True, but lately we have seen a bit of what kind of statesmanship Taliban use, and China would not like it. Namely they like to press their partners for extra money whenever needed, with violence or threat of it being a main tool. CCP does not fancy being put in a situation where Taliban renegotiate the mining deals by offering "aid" in locating conveniently kidnapped Chinese engineers or something like that.
2014 was the very last moment really, above all by Russia's own making. The public opinion was already mostly turned against them, but there was some doubt and chaos to take advantage of. But they didn't realize the consequences of what they did and how little window of opportunity it left them afterwards, Putin has failed to take advice from Machiavelli - "Never do your enemy a minor injury".
In 2014 and afterwards Russia did just enough injury to Ukraine to shift its status from ally to some, an exploitative partner to most, and despised enemy to few, to being a despised enemy to most and a partner in crime to few. And then gave Ukraine few years to take this recalculation of foreign relations into account.