alt Hacker NewsIt's not a binary choice between material support and sanctions, there are plenty of intermediate states. I think you are being hyperbolic again.
And I disagree that USSR and PRC were just "rival peers". Rival peers would be UK/US (at least until Suez), or UK/FR until the 90s. USSR and PRC actively fought each other and almost started a nuclear war; that's way beyond "peer rivalry", that's actual direct competition.
Regardless, Russia is far weaker today then when it was in the USSR, and China is far stronger than what it was when it was getting into shoving matches with the USSR. It's relegated to a chess piece China can move around without much thought.