I know I seem like a shill for The Telegraph but their Ambrose Evans-Pritchard lays out a case for economic eclipse in Russia as a result of Western sanctions that I don’t read in my U.S. papers. Worth a look if you’ve only been monitoring the Ukranian crisis through a political lens.
On March 26 he outlined China’s role in the crisis.
Click on this link to view the map which is integral to understanding what is going on.
Putin’s Russia caught in US and Chinese double-pincer
Mr Putin is discovering that global finance is more frightened of the US Securities and Exchange Commission than Russian T90 tanks
Russia and China are on a collision course, and China will not be the one to yield.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
9:06PM GMT 26 Mar 2014
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has committed a grave strategic blunder by tearing up the international rule book without a green light from China. Any hope of recruiting Beijing as an ally to blunt Western sanctions looks doomed, and with it the Kremlin’s chances of a painless victory, or any worthwhile victory at all.
Mr Putin was careful to thank China’s Politburo for its alleged support in his victory speech on Crimea. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has been claiming with his usual elasticity that “Russia and China have coinciding views on the situation in Ukraine.”
This is of course a desperate lie. China did not stand behind Russia in the UN Security Council vote on Crimea, as it had over Syria. It pointedly abstained. Its foreign ministry stated that “China always sticks to the principle of non-interference in any country’s internal affairs and respects the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Read more.