Neither excuses nor condemnation of US foreign policy. Just trying to point out the silliness of arguing that Ukraine is somehow not a legitimate country.
We recognize it; China officially recognizes it; Russia even officially recognizes it; therefore it is.
The problem here is that Russia is trying to do to Ukraine effectively what we did with Panama and China desperately wants to prevent with respect to Taiwan.
Hence, my initial assertion that China has to tread lightly here.
I just received a history of the world in maps. Interestingly enough ukr doesn’t appear on any maps as independent country until early 1990’s. In slavic languages the ukraine means “the borderlands”. I was surprised at how large poland-lithuania used to be. Maybe the russkies could offer the western half of ukr to poland if they leave nato.