You say this as if the Ukraine invasion is the ethical bar, meanwhile the US has been invading countries for 50 years.
And Ukraine is still an ethical bar, a big one, as to when push comes to shove, China isn't a great partner. I don't think the Ukrainians are going to look fondly on how China has acted here. Remind me again why China supports Russian aggression in the Ukraine?
China is bordering Russia. If you think that somehow doesn't change the type of relationship both parties are forced to have you don't understand geopolitics.
The United States has extremely weak neighbors and huge oceans separating us from threats. Obviously our situation is very different.
Can you explain what you are thinking? One implication is that China is supporting Russia because they are afraid of a Russian military actin, but is that what you mean?
To use a crude analogy - if you're in a apartment complex you would probably be nicer to your neighbor than if they lived in another building, and not literally next to you, right?
Russia, China and India are the three neighbors living in a triplex. Meanwhile the United States is in a mansion surrounded by a moat a mile away.
If one of your neighbors was beating up and stealing from another of your neighbors, are your really saying you’d cosy up to them? By this logic you’d expect Finland to be Russia’s best friend.
I am critical of the Chinese system of government, but I’d never think of them as cowards.
Also, I guess you can’t explain why Finland isn’t Russia’s best friend despite bordering Russia.
If you can explain why your argument doesn’t apply to Finland, I’ll point you to a news report showing China’s support for Russia.
"Finlandization is the process by which one powerful country makes a smaller neighboring country refrain from opposing the former's foreign policy rules, while allowing it to keep its nominal independence and its own political system. [...] The Finnish political cartoonist Kari Suomalainen once explained Finlandization as "the art of bowing to the East without mooning the West"." [0]
The Soviet Union's collapse allowed Finland to spread its wings a bit more broadly, but it's worth pointing out that yes, Finland was cozying up to the Soviet Union like mad, in order to best survive their physical proximity. The logic does seem to check out, at least while the bogeyman of the USSR still shambled around.
China can defend itself just fine, is the general assertion they make, so what are they worried about exactly? If Finland can speak out against Russia, why can't China?
[0]: https://apnews.com/article/science-technology-business-mexic...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_s...
They also don't support poking a fucking insane leader of a nation with nukes that shares a massive land border with them and which they are heavily reliant on for natural resources.
Those positions aren't at odds with each other. Wanting peace but also not wanting to sour relationship with perhaps your most important neighbour aren't unreasonable things to want at the same time.
China was a great partner to Ukraine and invested a shit ton of money there, they are probably very upset that Russia has decided to go in there and fuck up the infrastructure they built.
I just don't understand what people expect from China here?
Turn around and say, "Hey Russia, I know you provide like 1/3rd of our energy and commodities imports but I would like you to go fuck yourself until you abandon your invasion of a small country that we like but isn't critical to our economy. kthxbye".
Yeah. That is entirely unrealistic and everyone should know that.
The US provides weapons to Ukraine because it's convenient. They send them surplus old crap and it hurts the Russians. Good for Ukraine, good for the US and costs them essentially nothing in the grand scheme of things, in fact it's probably the cheapest $/russian_damage they can currently purchase. They get to fight a war (their favourite pasttime) with none of the negative domestic consequences. Win win!
On the other hand there is nothing China can do here on either side that isn't negative expected value for them.
Them backing Russia would fuck them over with Europe which is actually a really good trading partner. Most people agree it's all negatives here so I don't think I need to elaborate.
Them going against Russia would just obliterate the relationship they have spent decades fixing and probably buy them absolutely nothing with anyone else.
The US isn't going to turn around and be like "Hey! China doesn't like Russia anymore, now they are our best friend!". That shit ain't happening. The US will continue to contain and suppress China because that is their prerogative and has nothing to do with their alliance with Russia. US can't allow a world were there is a power that rivals theirs, it violates every current US doctrine of "world order".
TLDR: China doesn't have anything to gain by directly rebuffing Russia and plenty to gain by staying relatively neutral in the matter.
Would you mind explaining where they have made it clear?
All I’ve seen are statements blaming it on the US for being open to new NATO members.
Why is this better?
Prolonging the war harms Russia (so long as Russia doesn't win). It increases tensions between NATO and OPEC. It's a drag on economic productivity for most of the countries engaging. If resulting shortages hurt the developing world, that's another anti-NATO talking point for China in its relations with those states, and weakened economies or state-stability might open up new opportunities for China. Meanwhile, China gets cheap fuel and can generally do as they like with Russian relations, since, what're the Russians gonna do, push them away?
Meanwhile, what would they gain from flipping hard against Russia?
China's whole deal, to paint with a broad brush, is avoiding entanglements and prodding things the way that suits them... from the sidelines. Their foreign policy doesn't really follow some kind of moral narrative like we like to (try to) apply to ours in the West, to the point that the narrative they do have is about how they won't screw with foreign countries for reasons of morals or ideology—though neither their narrative nor ours fully fits the facts of their or our behavior. We play our cards, they play theirs. Our favored move right now is to help Russia wreck its military and economy while embarrassing itself. China's favored move is swooping into the resulting trade vacuum to their own benefit, and keeping this mess going as long as possible, because it's hurting everyone involved while helping them and improving their overall diplomatic/strategic position.