This is where diplomacy should shine. It's clear that Russia has been hardening against western sanctions for years now, and CIPS is a big piece of that. If NATO can convince China to also shut them out of CIPS at the same time we turn off SWIFT the Russian Oligarchs will start applying pressure to Putin.

They won't. They want Russian support when they invade Taiwan.

They don't need Russian support to attack Taiwan and Russian economic support is meaningless. They won't do it because there is no incentive to. The US has to bribe them. Think of China like an evil corporation. They won't do anything except for their own best interests. Like Facebook with nukes.

Russian support won't come in the form of money or weapons. It'll come in the form of shutting off gas lines to the EU or invading the next set of non NATO countries in the EU, forcing the major military powers of the EU and NA to decide between protecting Europe or protecting Taiwan.

I don't think adding the tag of "evil" in front of corporation is necessary or helpful. Corporations are selfish and aggressive enough already. Nothing about China's geopolitical plotting is anymore evil than the US or Russia, regardless of what ideological non-sense you use to justify any corner.

China can't invade Taiwan without Taiwan blowing up the Three Gorges Dam and wiping out 1/4th of China's population

I doubt that's going to happen. China has refused to even call this an invasion, and has said that it's the West's fault.

Source?

All over the news if you do a search. First hits:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rejects-calling-ru...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/china-refuses-to-call-attack...

Thanks.

In fairness to nojs, I tried to search for it to back up my claim, and couldn't find it again.

Why would China shut off Russia when it also faces the same adversaries from across the ocean? This is their moment prove CIPS.

You need to finish that sentence: "...prove CIPS enables imperialist expansion."

Yeah imperialism sure sounds like weaponizing international systems nominally neutral.

You need to convince Europeans before China.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/kyiv-furious-a...

Russian oligarchs will not apply pressure to Putin. They are all accomplices now.

All this politics theater of the past few days was to make everyone of notice show support for invasion, in public form. Lawmakers, Security council, oligarchs, senators, everyone. So they would know they won't be able to betray him and escape. They are all forced to make their bones.

Russia and China have developed their own equivalent of SWIFT, so again this is a sanction which will benefit Russia just like the oil price going up will benefit them because Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world.

Plus with Chernobyl, some of the fuel rods may well be weapons grade still, and Chernobyl almost bankrupted Russia, it certainly helped break up the Soviet Union according to Gorbachev, its also on the border with Belarus who are aligned with Russia, and uranium fuel rods are not cheap to make, it takes tonnes of Uranium, so grabbing Chernobyl would seem sensible.

So at this stage, I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure, a bit like we have seen with China over the last decade or so, whilst all the while the West is kept in the slow lane for other less developed countries to catch up.

CIPS is not an "equivalent of SWIFT" by a long shot. It definitely helps soften the blow of any potential SWIFT sanctions but that doesn't mean losing SWIFT access would be a non-issue.

> I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure

That's practically impossible. They could have done in in last 30 years, but almost all the profit went to pockets of Kremlin's pyramid of power and tunneled to tax havens across the world. Corruption, laziness, incompetence of key people, and in some form also in the rest of nation will effectively prevent that.

But during the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian govt gave shares in all the state assets, as the rouble collapsed, but the shelves were bare, everyone with anything decent only wanted dollar, like you see in African countries, and so the rich with international financial connections offered to buy the shares awarded to the Russian public in exchange for dollars in order to buy food.

Do this en masse and you have your present day Russian oligarchs.

All Putin & the KGB have been trying to do since is rebuild Russia whilst getting people adjusted to capitalism. Many people in remote rural areas still wish for the old communist days where there was much more state support like with better infrastructure thats now crumbling away.

Communism started in Russia in 1917, its an ideology just like there is a new AI ideology in play right now, but these ideologies are/were designed to further human advancement, and even the Chinese recognise, Capitalism has so far one out, at least the illusion of Capitalism if you ignore how search engines can control a countries economy.

All ideologies have their faults, but some are also dependent on technology, so I dont know if an AI communism/capitalism mix could be seen in the future?

So look at teh buildings that are being destroyed, are these happening to make way for a new supermarket, shopping mall, road interchange once the building starts?

Just look at what happened in Iraq, private companies stormed in there and capitalism was in full flow because of Uncle Sam, however I suspect its Mother Russia now looking to splash the cash which means likely many Russian firms getting a govt handout disguised as war disguises these things.

Revisit this comment in ten years time and see if your opinion changes!