China is a rouge 'enemy' for the West. They want Russia and with Russia's collapsing influence we've seen their 'traditional allies' fall one by one into the West's lap. Serbia was a massive fail for Putin. Belarus going is another. Armenia will soon find a new open ally in the West - with France taking the lead. Putin has made many grave mistakes in trying to solidify the Russian state at the expense of rebuilding real power from the ground up. The only thing Russia can partially project is military in small theatres. Culturally and religiously, they've shit the bed when it could've been very different. I say the fatal mistake was coddling Turkey and Erdogan, which precipitated the loss of Russian influence in the Balkans, is seriously harming their position in Syria, and now all of Central Asia is looking for alternatives. Where's Macron?! lol