China will trade Russia for wheat due to bad harvests. We are driving Russia into Chinese hands with currency and transactions. Too bad they have an dictator for life. He gambled and lost.

That dependence still creates a significant political risk, which the West is in a poorer position to manage.

> Keep in mind that China can't feed itself without the world. That is a much more dangerous dependence.

That would be a serious vulnerability, except the world probably isn't united enough for it to matter. For instance, my understanding is Russia is a major food exporter. Add in a conquered Ukraine and maybe a couple other countries and you might fill that gap.

And the West may need get more comfortable with doing that, since we've seen some of the consequences. IMHO, sanctions against Belarus were probably a significant contributing factor to this war (i.e. they put Belarus in a position to be dominated by Putin, who took full advantage to support/strengthen his invasion of Ukraine).

I wonder if some middle ground is tenable (e.g. make a deal with a dictator that he will get full support for life, as long as he agrees his successor will be a properly democratic government).

Then the West retaliates by stopping their export to China of even more basic things like food. I'm guessing China needs food imports much more than the West needs cheap plastic wares, knock off products, and other less critical than food things.