China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly told the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas on July 3 that the country cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine amid fears the U.S. would shift focus towards Beijing, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, citing sources familiar with the conversation.
I mean, yeah. Russia has been a Chinese vassal state since Covid.
Before they invaded Ukraine the 2nd time they had a fearsome reputation militarily and they had some goodwill in Europe (misplaced, but they were seen as misunderstood, not fascists), they had surplus resources to help their allies in Syria, Iran, etc and their weapons sold all over the world, so they were not a vassal state of China, they had lots of options economically, politically, militarily and were free to move about money/spies/etc. Now they have much less options…but maybe tramp will give them some in exchange for nothing…