China could help Russia in trying times

Russia faces a crisis because of the US-led Western sanctions for its alleged involvement in the Ukraine crisis. In these trying times, China could provide critical assistance to Russia and start the beginning of new type of partnership with its northern neighbor. China has to swing into action, because if Russia goes down under the weight of Western sanctions, China will be left alone to face the West's arm-twisting moves.

For decades, the United States and its Western allies have used the threat of sanctions and other punitive measures to browbeat other countries into accepting their policies and conditions, economic or otherwise. And if Beijing remains a spectator as the West has its way with Russia it could pave the way for the West to train its guns on China.

Many Chinese scholars have cited the rugged relationship between China and Russia over the past 100 years to say that their interests have rarely met. China signed three separate alliance treaties with Russia (and the Soviet Union) in 1896, 1923 and 1937 when Japan posed a threat to both, but none of them worked. Unfortunately, even the alliance treaty in 1950 - between New China and the Soviet Union - broke down extracting huge political and economic costs on both sides.