The Wall Street Journal asked in its Thursday article concerning President Joe Biden’s (D) Friday telecon with People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping whether the call, or any other factor, would shift [the PRC’s] alignment with Russia.

The answer is crystalline in my NSHO.

Not a chance. Putin’s performance in Ukraine and his request for Xi to send him additional arms, military foodstuffs, and money represent a golden opportunity for Xi to reduce Putin to even further dependency on Xi and on the PRC, and to solidify the PRC’s presence in eastern and southern Siberia. That presence already is greatly expanded over prior years by the Putin-Xi economic agreement to have the PRC and Russia jointly exploit the Siberian resources, with a significant fraction of the produce going to the PRC and with PRC citizens (and their families) moving into Siberia to provide the labor.

Xi won’t pass that up, and he doesn’t care in the slightest what other nations’ politicians might think of him. The gains will be worth it to him.