Posted on 04/09/2022 5:15:26 AM PDT by BlackAdderess
… China once claimed large tracts of land in what is now the Russian Far East. Russia took the southeast corner of Siberia through the Amur Annexation in 1858. A military conflict broke out in March 1969 that included clashes over Zhenbao Island in Heilongjiang Province and on the border between China’s far western province of Xinjiang and the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. These incidents led to fears of nuclear war between the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. Given China’s view that it is entitled to all of the territory, both land and sea, that it once controlled, Xi may not feel the need to pay for access to these territories. He could go so far as to demand that Russia cede control of parts of this region to China. It remains to be seen whether, when this war is over, China will be there to prop up Putin or to pick Russia’s bones.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Internally, China is in flux. External relations take lower priority during the transition to China Socialism in process
Expansion has traditionally been a way for dictatorships to deal with internal instability. Nothing like free land to make people happy again!
That’s the worst part of all this.
The #1 strategic priority for the USA needs to be preventing the Chinese conquest of Siberia. If China controls that land there is no way to stop Chinese global hegemony.
Putin’s decisions over his time in power makes Russia becoming a Chinese vassal state almost inevitable. There is not much time left for Russia to reverse its strategy and join the West instead.
China has a 5,000 year history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I have no doubt they are going to do it again.
Thank God, while the West is committing suicide, China has a retardo, retro commie in charge.
Only winner?
Well, I think Deep States all over the planet aren’t doing too bad, either...
That's pretty laughable. Putin actually asked to join NATO in the 1990s and was rebuffed. This was after Sec State James Baker had promised that in return for the reunification of Germany, and the Soviet military leaving former Warsaw Pact nations, "NATO would not move one inch eastward."
If the free land was worth a damn, it would be poplated
When? That question kinda matters...
Be that as it may, I’m betting he’s going to try, and that is going to cause a nightmare.
So very true.
Can you imagine the holocaust of China and Russia going at it with nukes. The fallout eventually will hit the US and Europe. The greenies will absolutely go bananas over the destruction of our earth.
The question is whether “when” matters to a country that has been around for over 3,500 years.
Russia was never willing to acknowledge its new standing.
It should have joined the ranks of the UK, Germany, and Japan as former empires that are now happy American satellites. Unfortunately Russia could never give up on its delusion of being a great power.
“Putin actually asked to join NATO in the 1990s and was rebuffed.”
That’s not my recollection. What I remember is that Putin asked NATO leadership if NATO was going to invite Russia to join NATO, and that he was told that NATO does not issue invitations, but that interested countries could apply, and go through the normal process. Putin said he did not want to go through the same process that other countries had to. That was it. And any talk about Russia becoming part of NATO ended at that point.
Time will tell. Putin seems to only act rationally where his own bottom line is concerned, unless he doesn’t.
I’d say that it all depends on the Russian people’s sense of self-preservation, but this month we have seen all kinds of crazy stuff going on, including Russians digging trenches in Chernobyl.
The Soviets tried to develop Siberia using the Gulag. It proved slave labor doesn’t work. No volunteers either. China is authoritarian and could make their excess people move there. Wait for the right moment or time. Should we encourage it? Maybe there’s something in it for us.
From the Chinese perspective - Why would China want to disrupt relations with Russia in order to regain direct political control over Outer Manchuria when they can maintain effective control over the whole of Russia as a vassal state?
From the Russian perspective - Why would Russia want to ally with a disorganized and dysfunctional EU when they can ally with an up and coming China?
China will not insist on changes to Russian political, social and religious systems so long as Russia does not oppose Chinese interests and so long as Russia cooperates economically.
Russia has always pretended to superpower status.
The only time it felt like a great power was when the cold warrior industrialists in the west needed a boogieman.
We are shackled to a corpse
… (Attributed to Eric Ludendorff)
That is the specter that must haunt Vladimir Putin as he is confronted with the impotent state of his vaunted military machine. The fiasco in Ukraine has revealed to the world, and more importantly to the Chinese, that the Russian army is hopelessly inept, ponderous, and corrupt.
The Western European nations need no longer have no fear of Putin as a conventional armed force, he cannot make them quake by saber rattling, although he can still intimidate them with nuclear blackmail. It remains to be seen whether the Europeans can muster the will to free themselves of Putin's remaining weapon, energy. If they do, Putin is virtually as powerless as North Korea, except Russia has many more nuclear weapons than North Korea but the range of his influence will be recognized to be limited to his nuclear force.
Knowing that he is now virtually naked before his European enemies, Putin must ask himself, "what about my back?" The answer is, he cannot hope to negotiate with China on anything resembling equal terms. As far as China is concerned, Russia resembles Germany's connection to the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I - that of being shackled to a corpse.
Therefore, Putin has much to worry about when it comes to selling his energy and minerals to China because he has no bargaining position left, providing the Western Europeans can stand fast on the energy question. If they do, China will bargain hard and Putin can expect his economy to sink further.
Putin is now at point where he must decide strategically whether to make his peace with the West or to throw himself upon the mercy of the Chinese. He will probably try to accommodate both ends of his continent. He will try to cut the best deal he can out of Ukraine, hoping to keep open the sale of energy to the West while he cuts the best deal he can with China for the price of oil and minerals that go to them.
All this of course is complicated by the state of the world economy, by the shutdowns of the economy in important Chinese port cities allegedly for Covid perhaps reducing China's demand for Russia's minerals and, longer-term, for Russia's energy. Given the state of the Chinese real estate space, China's economy could crash further, reducing its trade with Russia thus leaving Putin even more with a disintegrating domestic economy.
On the other hand, sanctions against Russia, if they are continued after some sort of cease-fire is worked out in Ukraine, are only as strong as the weakest link and we can certainly foresee that at least a few countries will break free of the sanctions and cut deals two by energy from Russia. Russia's ability to enter into those deals will turn to a great degree on whether he can rehabilitate his image with some sort of peace deal in Ukraine.
The more he makes an easy peace in Ukraine, the weaker he appears at home, in Western Europe, to the United States and to China. The longer he postpones a deal in Ukraine, the more exposed and vulnerable he personally becomes.
The Chinese are already well aware that Russia is a hollow shell so they may or may not support Putin publicly in his negotiations on Ukraine or they may decide that their ambitions in Taiwan are being adversely affected by Putin's misadventure in Ukraine and cut him loose even as they continue to buy energy and minerals from him. The more they cut him loose, the more they can bargain down the cost of Russian energy.
Putin has no friends in front of him and a very dangerous friend behind.
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