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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

This is where diplomacy should shine. It's clear that Russia has been hardening against western sanctions for years now, and CIPS is a big piece of that. If NATO can convince China to also shut them out of CIPS at the same time we turn off SWIFT the Russian Oligarchs will start applying pressure to Putin.

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They won't. They want Russian support when they invade Taiwan.

They don't need Russian support to attack Taiwan and Russian economic support is meaningless. They won't do it because there is no incentive to. The US has to bribe them. Think of China like an evil corporation. They won't do anything except for their own best interests. Like Facebook with nukes.

I don't think adding the tag of "evil" in front of corporation is necessary or helpful. Corporations are selfish and aggressive enough already. Nothing about China's geopolitical plotting is anymore evil than the US or Russia, regardless of what ideological non-sense you use to justify any corner.

Russian support won't come in the form of money or weapons. It'll come in the form of shutting off gas lines to the EU or invading the next set of non NATO countries in the EU, forcing the major military powers of the EU and NA to decide between protecting Europe or protecting Taiwan.

China can't invade Taiwan without Taiwan blowing up the Three Gorges Dam and wiping out 1/4th of China's population

I doubt that's going to happen. China has refused to even call this an invasion, and has said that it's the West's fault.

Source?

All over the news if you do a search. First hits:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rejects-calling-ru...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/china-refuses-to-call-attack...

Thanks.

In fairness to nojs, I tried to search for it to back up my claim, and couldn't find it again.

Why would China shut off Russia when it also faces the same adversaries from across the ocean? This is their moment prove CIPS.

You need to finish that sentence: "...prove CIPS enables imperialist expansion."

Yeah imperialism sure sounds like weaponizing international systems nominally neutral.

You need to convince Europeans before China.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/kyiv-furious-a...

Russian oligarchs will not apply pressure to Putin. They are all accomplices now.

All this politics theater of the past few days was to make everyone of notice show support for invasion, in public form. Lawmakers, Security council, oligarchs, senators, everyone. So they would know they won't be able to betray him and escape. They are all forced to make their bones.

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