Wow, if China takes over part of Siberia. I would be shocked and would come back to give you credit for foreseeing that.
If I was in Beijing I’d be telling President Xi to forget about Taiwan. Taking Taiwan would have similar impacts on China as taking Ukraine is having on Russia. And the ramifications of those impacts will be far greater on China than they are on Russia.
But where’s the downside to China taking back Siberia? Right now I can’t think of one. Putin is not going to go nuclear with China because China has his same moral values and won’t hesitate to annihilate every last Russian population center and military target.
The West certainly isn’t going to give a flying...care...if Putin’s Russia gets raped by China. We’ll just sit back and watch as Russia gets humiliated.
China could even score some karma points with the West by saying they’re taking back Siberia to help the Ukrainians. It would be a lie, of course, but we’d still applaud them for saying it.
I guess that’s my mental calculus here is that there just isn’t a downside to China taking back Siberia from Russia.
Siberia belonged to China for thousands of years before the Russians came along.