Originally Posted by rickair7777

Only RU actually stands to benefit from this mess (they have plenty of oil themselves and what they can manage to sell around sanctions is probably their major source of hard currency).

PRC suffers from high oil prices like the rest of us. They would benefit from stability in the region (and in oil prices) more than they would from abstractly poking us in the eye. They also participate in anti-piracy ops in the region, in coordination with western navies. So not really a ridiculous idea. They are pretty practical.