International diplomacy involves a lot of anticipation instead of direct messaging, but even so, in this case I’d say it’s definitely more about Putin looking out for China than the other way around. The winter olympics were only China’s second olympics ever, and possibly China’s last olympics ever, and the ruling party clearly treated them as a Schelling Point. It would be a bad idea to fray ties with China at such a critical time.
International diplomacy involves a lot of anticipation instead of direct messaging, but even so, in this case I’d say it’s definitely more about Putin looking out for China than the other way around. The winter olympics were only China’s second olympics ever, and possibly China’s last olympics ever, and the ruling party clearly treated them as a Schelling Point. It would be a bad idea to fray ties with China at such a critical time.