This article https://www.thepress.co.nz/world-news/350370374/china-stockpiling-should-west-be-doing-same paints a different perspective with the expectation that a Trump president will see Ukraine abandoned and China moving to take Taiwan, all against the reality that China is stockpiling rare earth and other strategic minerals plus foodstuffs and fuels on an unprecedented scale...in preparation for an almighty standoff. Can the west triumph when China now controls so many strategic production goods while the west has lost its capacity to produce so many?
The Ukraine war is the key to understanding the geopolitical conflict between the USA, the Europeans and China. The Europeans have no resources of any significance, so they are dependent on either landing them or acquiring them through fair trade. What will they do? At the same time, the Americans could be energy self-sufficient if they had a proper government. So the whole thing can change very quickly. The Ukraine war is the lever to split Russia into many individual states and to extract the resources at prices that would then be determined by the demand side
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