Well, yes, Flag of Convenience is a thing.

But there is a "but", which is that in the articles of war, the flag of a ship does have quite a few implications. E.g. when two nations are at war, stopping ships flagged as belonging to the opposition gives certain rights of stopping and searching them, blockading their passage, seizing the vessels and cargo, etc.

And the relevant characteristic in that case is the flag, not the captain's nationality: > Art. 51. Enemy character. The enemy or neutral character of a vessel is determined by the flag which it is entitled to fly.

http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/instree/1913a.htm

Yes, good points. It's not a wild stretch of the imagination that Mr P and gang are actively trying to drag China into the Ukraine conflict and I'd imagine Beijing is pretty pissed off today about being (ostensibly) implicated in this sabotage. So the usual underhand scheming from the Kremlin imho, don't fall for it. China and Russia's relationship is very complicated of course and there's many a convincingly analysis out there that predicts conflict between them in the near future (an example flashpoint being Siberia).

Yes, this is what I'm saying, but with less words.

But look around (even in these comments) and look at how many people are thinking "Chinese act of war!!!11!!"

So the Russians who are at this point highly dependant on Daddy Xi to keep their economy and military afloat are gonna false flag the West to suck China into a quagmire of a war a few months before the most unpredictable and venomously anti-china president (who has thin skin, a hair trigger, and no qualms about conducting airstrikes on high-ranking Iranian generals unilaterally on a whim) in modern US history is about to take office at the head of a country with the largest functioning stockpile of nuclear weapons and a massive military? You think Chinese intelligence is asleep at the wheel and wouldn't notice given the stakes and absurd levels of geopolitical risk the entire planet is at?

China may back Russia to try to shift perception of the west's military might/will or to drain resources or just to buy Russia by making them dependant to get those juicy Russian natural resources but they aren't going to start world war iii to help Putin with his fetishistic "yet another European dictator" fantasy.

The Chinese know how to play the game same as the Russians and the US. All these little games are just calibrated psyops, why destroy, very publicly, comms lines when tapping it would be far more beneficial to a war effort and much quieter? Maybe to make the West look weak and unable to defend their borders which affects consequences domestically like say channeling political support to isolationist politicians who want to retreat from supporting Ukraine? Cause those politicians didn't make gains in the last European elections or nothing.

Well said.