What would be China’s endgame with this move? Trying to very obliquely help Russia?
My guess if it was intentional on China’s part:
Reducing Europe’s ability to import energy under normal circumstances would certainly cause economic hardship in Europe, which could be to China’s gain. However, Europe was fairly resolute in their abandoning of Russian gas, as well as very successful in bringing online their LNG terminals much faster than expected.
So on balance now it looks very ineffective, but that certainly wasn’t a foreseeable outcome at the time of the pipeline incident.