Russian President Vladimir Putin has seen his popularity decline abruptly over the past year - something the New York Times won't let its subscribers forget. And Russia's handling of mass unsanctioned protests related to United Russia's flagrant prohibition of opposition parties from participating in next month's Moscow City Council elections has drawn more scrutiny from the West. But once again, Beijing is siding with Moscow over in its handling of the protests, and - as it did recently when it blamed the US for inciting Hong Kong protests - has accused the West of "interfering" in Russia's affairs: China supports Russia’s rebuke of some foreign nations that have used the protests in Moscow to meddle in the country’s domestic affairs, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. "We have concerns over certain Western nations, which jump out of nowhere and conduct untoward actions" in relation to the protests, Geng Shuang said at a media briefing. He said Beijing supports the efforts of the Russian government to keep the situation within the rule of law. Around the same time that the White House hinted that a military conflict may be imminent in Hong Kong after it said it was monitoring what a senior administration official called a "congregation of Chinese forces" on Hong Kong’s border, China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday claimed the recent protests in Hong Kong are "the work of the US," adding that the United States owes the world an explanation. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "thinks that the recent violence in Hong Kong is reasonable because everyone knows that this is the work of the US," spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing, referring to when Pompeo said China should "do the right thing" in dealing with protests in Hong Kong, in an interview with Bloomberg Television last week. This, as one reader summarized today, can not be amended as follows: Trump aborted China trade talks as soon as they begin... ... and stoked unrest in HK to piss Chinese off... ... in order to force the Fed to cut rates... ... and then get a trade deal with China this fall or winter to send stocks soaring into the 2020 elections ... Profit get re-elected. Meanwhile, as the trade war between Washington and Beijing rages, US consumers are spending tons of cash as personal consumption soars. The Russian capital has seen a series of unsanctioned protests take place in recent weeks over what participants call the unfair treatment of opposition candidates, like Alexei Navalny... ...who were excluded from the September election to the city legislature. Some of the protesters violated Russian laws on mass gatherings, and were met with a police response.