We already know that Obama's definition of "costs [5]" leaves something to be desired. Apparent so does his definition of "isolation", used for example, here:
"Russia is already more isolated than at any time since the Cold War" - President Obama, August 2014 [6]
Well, maybe not. From Itar-Tass [7]
China will never support or join recently imposed sanctions against Russia, Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber, said on Tuesday following her talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The speaker of the Federation Council quoted the Chinese president as saying, that China will never support sanctions against Russia, no matter how much pressure is exerted on them.
According to Matviyenko, China publicly stated its opinion on the inadmissibility of unilateral sanctions, their illegitimacy and counter-productivity.
“This is where our positions absolutely coincide,” she said adding that both Russia and China consider such sanctions as “ineffective and view them as attempts to exert pressure on sovereign states in order to weaken them and change their positions, to restrain their development.”
“This is China’s public position and we are grateful to China for such evaluations,” Matviyenko, who is currently on an official visit to China, said.
Because with such unprecedented "isolation", who needs the world's biggest alliance of natural resources, human capital, fixed investment and a population of over 1.5 billion?
Oh, and for the record Mr. President, feel free to read up on the Sino-Soviet split [8], where China couldn't stand the USSR and vice versa... during the Cold War.
