Marta Gichko23:27, 12/17/22

The PRC leader thinks about his own ambitions for Taiwan.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, especially the failure of the original plan, has caused Chinese leader Xi Jinping to worry.

As Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency William Burns said on the American public television program PBS , no country in the world has followed Russia’s failures on the battlefield as closely as China.

“I don’t think any other foreign leader has paid as much attention to this war and Russia’s poor military performance as Xi Jinping when he thinks about his own ambitions in Taiwan and elsewhere,” Burns said.

“It was interesting to watch the reaction of the Chinese leadership to the war in Ukraine,” he said, because on the eve of the invasion, Putin and Xi Jinping met at the Beijing Winter Olympics and proclaimed “boundless friendship.” However, this partnership did have limits. Convinced of the failure of Putin’s plans, China refused to supply weapons to Russia.

“It turns out that this partnership does have limits, at least in terms of President Xi’s reluctance to provide Putin with the military assistance he asked for during the war in Ukraine. So I would not for a moment underestimate the commitment of Chinese and Russian leadership of this partnership,” Burns said.

(C)UNIAN 2022