question_answer

Directions: In each of the following questions a short passage is given with one of the lines in the passage missing and represented by a blank. Select the best out of the five choices given to make the passage complete and coherent. (Coherent means logically complete and sound.)

China has no illusions about Russian power. It sees it as weak and in decline. Successive American governments have reached the same conclusion. But whereas American leaders have tended to react by ignoring Russia, Chinese ones have done the opposite. _____. Having watched Russia become a growing problem for the West, they do not want it to become a headache for China too.

A)  They believe that an angry, declining power with nuclear arms require more, not less, attention.

B)  For China, economic ties with America, and therefore political ones, are hugely important.

C)  Last year Russia overtook Angola and Saudi Arabia as the country's biggest supplier of crude oil.

D)  With Russia's access to international capital markets now severed as a result of sanctions, China has become Russia's main source of funds.

E)  For that to change would require fundamental economic reform in Russia.