IMHO, one reason Georgia might be building closer relations with China is that it cannot depend on the US (and the West). They have had a bad experience.
The Russian invasion in 2008, the Russo-Georgian War, left Georgia with no arms flow from Washington, especially when Georgia needed the arms most.
Georgia had troops in Iraq supporting the US-led multinational forces. There was military cooperation between the two countries.
When the Russians invaded, Georgia had to pull back its troops in Iraq for the war at home.
While Bush was in office (and later under Obama), there was no official arms embargo against Georgia, but there was a foreign policy and an undeclared sanction that was designed to appease the Russians.
In the end, no arms were supplied to Georgia from the US during the war in Georgia.
I know that there were arms sitting in the US awaiting export licenses to be shipped to Georgia, but those licenses were never issued, and the stock never shipped.
Georgia was left high and dry by Bush (and later by Obama) for the sake of not upsetting Russia.
Georgia making friends with China would be the natural course of things, I reckon.
See FDD Report, ‘Tbilisi Moves Closer to Beijing Despite Courting Washington’: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/06/12/tbilisi-moves-closer-to-beijing-despite-courting-washington/
–RdM
