China asked Russia to delay Ukraine invasion until after Olympics -NYT

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

One official the Times said was familiar with the intelligence said the material did not necessarily indicate the conversations about an invasion took place at the level of Xi and Putin.

Bonny Lin, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it was unclear how much Xi knew about Putin's intentions.

She noted that China had been to slow to evacuate citizens from Ukraine, which suggested it was not fully prepared.

"Given the evidence we have so far, I think we can't rule out either possibility definitely – that Xi didn't know (which is bad) and that Xi may have known (which is also bad)," she said.


https://www.reuters.com/world/us-officials-say-china-asked-russia-delay-ukraine-war-until-after-beijing-2022-03-02/

[WHITT]

1. That Was Some Meeting

between the two of them at the Olympics. They looked like a couple of teenagers sitting up in the bleachers by themselves after the high school football game was over and everybody else left.

The real impactful news is that Xi just stated that China will not enforce ANY sanctions. These means many of the sanctions against Russia are now meaningless. Russia and China are already each others largest trading partners. So they can get all the replacement parts, electronics, and anything else they need.

Add to that the blockage of SWIFT and other financial machinations are rendered meaningless.