Tensions rise as a Chinese bank's decision to halt dealings with Russian exporters puts pressure on Moscow's primary economic lifeline amid growing isolation

Last week, the Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank suspended all transactions for clients from Russia and Belarus, raising concerns about the potential impact on Russian exporters. The move may have been influenced by recent expansions of U.S. financial controls and the risk of secondary sanctions.

While the Chinese Foreign Ministry has not commented on the issue, Russian officials express confidence in resolving the matter with Beijing.

  • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de
    103·
    9 months ago

    That is not true. Russia never tried to join NATO. Putin just had a talk in the beginning of his reign with NATO heads about joining, but it was never publicly debated in russia and never applied officially.

    Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join Nato, they apply to join Nato.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”

    After the orange revolution in 2004 in ukraine and the protests for more democracy in 2007 in Russia, Putin was very angry and offended by his own citizens. By many journalists accounts, after those protests Putin developed a strong distrust and grudge against his own citizens and was most likely the tipping point of his authoritarian alignment to china. 2012 Xi came into power and 2014 russia annexed crimea. The rest is history.

    Maybe there were moments between 2001 and 2003 where a different path could have been possible. For Example when Putin called Bush after 9/11 to offer an axis against terrorism. But the Details about those two years are not public. Maybe time can tell one day where we went wrong.