Deciding to come out and say that now? well, i m glad that he did and director burns is right except it isn t a silent partnership. prior to the invasion of ukraine, xi and putin signed a 5,000 word statement proclaiming a partnership without limits. so putin is merely becoming xi s sadistic side kick in the new cold war that they have launched against the west. he will only grow more dependent on china the more he experiences setbacks in ukraine. so the lessons for us is two-fold. one, we recognize who we are dealing with. two brutal dictators that want to destroy the west and secondly we need to wean ourselves off our addiction to cheap chinese manufacturing. we ve been scratching our heads throughout the ukraine crisis wondering how the europeans could have gotten themselves into a position where they are so dependent on russia for basic energy resources. well, we ve done the same