ML moment

Good points, and I agree with you. I only mentioned those two because the topic was Russia and China.

The wider point stands, that oligarchs in every political and economic system of government are generally more concerned with their own power and welfare. Political leaders and power brokers will claim to have some ideological basis for their crimes, but there is always self-interest at the core of every exploitation. In that narrow-scope comparison, they are the same, but it manifests differently based on the available social and political structures in their respective countries.