I disagree with your assessment of Russian innocence in its cooperation with Chinese desire to set Asian security concerns on Chinese terms. Russia is knowingly, not accidentally, getting "mixed up".
We are already in WWIII now; it began in 1991. The active part of our response simply had a twelve year delay - no thanks to France and Clinton's desire to not oppose France on more quickly settling up with Sadaam and playing diplomatic games with other Muslim dictators. In time, history will bring out the true extent of actual Iraqi connections with and background support for Al Queda.
China is not co-opting Russia. It is looking for partners and to the extent that Russia is cooperating with China, that cooperation is a willing and conscious choice, with no illusions about Chinese intentions. Russia is playing the same game as France - anything to contradict the only "superpower".
Russia is a mobocracy and its foreign affairs are directed to pure and total nationalistic economic concerns to support and strengthen the Russian mob created oligarchs that now control Russia's economy through the KGB.
I have said for years, the one thing that Gorbachev was right about was that his country was not ready for democracy. It did not have the instutitions, history and culture to make it work. He wanted to implement perestroika and glasnost gradually, allowing time to create national democratic based institutions and allowing the functing of those institutions to provide a history and culture of democratic practice.
The politburo tried to replace Gorby because they did not want to loose their power and the new democrats did not want to wait for glasnost and perestroika to change the national culture. The only ones who were organized, who had their own national network, who had connections with the party apparatchiks and the levers of government, who had favors owed to them by party and government officials and who were ready and able to move into the power vacumn was ......the Russian mobs. The KGB needs them and they need the KGB. They are each others base of power. Nothing can get done in the economy without the mob and the KGB can replace one mobster with another if its suits Putin. Nothing in that power equation has changed since Gorby fell. It has made the Russian people willing to question the "democracy" and "free markets" they are told they have. It is making the Russian people willing to accept a new revolution and a new dictatorship who will throw out the mob oligarchy - and capitalism and freedom along with it. Think if the old Soviet Union without the ideology and you have a Russian version of Nazi Germany.
Good God, I don't trust Russia as far as I can throw it. They are sneaky and when their military is quiet, still, it's always a good idea to keep an eye on what they are doing (EX: aircraft carrier activity 3/23).
When it comes to Russia, they can cause enough mischief on their own without being tempted by the prospect of oil and natural gas in the East China Sea region.
No way, they are not innocent whatsoever (Iskander-E and SA-18 proposed export deals to Syria; NVG being sold to Iraq right up to, and including, operations in OIF). No, I have never trusted Russia, nooooo. (Patton was right at the end of WWII,FYI). aROUND 1991, i wrote a strong paper articulating that the Soviet Union could come back and I documented cases in which old Communist Party hacks were still controlling different agencies etc. (The influence of the Russian mob is well documented and their expanding influence is not to taken lightly.) I went into a section on the Soviet Political culture and tied it into Russia's historic predilection for authoritarianism (tracing it back to Ivan) and cited the Russian political culture as being a definite obstacle to Democracy. Noooo I do not trust Russia, but it would be nice if they "just" tried to cause trouble “only” in Eastern Europe and the "Stans" and back off on any pacific maneuvers and arms activities in the Middle East.
Russia has its fingers in enough pies without China asking them to buddy up on misadventures in the Pacific, in oil deals and a potential hot war involving Taiwan and Japan (and the US). In the case of Russia, my HOPE is that they make a calculated assessment of the situation that getting further involved in Pacific affairs will cost them far more than any perceived benefits that China offers.
In the case of China's entreaties to Russia to participate in military maneuvers/war games, I find the Chinese proposal to "convert" these as being anti-terrorist exercises to what amounts to a mock invasion of Taiwan to be repulsive. I think China has FAR more to gain with Russian involvement in Pacific affairs than does Russia.
If it appears that Russia doesn't "get it" as to the wrongness of China's position and its irresponsible militarization of the region, then it should be clearly explained to Russia, in very clean and certain terms, they would be well advised to back off and walk away.
IF the proposed military exercises do in fact transpire, and IF in fact they resemble amphibious landing/invasion rehearsal operations and NOT anti-terror types of drills, I say we sink the entire Chinese fleet and all Russian vessels in the Pacific in a sudden and violent preemptive strike and let the precision bombing of all remaining Chinese and Russian assets in the region commence with extreme prejudice.
If we can destroy all their assets promptly, they may just get it through their thick skulls that that we are quite capable of knocking their block clean off and finally cut the BS.
Peace terms: China scraps its sub fleet, cuts back on military spending by 80% and Russia agrees not to sell China any more naval assets, like Kilo-IIs.