Sanctions don't work. Sanctions have never succeeded in regime change. Sanctioned countries can circumvent the sanctions by going around them. In the case of China, China is a 17 trillion dollar economy with a proven consumer market. If sanctions didn't work on smaller economies, will it work for economic leviathans? Sanctions are a two-way street. Sanctions are a cost to the country being sanctioned and to the country imposing the sanctions. Trade controls on China are actually a sanction on US companies as well. In the EU, sanctions on Russia is a sanction on themselves. Now they have to pay for expensive, more complex energy structures., while a key component to stabilize that is natural gas.