Why would that make him stupid?

From the article:

> No novel Covid-19 variants have emerged in China, according to a global consortium that’s tracking coronavirus mutations, potentially easing concerns that the country’s record wave of infections would give rise to new strains that could circulate around the world.

> National, provincial and private health-care authorities in the country have provided nearly 1,000 genetic sequences from infected patients to GISAID in the past five days, said Chief Executive Officer Peter Bogner. So far, all the samples continue to be omicron, though subvariants that have hit other parts of the world – including XBB.1 and BQ.1.1 – have emerged, he said.

> “The variants continue to circulate without any significant changes that raise any specter of concern,” Bogner said. “You do not have any kind of data that suggest anything but business as usual.”

> China is also ramping up efforts to track mutations, with the recent upload of sequencing data comparing with just 25 samples submitted in the previous month, he said.

Financial Times has some more details, says the two dominant subvariants are both BA.5 sub-subvariants:

https://www.ft.com/content/e9d2c4ee-5f41-458f-9980-77a27f3bd093

> A research team at a major Beijing university that has begun submitting sequenced samples from the city said about 80 per cent of their specimens were the Omicron sub-variant BF.7, while 20 per cent were BA.5.2. Both are spin-offs of the BA.5 strain.

> “The sample size is small so we still need more data to figure out the full picture,” said a member of the research team who asked to not be named.

> The findings are consistent with statements from Chinese health officials who have said the two Omicron sub-variants are responsible for the majority of the cases in the country, as well as other samples uploaded to Gisaid from Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan and other provinces.

China doesn't enter military alliances. They cooperate only if there is a concrete benefit for them.

Not a particularly great idea. Russia and Iran are Armenia's only allies.

Of course. But that doesn't make it stupid.

It's Omicron, nothing special. We in the West are much better protected against it compared to the Chinese population which has been completely shielded from all COVID variants that have emerged since mid 2020.

The only reason it's running rampant in China is that they abruptly ended their Zero COVID strategy.

The original variant had spread across the world long before Chinese New Year and even before regular New Year. We just couldn't tell at that point, but later tests showed that it was already in multiple countries including Spain, Italy and the US before anyone even knew there was a new virus.

Italy is doing that:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/italy-imposes-mandatory-covid-tests-travellers-china-2022-12-28/

> Italy has ordered COVID-19 antigen swabs and virus sequencing for all travellers coming from China

Why so? It was necessary for as long as they followed the Zero COVID strategy.

Now that they've abandoned it they can also allow Chinese tourists to go abroad again.

> The crisis stems from the then-Trump administration’s decision to block appointments of judges to the top WTO appeal body – which the US claimed was overstepping its role and encroaching on US sovereignty.

> The failure to replace retiring judges caused the top appeal body to grind to a halt in 2019. The Biden administration has not resumed appointments, saying the US concerns about the dispute system “remain unaddressed”.

> Australia and China were among a large number of co-sponsors of a proposal put to a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body in Geneva on Tuesday.

What exactly are the concerns of the US?

That's not an answer to the question how much the US itself is freezing.

You're also mixing up oligarch assets and central bank assets.

> The Department of Justice said Wednesday that the U.S. and its allies have frozen more than $30 billion of Russian oligarch assets and immobilized about $300 billion of Moscow’s central bank funds.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/doj-says-allies-have-frozen-30-billion-of-russian-oligarch-assets.html

The 13.8 billion euros of oligarch assets the EU had frozen in July are part of the 30 billion dollars mentioned in that article. The 300 billion dollars are unrelated, since those are central bank funds. I couldn't find any indication how much of those were frozen by the US and how much were frozen by the EU. Last figure I got is that in May the EU had frozen 23 billion euros in Russian central bank assets whereas the US had frozen 100 billion dollars in Russian central bank assets. Source

These are only assets of Russian citizens, not government assets.