China, in damage control mode, says the Ukraine invasion knocked them over like a feather

[BeyondGeography]

We didn’t know Putin was about to invade, insists China

China has rejected accusations that it was aware of President Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine and claims it would have tried to prevent the onslaught had it been warned beforehand.

Qin Gang, the Chinese ambassador to Washington, issued a fresh rebuttal against allegations that Putin told President Xi in advance that he would invade, only to delay the attack until after Beijing’s Winter Olympics had concluded.

The pair met on February 4, the opening day of the Games, and simultaneously promised to deepen ties in a partnership with “no limits”. The Games concluded on February 20, with Putin ordering the offensive four days later.

Western intelligence had previously claimed that senior Chinese officials asked their Russian counterparts not to invade until after the Winter Olympics ended. President Xi, it is claimed, had sought assurance that nothing would distract from the Games.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d91a0042-a527-11ec-8cae-f1e364cbbd1a?

shareToken=e1db420b4041c411a0d324db26c9f4e6

[BeyondGeography]

1. Additional quotes

“All these claims serve only the purpose of shifting blame to and slinging mud at China. There were more than 6,000 Chinese citizens in Ukraine. China is the biggest trading partner of both Russia and Ukraine, and the largest importer of crude oil and natural gas in the world.

“Conflict between Russia and Ukraine does no good for China. Had China known about the imminent crisis, we would have tried our best to prevent it.”

[C_U_L8R]

9. Who didn't know about the imminent crisis?

It was the damn subtext of the whole Olympics. Nice try at playing dumb, China.

[AZLD4Candidate]

10. Sorry, not buying it. The CPC always hangs to the rear with non-committal so they can

join the winning side at the end.

[CrackityJones75]

2. Rule #1

Rule #1

Don’t believe a damn thing out of china or russia

[yagotme]

3. Personally, I think they're lying.

Buildup of troops on the border, etc., and they didn't see it coming? Ray Charles saw that coming...

[Ray Bruns]

4. the only people who didn't believe Putin would not invade Ukraine

are people who had their head up their ass or were on Putin's payroll.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. The whole world knows this is a lie, so why bother?

[AZLD4Candidate]

11. Under Xi, the CPC has ramped up "the entire world is against us" propaganda

Nationalism is running wild coming people, especially the under 25 set.

[Tetrachloride]

6. As long as China wants to invade any or every country, ... they

are the same as Russia .

[C_U_L8R]

7. Failure has no friends

Putin? Never heard of him.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. "There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan." John F. Kennedy

There's an old saying that victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.... I'm the responsible officer of the Government.
State Department press conference (21 April 1961), following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, as quoted in A Thousand Days : John F. Kennedy in the White House (1965, 2002 edition), by Arthur Schlesinger, p. 262; also in The Quote Verifier (2006) by Ralph Keyes, p. 234). The exact wording used by Kennedy (a hundred, not a thousand) had appeared in the 1951 film The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel, as reported in Safire's New Political Dictionary (1993) by William Safire, pp 841–842). The earliest known occurrence is Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937-1943, entry for 9 September 1942 ("La victoria trova cento padri, e nessuno vuole riconoscere l'insuccesso." ), but the earliest known occurrence on such a theme is in Tacitus's : Agricola Book 1 ab paragraph 27: “Iniquissima haec bellorum condicio est: prospera omnes sibi vindicant, adversa uni imputantur.” (It is the singularly unfair peculiarity of war that the credit of success is claimed by all, while a disaster is attributed to one alone.)

-- WikiQuote

[dalton99a]

8. Utter bullshit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Chinese TV has been pushing GQP-Russian propaganda about "bioweapons labs"

Perhaps they've stopped and shifted in the last few days.

[Dawson Leery]

14. YOU LIE, XI!

You asked the Moscow Marauder to hold off until the games were over!