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Putins legacy turns into Hitler. China embargos Russia. Russia becomes a state without friends. Potentially owns a completely depopulated Ukraine.
China will never turn on Russia, they're going to be at war with the US in Taiwan probably at some point this decade (possibly this spring if they want to capitalize on Russia already being committed)... And they need Russia's 4000 nukes in their back pocket if they're going to have an effective deterrent against the US's vast stockpile.
Otherwise the US could escalate to tactical nuking of Sea and military targets, while china's limited stockpile of 300 would be running into US anti-missile systems, and the maneuverability of Aircraft carriers (which at 30+ nts could probably escape main blast area in a 10 minute flight time)...
Unless they have the backpocket threat of 4000 Russian nukes, those 300 become 100-150 you can spare without losing deterrence, becomes a few dozen that actually hit any targets... At which point the US could be tempted to take out those manmade Islands and costal military facilities.
Your crazy. Nuclear War is a graver risks to China than any desire to get Taiwan. China doesn’t want a new world order where Nuclear War is an accepted reality therefore they would turn on Russia.
Exactly which is why they'd need russia on side for any invasion of Taiwan to act as a deterent so the US doesn't do a first strike with tactical nukes against their sea based and coastal assets
US has no doctrine of protecting Taiwan with nukes. Russia normalizing use of nukes is an existential risks to China.
Besides Russia nuking Ukraine there’s a risks they would nuke others like Berlin that would put on full nuclear war and a nuclear winter for China. There is no world where China wants nuclear winter happening over Taiwan.
The US pursues "Strategic ambiguity".
They won't launch the minutemen missiles at chinese cities over taiwan, nor are they obliged to. But its very possible they'd use tactical nukes to take out China's artificial Islands in the south china sea, or disrupt Chinese staging bases.
China needs a deterent to that since they'd struggle to escalate in kind.
Again there is no support in America for using tactical nukes in war. It opens up escalation that is unthinkable.
There would very quickly be that popular and senior political support if America started losing, 5000-10,000 souls went down in a single day on 1-2 Aircraft carriers, and it looked like the east pacific could entirely swing into China's sphere of orbit..
Which since China atleast plans to win a war if they're going to start one, is the kindof eventuality they need to plan for...
You know "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail"
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