One of geo-strategy's great unpredictables is what would Russia do if China launched a shooting war to sieze Taiwan.
To start off this multi-article topic Anonymous has penned the following:
Here is a link https://www.newsweek.com/russia-taiwan-part-china-partners-align-around-world-1638170 to Russia siding with China over Taiwan.
The Newsweek article states in part: "Russia Says Taiwan is Part of China as Two Powers Further Align Against U.S. Russia has unambiguously stated its position that the self-ruling island of Taiwan is a part of the mainland-based People's Republic of China, as strategic partners Moscow and Beijing seek to further align their positions regarding geopolitical issues across the globe..."
Anonymous's Observations and Questions:
I think this indicates that in approaching the conflict, Russia is siding with China, but some things are not clear:
1. How active will Russia’s participation be?
2. How will the non-democratic democratic world likely chose sides?
3. What will be the naval impact?
Some possible things to watch for:
A. Countries nominally with the democracies may be intimidated into neutrality or declaring for China.
B. Countries friendly to China may be decides that Chinese supremacy is not in their interest.
Some possible indications:
1a. Vietnam probably DOES NOT WANT Chinese domination. It has not improved in 2000 years.
2a. Philippine President Duterte may prefer China for regime insurance, but Philippine public may choose for itself. The port and former US naval base of Subic Bay is a big prize.
3a. Russian support may free China from some dependency on South China Sea shipping, by reducing vulnerability to blockade.
If democracies want to prevent China from attacking, deterrence MUST be credible. What's the effect of the big sorting out?
PETE COMMENT
I find the questions above unpredictable due to the wide range of economic, political and military/naval scenarios of any attempted Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
I agree that if the US and its allies threw up a blockade of hydrocarbon (oil, gas and coal) shipments by sea to China then Russia may step up energy supplies by land to China.
This is chiefly by greater Russian use of the overland oil and gas pipelines Russia has already built to supply China.