO.

At the Chinese Embassy, Russia's aggression was the first topic in a discussion that ran more than 1 1/2 hours. In addition to laying out the intelligence, the White House officials told the ambassador that the United States would impose tough sanctions on Russian companies, officials and businesspeople in the event of an invasion, going far beyond those announced by the Obama administration after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. officials said the sanctions would also hurt China over time because of its commercial ties.
They also pointed out they knew how China had helped Russia evade some of the 2014 sanctions, and warned Beijing against any such future aid. And they argued that because China was widely seen as a partner of Russia, its global image could suffer if Putin invaded.

The message was clear: It would be in China's interests to persuade Putin to stand down. But their entreaties went nowhere. Qin was skeptical and suspicious, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials spoke with the ambassador about Russia at least three more times, both in the embassy and on the phone. Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, had a call with him. Qin continued to express skepticism and said Russia had legitimate security concerns in Europe.

The Americans also went higher on the diplomatic ladder: Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Wang about the problem in late January and again on Monday, the same day Putin ordered the new troops into Russia-backed enclaves of Ukraine.

"The secretary underscored the need to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a State Department summary of the call that used the phrase that Chinese diplomats like to employ in signaling to other nations not to get involved in matters involving Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all considered separatist problems by Beijing.

U.S. officials met with Qin in Washington again on Wednesday and heard the same rebuttals. Hours later, Putin declared war on Ukraine on television, and his military began pummeling the country with ballistic missiles as tanks rolled across the border.

2022 The New York Times Company

---

---

Trump's Tariffs did successfully move some manufacturing from China to Mexico, India, and Malaysia. Not everything he did was bad although he got a lot of heat here for these tariffs for a "tax on poor Americans and subsidizing large farms." Unfortunately, I have to declare that I am not saying his tariffs were perfect, and I am not whole-heartedly defending Trump either. He sucks. I don't want to be attacked just because I am defending a major aspect of his tariffs.

---

How is that a win for Americans in any way?

---

Less manufacturing reliance on an IP stealing imperialistic global competitor is a win for Americans.

---

You are really playing on the fringes here

---

How or why?

---

golden sloth said:

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oski003 said:

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golden sloth said:

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DiabloWags said:

---

Here's my short-term remedy when it comes to energy sanctions.

China is a big importer of our Nat-Gas.

Cut that off and send it to our NATO allies in Europe, since they get 40% of their nat-gas from the Russians.

At the same time, the U.S. cuts off Russian imports of oil, which I believe amounts to 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day. Offer some incentives to our fracking industry in the Permian Basin who have been underproducing because they've decided to change their business model from well head growth to conserving cash and returning capital to investors.

The Saudi's dont care about us and are aligned with the Russians given their 2016 OPEC Agreement, so F-them. Stop selllng them military arms and equipment. Let them know that we arent happy with them not helping us out. They have 2 million barrels per day of production capacity and they dont give a rat's ass.

The Dagger in the Heart will be banning the Russians from the SWIFT banking platform.
This is what they use to sell their commodities and oil.

We dont need to play this card yet, and in the meantime need to get our allies (like Germany and France) on board with this before we do. But it's a HUGE playing card to have in our back pocket and will create a ton of PAIN for not only the Russians, but for American's at the pump as well.

---

I found this interesting regarding Europe's reliance on Russian energy. Particularly at the 4:15 mark.



Bottom line (and as an example), Lithuania receives 100% of their gas comes from Russia, but only 11% of their energy comes from gas. Point being Europe is not as reliant on Russian energy than most people might the import percentages might suggest. Not only that, Europe has been building up backup plans for the last 15 years, and Europe only needs to last until April. Its tough, but doable.

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Almost 25% of their energy comes from gas and almost 40% comes from oil and almost all of it comes from Russia.

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Did you watch the video? Do you dispute the numbers the speaker cites, because I trust him a lot more than I trust you?

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dajo9 said:

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oski003 said:

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dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

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oski003 said:

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concordtom said:

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cbbass1 said:

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sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

Me either!

I'll take my lumps & eat some well-deserved crow; I didn't think that Putin would be stupid enough to go on his rant about restoring the old USSR. In proving his NeoCon critics correct, he's crossed a dangerous line.

It remains to be seen if he'll attack a NATO Member country. I doubt that he will, as that would invite a direct U.S. military response. Personally, I don't think he's likely to take that step.


If he does, then this might be the first phase of The Great Realignment. Then China will soon be annexing Taiwan, and U.S. defense pacts with many nations will be put to the test. China would be Putin's partner in a massive realignment of the world economy, with the U.S. defaulting on its Treasuries held by China, the end of the USD as the world's reserve currency, and the collapse of the U.S. import-based economy.

All existing relationships between U.S. corporations and China will need to be reconsidered, since the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China and its neighbors for manufactured goods. The U.S. economy remains extremely vulnerable, and China is holding all the cards. The political alignment of Japan, S. Korea, Philippines, and all of Southeast Asia are at stake. Current U.S. satellites will be faced with a choice of alignment with the U.S. military empire, or China's Belt & Roads.

Even with all the Covid-related supply disruptions, U.S. corporations have done little to invest in U.S. domestic manufacturing. That will be disastrous for the U.S. -- IF this keeps going on its current course.

---

Looks like it's going to be USA+Europe vs China+Russia.
We need to get some super poor nations to do our manufacturing for us, then cut China out. USA+Europe are the consumers.
India has a lot of people, let's align with them and shift all manufacturing there, or to African or Latin American populations who will work for cheap (and need development).

Quote:

---

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

Edward Wong - NYTimes
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:29 AM

WASHINGTON Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between U.S. and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy did not return requests for comment.

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning after recognizing two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.
Some U.S. officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognized for decades.

The growing alarm among U.S. and European officials at the alignment between China and Russia has reached a new peak with the Ukraine crisis, exactly 50 years to the week after President Richard Nixon made a historic trip to China to restart diplomatic relations to make common cause in counterbalancing the Soviet Union. For 40 years after that, the relationship between the United States and China grew stronger, especially as lucrative trade ties developed, but then frayed due to mutual suspicions, intensifying strategic competition and antithetical ideas about power and governance.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, U.S. officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine."

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's fiery anti-American remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbor stunned some current and former U.S. officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb. 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against U.S.-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the NATO alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticized NATO in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order." Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-U.S., blaming NATO and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration. "The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the U.S. and their ties with Europe?"

The Biden administration's diplomatic outreach to China to try to avert war began after President Joe Biden and Xi held a video summit on Nov. 15. In the talk, the two leaders acknowledged challenges in the relationship between their nations, which is at its lowest point in decades, but agreed to try to cooperate on issues of common interest, including health security, climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, White House officials said at the time.

After the meeting, U.S. officials decided that the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine presented the most immediate problem that China and the United States could try to defuse together. Some officials thought the outcome of the video summit indicated there was potential for an improvement in U.S.-China relations. Others were more skeptical, but thought it was important to leave no stone unturned in efforts to prevent Russia from attacking, one official said.

Days later, White House officials met with the ambassador, Qin Gang, at the Chinese Embassy. They told the ambassador what U.S. intelligence agencies had detected: a gradual encirclement of Ukraine by Russian forces, including armored units. William J. Burns, the CIA director, had flown to Moscow on Nov. 2 to confront the Russians with the same information, and on Nov. 17, U.S. intelligence officials shared their findings with NATO.

At the Chinese Embassy, Russia's aggression was the first topic in a discussion that ran more than 1 1/2 hours. In addition to laying out the intelligence, the White House officials told the ambassador that the United States would impose tough sanctions on Russian companies, officials and businesspeople in the event of an invasion, going far beyond those announced by the Obama administration after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. officials said the sanctions would also hurt China over time because of its commercial ties.
They also pointed out they knew how China had helped Russia evade some of the 2014 sanctions, and warned Beijing against any such future aid. And they argued that because China was widely seen as a partner of Russia, its global image could suffer if Putin invaded.

The message was clear: It would be in China's interests to persuade Putin to stand down. But their entreaties went nowhere. Qin was skeptical and suspicious, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials spoke with the ambassador about Russia at least three more times, both in the embassy and on the phone. Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, had a call with him. Qin continued to express skepticism and said Russia had legitimate security concerns in Europe.

The Americans also went higher on the diplomatic ladder: Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Wang about the problem in late January and again on Monday, the same day Putin ordered the new troops into Russia-backed enclaves of Ukraine.

"The secretary underscored the need to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a State Department summary of the call that used the phrase that Chinese diplomats like to employ in signaling to other nations not to get involved in matters involving Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all considered separatist problems by Beijing.

U.S. officials met with Qin in Washington again on Wednesday and heard the same rebuttals. Hours later, Putin declared war on Ukraine on television, and his military began pummeling the country with ballistic missiles as tanks rolled across the border.

2022 The New York Times Company

---

---

Trump's Tariffs did successfully move some manufacturing from China to Mexico, India, and Malaysia. Not everything he did was bad although he got a lot of heat here for these tariffs for a "tax on poor Americans and subsidizing large farms." Unfortunately, I have to declare that I am not saying his tariffs were perfect, and I am not whole-heartedly defending Trump either. He sucks. I don't want to be attacked just because I am defending a major aspect of his tariffs.

---

How is that a win for Americans in any way?

---

Less manufacturing reliance on an IP stealing imperialistic global competitor is a win for Americans.

---

You are really playing on the fringes here

---

How or why?

---

Because you are making a mountain out of a molehill

---

cbbass1 said:

---

True that the Saudis don't care much about us, but they do care about their investments in U.S. markets & other assets.

---

DiabloWags said:

---

The more reports of Putin's mental state that I read, the more I'm convinced that he's mentally sick.

What he did to his National Security Chief during a purported "hot-mic" moment was completely by design. It wasnt a "hot-mic" moment at all. Putin dressed him down by design. No one does that with a clear mind.

His meeting with Macron showed extreme paranoia and isolationism.

He wouldnt sit next to Macron or shake hands in a proverbial photo-op unless Macron showed up 7 hours earlier and underwent a Covid test by a Russian doctor, without any of Macron's medical staff available. Macron said screw it, - - - and wound up sitting at opposite ends of a table that was absurdly large.... literally 30 feet away from each other.

It's also been reported by people that spend their entire intelligence careers studying Putin, that he doesnt seem to be able to be restrained by his own intelligence staff. He's isolated and not getting the entire story as to what is going on in reality. Macron advisors have also said that he's been talking in "circles" and that he's been heard going down some very "dark" historical paths and rewriting history. - - - This only heightens the "risk"

It's quite likely that he's totally underestimated the fight from Ukraine, has no true picture about what is actually going on, not too mention civil unrest by his own people and journalist community. His people clearly werent prepared for this. And they arent buying Putin's position that they need to go to war against Ukraine.

I only hope that NATO continues to show unity and ratchets up the sanctions, including kicking Russia off the SWIFT system.

---

bearup said:

---

And yet he's seemed to be a "rational actor" by some.

So might a serial killer

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oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

dajo9 said:

---

oski003 said:

---

concordtom said:

---

cbbass1 said:

---

sycasey said:

---

I admit, even I didn't think the Putin appeasers would be proven wrong THIS quickly.

---

Me either!

I'll take my lumps & eat some well-deserved crow; I didn't think that Putin would be stupid enough to go on his rant about restoring the old USSR. In proving his NeoCon critics correct, he's crossed a dangerous line.

It remains to be seen if he'll attack a NATO Member country. I doubt that he will, as that would invite a direct U.S. military response. Personally, I don't think he's likely to take that step.


If he does, then this might be the first phase of The Great Realignment. Then China will soon be annexing Taiwan, and U.S. defense pacts with many nations will be put to the test. China would be Putin's partner in a massive realignment of the world economy, with the U.S. defaulting on its Treasuries held by China, the end of the USD as the world's reserve currency, and the collapse of the U.S. import-based economy.

All existing relationships between U.S. corporations and China will need to be reconsidered, since the U.S. is almost completely dependent on China and its neighbors for manufactured goods. The U.S. economy remains extremely vulnerable, and China is holding all the cards. The political alignment of Japan, S. Korea, Philippines, and all of Southeast Asia are at stake. Current U.S. satellites will be faced with a choice of alignment with the U.S. military empire, or China's Belt & Roads.

Even with all the Covid-related supply disruptions, U.S. corporations have done little to invest in U.S. domestic manufacturing. That will be disastrous for the U.S. -- IF this keeps going on its current course.

---

Looks like it's going to be USA+Europe vs China+Russia.
We need to get some super poor nations to do our manufacturing for us, then cut China out. USA+Europe are the consumers.
India has a lot of people, let's align with them and shift all manufacturing there, or to African or Latin American populations who will work for cheap (and need development).

Quote:

---

U.S. Officials Repeatedly Urged China to Help Avert War in Ukraine

Edward Wong - NYTimes
Fri, February 25, 2022, 5:29 AM

WASHINGTON Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia's troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

The previously unreported talks between U.S. and Chinese officials show how the Biden administration tried to use intelligence findings and diplomacy to persuade a superpower it views as a growing adversary to stop the invasion of Ukraine, and how that nation, led by President Xi Jinping, persistently sided with Russia even as the evidence of Moscow's plans for a military offensive grew over the winter.

This account is based on interviews with senior administration officials with knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the diplomacy. The Chinese Embassy did not return requests for comment.

China is Russia's most powerful partner, and the two nations have been strengthening their bond for many years across diplomatic, economic and military realms. Xi and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two autocrats with some shared ideas about global power, had met 37 times as national leaders before this year. If any world leader could make Putin think twice about invading Ukraine, it was Xi, went the thinking of some U.S. officials.

But the diplomatic efforts failed, and Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning after recognizing two Russia-backed insurgent enclaves in the country's east as independent states.
Some U.S. officials say the ties between China and Russia appear stronger than at any time since the Cold War. The two now present themselves as an ideological front against the United States and its European and Asian allies, even as Putin carries out the invasion of Ukraine, whose sovereignty China has recognized for decades.

The growing alarm among U.S. and European officials at the alignment between China and Russia has reached a new peak with the Ukraine crisis, exactly 50 years to the week after President Richard Nixon made a historic trip to China to restart diplomatic relations to make common cause in counterbalancing the Soviet Union. For 40 years after that, the relationship between the United States and China grew stronger, especially as lucrative trade ties developed, but then frayed due to mutual suspicions, intensifying strategic competition and antithetical ideas about power and governance.

In the recent private talks on Ukraine, U.S. officials heard language from their Chinese counterparts that was consistent with harder lines the Chinese had been voicing in public, which showed that a more hostile attitude had become entrenched, according to the American accounts.

On Wednesday, after Putin ordered troops into eastern Ukraine but before its full invasion, Hua Chunying, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, said at a news conference in Beijing that the United States was "the culprit of current tensions surrounding Ukraine."

"On the Ukraine issue, lately the U.S. has been sending weapons to Ukraine, heightening tensions, creating panic and even hyping up the possibility of warfare," she said. "If someone keeps pouring oil on the flame while accusing others of not doing their best to put out the fire, such kind of behavior is clearly irresponsible and immoral."

She added: "When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia's doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?" She has refused to call Russia's assault an "invasion" when pressed by foreign journalists.

Hua's fiery anti-American remarks as Russia was moving to attack its neighbor stunned some current and former U.S. officials and China analysts in the United States. But the verbal grenades echo major points in the 5,000-word joint statement that China and Russia issued on Feb. 4 when Xi and Putin met at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. In that document, the two countries declared their partnership had "no limits" and that they intended to stand together against U.S.-led democratic nations. China also explicitly sided with Russia in the text to denounce enlargement of the NATO alliance.

Last Saturday, Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, criticized NATO in a video talk at the Munich Security Conference. European leaders in turn accused China of working with Russia to overturn what they and the Americans say is a "rules-based international order." Wang did say that Ukraine's sovereignty should be "respected and safeguarded" a reference to a foreign policy principle that Beijing often cites but no Chinese officials have mentioned Ukraine in those terms since Russia's full invasion began.

"They claim neutrality, they claim they stand on principle, but everything they say about the causes is anti-U.S., blaming NATO and adopting the Russian line," said Evan Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was senior Asia director at the White House National Security Council in the Obama administration. "The question is: How sustainable is that as a posture? How much damage does it do to their ties with the U.S. and their ties with Europe?"

The Biden administration's diplomatic outreach to China to try to avert war began after President Joe Biden and Xi held a video summit on Nov. 15. In the talk, the two leaders acknowledged challenges in the relationship between their nations, which is at its lowest point in decades, but agreed to try to cooperate on issues of common interest, including health security, climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, White House officials said at the time.

After the meeting, U.S. officials decided that the Russian troop buildup around Ukraine presented the most immediate problem that China and the United States could try to defuse together. Some officials thought the outcome of the video summit indicated there was potential for an improvement in U.S.-China relations. Others were more skeptical, but thought it was important to leave no stone unturned in efforts to prevent Russia from attacking, one official said.

Days later, White House officials met with the ambassador, Qin Gang, at the Chinese Embassy. They told the ambassador what U.S. intelligence agencies had detected: a gradual encirclement of Ukraine by Russian forces, including armored units. William J. Burns, the CIA director, had flown to Moscow on Nov. 2 to confront the Russians with the same information, and on Nov. 17, U.S. intelligence officials shared their findings with NATO.

At the Chinese Embassy, Russia's aggression was the first topic in a discussion that ran more than 1 1/2 hours. In addition to laying out the intelligence, the White House officials told the ambassador that the United States would impose tough sanctions on Russian companies, officials and businesspeople in the event of an invasion, going far beyond those announced by the Obama administration after Russia seized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

The U.S. officials said the sanctions would also hurt China over time because of its commercial ties.
They also pointed out they knew how China had helped Russia evade some of the 2014 sanctions, and warned Beijing against any such future aid. And they argued that because China was widely seen as a partner of Russia, its global image could suffer if Putin invaded.

The message was clear: It would be in China's interests to persuade Putin to stand down. But their entreaties went nowhere. Qin was skeptical and suspicious, a U.S. official said.

U.S. officials spoke with the ambassador about Russia at least three more times, both in the embassy and on the phone. Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, had a call with him. Qin continued to express skepticism and said Russia had legitimate security concerns in Europe.

The Americans also went higher on the diplomatic ladder: Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Wang about the problem in late January and again on Monday, the same day Putin ordered the new troops into Russia-backed enclaves of Ukraine.

"The secretary underscored the need to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," said a State Department summary of the call that used the phrase that Chinese diplomats like to employ in signaling to other nations not to get involved in matters involving Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, all considered separatist problems by Beijing.

U.S. officials met with Qin in Washington again on Wednesday and heard the same rebuttals. Hours later, Putin declared war on Ukraine on television, and his military began pummeling the country with ballistic missiles as tanks rolled across the border.

2022 The New York Times Company

---

---

Trump's Tariffs did successfully move some manufacturing from China to Mexico, India, and Malaysia. Not everything he did was bad although he got a lot of heat here for these tariffs for a "tax on poor Americans and subsidizing large farms." Unfortunately, I have to declare that I am not saying his tariffs were perfect, and I am not whole-heartedly defending Trump either. He sucks. I don't want to be attacked just because I am defending a major aspect of his tariffs.

---

How is that a win for Americans in any way?

---

Less manufacturing reliance on an IP stealing imperialistic global competitor is a win for Americans.

---

You are really playing on the fringes here

---

How or why?

---

Because you are making a mountain out of a molehill

---

Can you be more specific?

---