Ukraine and European leaders agreed on Saturday to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire from 12 May with the backing of US president Donald Trump, threatening president Vladimir Putin with new “massive” sanctions if he failed to comply.
The announcement was made by the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Ukraine after a meeting in Kyiv, during which they held a phone call with Trump.
The total amount of Chinese trade with Russia is less than the deficit Europe has with China. Secondary sanctions would mean they lose access to the EU which is about 4 times the population size of Russia, and same again for the US. China is pragmatic, and they don’t want that difficulty in favour of propping up a failing regime.
Yeah the Trump regime is stupid and cant handle international relations. Why would China engage.
The amount of trade is not the only thing that matters. Russia exports food, fertiliser and oil. Trade with Europe / US is mostly in luxuries. If forced to choose between them, China will likely choose the first.
(More likely they won’t be forced to choose because they control multiple key supply chains, and can sink the economy of any country except maybe the USA.)
It’s even more stark for my country. No trade with the west means we lose a lot of export revenue, and our growth slows. No trade with Russia means famine and fuel shortages. It’s not even a choice.
The purpose is pressure. These countries dont want to have to deal with scarcity in terms of food, trade, investment or energy. These countries would put pressure to end the war, while other countries would attempt to take Russia’s share of the trade