[ggm]

This is a bit ahistorical. "We" made a pact with Mao because it was expedient in war against Japan. We made a pact with Stalin for the same reason, and Tito. Chiang Kai Shek wasn't able to keep control and had actively collaborated with Japanese forces when it suited him.

Western arms did not prevent or provoke CSKs abandonment of the mainland. Mao wasn't armed by the west.

Mao's insane famine inducing policy, his rapprochement with the USSR and breakup, his involvement in the Korean war was all in the future, as was Kissinger and Nixon. At the time, needing bases to bomb the Japanese heartland, making a pact with Mao made sense. Do you argue otherwise from non post-hoc reasoning?

My biggest fear is a post-Xi destabilising China-internal fight for control. It's more likely it leans to Russia than not. No claimant to controlling the Chinese autocracy will want to look weak and agreeing to western norms will look weak, where selling arms to a fellow autocrat and sourcing cheap oil looks clever.

Xi must be weaker now than he's ever been, caving in on covid restrictions caused predictable chaos. He's off-brand. It's worrisome.