You say, “Russia gave up Communism. China has not. Russia, whether cynical or not, is embracing Christianity. China certainly won’t. Since Peter the Great, it has always looked towards Europe and the West. China never has and never will.”
Russia may have given up Communism but it has adopted an oriental kleptocracy which is at variance with Western thinking. You are correct in your comment on Christianity and Russian cynicism. As for China not adopting Christianity, there are probably more practicing Christians in the above ground and underground Church than there are in Russia. As for Peter the Great (1672-1723), he attempted the modernization, not the Westernization of Russia. Catherine the Great was as failure at Westernization. Following the Napoleonic wars the great intellectual battle between liberals (Turgenev) and Slavophiles (Dostoesky) was fought out and the latter thinking won out. The feeble efforts to effect a change in the terrible landholding problem, and the land slave, the muzjik, failed prior to the Soviet revolution. And they have been emancipated on paper, but not in fact. Economically, present day Russia takes a back seat to California. And why is that? The Russsian economy has more similarity to the kleptocracy that exists in Turkey than it does to, say, the economy of the Netherlands. Finally, Russia only rarely has looked to the West for anything aside from those things it can copy or steal. An Oriental Despotism it has been, and an Oriental Despotism it remains.
Russia has always been a bit schizo about wanting to be a part of the West.
The entire “oriental kleptocracy” is a product of external control largely instilled by Clinton’s advisers.
They brought oligarchy to Russia recommending voucher privatization in combination with “shock therapy,” leaving everyone dirt-poor due to hyperinflation and all the state assets in the hands of 100 connected kids of the former Soviet party apparatchiks.
Clinton also brought rigged elections to Russia.
Most of the bad press Putin is getting is due to the fact that he forced the above commie a-holes to convert their empires into publicly traded companies, and punished the most brazen ones who tried to run the government through the lying media and bribery. There is no graft for Soros and Clinton foundation anymore.