Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
That's nice of the Chinese.

There the US/EU were thinking that sanctions were hurting the Assad regime... then along comes dear old uncle Hong and helps them out.
Of course they'll help anyone who's an irritant to us. We'd do the same in the other direction. The Chinese don't approve of sanctions in general and will try to undercut them wherever they are applied, as long as there's no risk to them.

Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
Well perhaps like Russia the penny will start to drop that there may well be penalties in the future for their relationship with Assad. So without Assad the Sino-Syrian relationship may be radically changed. So does anyone really buy the opinion that "the Chinese don't give a rat's ass about Syria"?
Don't bet on there being any penalty. The Chinese did plenty of business with Saddam, with or without sanctions, and they are major players in the post-Saddam Iraqi oil industry. When money talks, memory fades. If Assad falls the Chinese will do business with whoever gets in. Of course Syria's oil exports are insignificant and the Chinese have no major vested interests in Syria, so no, the Chinese don't give a rat's ass about Assad. They'll prop him up as long as he irritates the US, when his utility is used up they'll drop him and deal with whoever gets in.

Of course that whole conversation started with the quite bizarre notion that fear of notably unspecified repercussions from China or Russia dissuaded the US from an intervention that the US never had any interest in undertaking in the first place.