This is basically what my mind has been thinking but trying to gauge China is risky.
Yep, but a bit of armchair conjecture is always fun :-)
Publicly, China is never going to come out against Putin, but I'm sure they would be very happy should the Russian federation collapse, it would provide them the perfect opportunity to provide aid/support/involvement to the eastern republics, oblasts, and krais in Siberia as there are enormous natural resources that China would love to exploit. A chaotic Russia would also serve China's purposes by giving the European countries a security headache whilst being conveniently far away from China.
It wouldn't at all surprise me if there wasn't a bit of "Get rid of Putin, let us have Siberia, and we won't go after Taiwan" communication going on behind the scenes.
