Originally I assessed this as China and Russia throwing Palestinians under the bus. Now, I think this is a simplistic take.

At the end of the day there is a history of non-aligned movement as per Bandung 1955 conference which included China at the time, which discussed the Palestine question. There is no deviation now, that I see.

To put it simply, it seems that both China and Russia are keen to stop the genocide and that this is a stop-gap measure. Vetoing it would have increased the violence imv.

https://socialistchina.org/2025/11/19/china-explains-its-abstention-in-un-gaza-vote/