Xi and Russia's Vladimir Putin are formed out of the wars of the 20th century. Joe Biden declares Western support for Ukraine 'unwavering' in defiant Warsaw speech.Russia claims gains in relentless battles in east Ukraine.Vladimir Putin suspends last nuclear treaty with US, puts new missiles on combat duty.Read more on Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Liang would become one of the most influential thinkers in modern China, shaping the views of Communist leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Faith in Western progress, he now believed, would lead China to catastrophe. Liang Qichao, who championed progress and modernisation, was a Chinese official observer of the Paris Peace Conference. Intellectual leaders in China were soured and turned away from Western ideals of democracy. China felt abandoned and humiliated by Western powers. Here, too, is a glimpse of Chinese resentment. Former German held territory in China was handed to Tokyo. The treaty, which excised German land and imposed onerous reparations on Berlin, sowed the seeds of resentment that Hitler would brutally exploit. Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping are formed out of the wars of the 20th century. Perhaps the Second World War began at the end of the first, with the Treaty of Versailles. World War II started earlier and finished much later than we commonly assume. War would not end in China until the Communist Revolution in 1949. By 1937, Japan brutally occupied large swathes of China. We could just as easily trace the conflict to Japan's invasion of Manchuria in 1931. Most people would think World War II began with Hitler's invasion of Poland. But within a generation the world was at war again. World War I was the so-called "war to end all wars". Clark says the weights piled on the scales until the balance tipped us into war. Yet by 1914 the world waged the most brutal conflict. Germany and Britain were each other's biggest trading partners the Kaiser and the King were cousins. Historian Christopher Clark famously described the world as "sleepwalking" to war in 1913. The prospect of nuclear war is very real. Just like in the second half of the 20th century we live with the fear of the bomb. Yes, old style 20th century nation-on-nation war can still happen. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has shocked the world - particularly the West - from its complacency.
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