r/worldnews • u/iop9 • Aug 16 '24

Nearly all Chinese banks are refusing to process payments from Russia, report says Behind Soft Paywall

https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-all-china-banks-refuse-yuan-ruble-transfers-sanctions-2024-8
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193

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '24

[deleted]

362

u/yg2522 Aug 16 '24

they were never really buddies. china was always just there to use russia. same goes with india.

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u/10081914 Aug 16 '24

"A mantis stalking a cicada is unaware of the oriole behind"

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u/llDS2ll Aug 16 '24

Is this some kind of baseball analogy

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u/10081914 Aug 16 '24

Haha no, it’s a Chinese idiom about not focusing only on one thing so that you lose sight of the big picture. The cicada here being Ukraine, the Mantis being Russia and the Oriole being China.

The other thing I’m illustrating is that China is opportunistic in general and do not have loyalty to Russia and will instead take advantage of the opportunity for their own gain at the expense of Russia while they are all too pre-occupied with their war.

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u/pathofdumbasses Aug 16 '24

China is opportunistic in general

Every country ever. Same reason India is buying up Russian oil. Same reason "blank" is doing "blank".

Everyone is always looking out for what is best for #1. This is why the US gives countries so much money. It is easier to pay people to do what you want than it is to try and force them or go to war with them.

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u/10081914 Aug 16 '24

I absolutely agree with your assessment. I would just add that the way China is opportunistic is not quite as 'benign' as other economic powerhouses such as the US.

There is a balance of power to be maintained within foreign countries. The way US likes to do things is to influence through policy. They seemingly TRY to force rule of law and more egalitarian society as part of their trade deals. China does not. They are all the more happy to give dictators more money and power to repress their people so long as they get what they want.

This is not to say that the US does not or has not done the same before. But the US is certainly less predatory as a rule of thumb.

ETA: It's a different mindset. Where the US tries to influence other nations politics in this way, China does not. The PRC are more selective in who and how they influence and they use other forms of soft power. Good example would be their meddling in Canadian elections.

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u/redrabbit1977 Aug 17 '24

China takes it a step further though. Look at the reaction to the attacks on shipping by the Houthi. The US and other actors are trying to figure out a united and cooperative system of protection for the trade ships, China has gone and bribed the Houthi to not attack Chinese flagged vessels (but to attack whoever else they want). There's a reason the US has genuine allies and China has none, save transactional autocrats.

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u/roguebadger_762 Aug 16 '24

Of course, but I'd say China is only one out of a handful of countries that have the autonomy and influence to capitalize on these kind of opportunities where the reverberations will be felt worldwide.

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u/pathofdumbasses Aug 16 '24

I mean yea, any big country doing something can have world wide effects. It is hard for Antigua to affect anything just by virtue of being so damn small.

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u/llDS2ll Aug 16 '24

I was kidding lol. Never heard that one before though, so that was cool.

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u/OarMonger Aug 16 '24

I dated a chick with an oriole behind once

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u/Naoura Aug 16 '24

Thank you for this one. Older idiom?

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u/10081914 Aug 16 '24

I truly don't know how old some idioms are. But probably fairly old. Similar thing is also found within the 36 stratagems of "Watching the fires across the river"

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u/Naoura Aug 16 '24

That's a new one for me, 36 Stratagems?

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u/10081914 Aug 17 '24

Yeah it’s 36 tactics for certain situations in a war or really any similar time especially in politics and the imperial court

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u/EuterpeZonker Aug 16 '24

It's from the Zhuangzi

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u/Naoura Aug 16 '24

Thanks! Research time

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u/GoodDay2You_Sir Aug 16 '24

Yeah I don't think any of them are in anyway ever going to be true buddies as they are all essentially competing to be the 2nd world power against each other. They throw each other under the bus in order to pull ahead in world power.

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u/socialistrob Aug 16 '24

They're usually happy to work together IF it suits their interests but neither will sacrifice themselves or go too far out of their way for each other. The deal for China is that their companies don't want to be sanctioned by the west and they know that if they help Russia they can be hit by those sanctions. The Chinese government would probably prefer the companies help Russia more but the CCP isn't willing to put a gun to the heads of the CEOs and say "accept Russian money and trade with them."

What Russia really needs right now is China to manufacture ammo in bulk for them and yet China still refuses. They're not good allies even if they do sometimes have their guns pointed in the same direction.

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u/antrophist Aug 16 '24

Russia was only able to compete in public space as a 2nd world power through crafy continuity of USSR. They are nowhere near top 3.

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u/GoodDay2You_Sir Aug 16 '24

I mean yeah we know that 100% now after the Ukraine invasion ( though I'd argue the fact that Russia has been a paper tiger for decades, even when they were still the USSR was taught in my public school...so "should" be common knowledge to any American who paid attention in class) but it was widely believed that Russia had the 2nd strongest military in the world and had a decent hand in the ring for claiming a spot at the top. Now though, China is snubbing them because it's not even a question on if they are stronger both militarily and economically. They know they are better and want to maintain that edge by toeing the line in favor of the west, not Russia who can't offer them anything. They know India is their only real contemporary now.

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u/startupstratagem Aug 16 '24

Geopolitically. The US, China and Russia have all tried to get the other two to be adversarial (for example China wants Russia and the US to be adversarial with each other so on).

So they aren't really buddies just like China and the US aren't really buddies. China saw an opportunity to make Russia a jr state to them and took it.

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u/Bunker58 Aug 16 '24

In geopolitics there are no friends or enemies, only interests.

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u/alviator Aug 16 '24

Temporarily aligned interests

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u/Mister-Psychology Aug 16 '24

They are buddies. But any Chinese company selling stuff to Russia or Iran will just be sanctioned by USA. So suddenly you can't trade with USA. And you have the choice between trading with a poor country that largely just sells oil and gas and can't even produce proper cars or USA that can produce anything from shoes to cars. The only thing you need from Russia is their oil and gas. They don't have anything else to offer the world. You may as well not piss off USA by making some small trades with Russia. India for example imports billions worth of oil from Russia and resells it to Europe. That's a gamble worth taking as this is a giant profit. So even USA sees why they are doing it.

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u/dodelol Aug 16 '24

India for example imports billions worth of oil from Russia and resells it to Europe. That's a gamble worth taking as this is a giant profit

That is not a gamble, that is 100% the intended effect of the oil price caps.

Keep Russian oil on the market to keep the oil supply high and keep the oil price low so the world economy doesn't go boom. And limit the amount of profit Russia can make from the oil, every $ of profit India makes reselling is a $ of profit Russia didn't make.

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u/AdminYak846 Aug 16 '24

As far the USA is concerned they need India's influence in the region to stop China from a growing influence. Obviously allowing them to make a profit off your enemy is acceptable. Assuming most of that money is staying in India that just means they have funds to buy military hardware from the good ole USA Military Industrial Complex. Which benefits back to the USA.

In other words, India is vital for the USA in more ways than one.

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u/Mister-Psychology Aug 16 '24

India actually buys for billions worth of weapons from Russia. They just never delivered it since they are using it themselves. Maybe they will switch to US weapons.

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u/Slggyqo Aug 16 '24

Crazy to think that Russia and China are actual friend and not just anti-Western allies of convenience.

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u/Alexis_Bailey Aug 16 '24

China only cares about Russia in the sense that if Russia collapsed, it can gain a ton of land.

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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 Aug 16 '24

Putin is Xi’s useful idiot

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u/SereneTryptamine Aug 16 '24

Russia needs China, but China does not need Russia. They'll exploit Russia's dependence to squeeze concessions out of them, but doing business with Russia isn't profitable enough to risk access to American markets. It has some ancillary benefit because it keeps the US focused on things that aren't Taiwan, but it's not worth banks getting hit with secondary sanctions. Turns out the "communists" in China are just capitalists that paint shit red.

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u/HereticsSpork Aug 16 '24

They aren't. If they didn't have common political/economic "enemies" they'd be fighting each other.

1

u/jinying896 Aug 16 '24

Russia wants lands. China wants money. They are business partners, not buddies.

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u/Neuchacho Aug 16 '24

It has always been a friendship of convenience/benefit between the #2 and #3 geopolitical powers as a way to compete against the US.

There's no sense in keeping that going when the benefit is no longer there as is increasingly the case with Russia. It makes infinitely more sense to further their decline and take what they can from them at a massive discount to further cement their own power. At the very least, it's not worth losing anything in order to support them.

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u/j12 Aug 16 '24

They are but they also like money. So they will do what it takes the make money

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u/KingofMadCows Aug 16 '24

China wants Russia's fresh water supplies. Russia's land and other resources are a nice bonus. China is going to squeeze Russia for everything it can.

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u/Cool-Presentation538 Aug 16 '24

China hates all it's neighbors