Makes a great deal more sense (economic, energy, safety) to ship Siberian gas to China by pipeline than US gas by LNG tanker, which I’ve seen discussed.
One aspect of this deal apparently not mentioned is that Russia’s East continues to empty demographically.
An immense, almost completely empty, resource-rich land right next door on which it is economically dependent will at some point become a nearly irresistable lure for China. Or quite possibly Siberia will remain Russian de jure while becoming Chinese de facto.
Which would be a type of poetic revenge for how Russia handled Manchuria 100 and some years ago.
I fully expect China to take part of Russia possibly via Mongolia once the Us is marginalized and weakened.
One only has to look at geography and demographics to see the incredible lure that concept has for China.
145 million inhabitants in the largest country on earth vs 1.5 billion who need breathing room?
Also, Russia can’t afford to lose too many people because of war. China would probably shrug at the concept of losing a few million?
Maybe this will help the Euros get over their deathly fear of fracking...
Parts of the far east are growing in population. Russia has stabilized it’s population loss and is settling the east and other vulnerable areas with Cossacks and other traditional types that are patriotic and have large families. Unlike Americans or Europeans, these people are organized along tribal lines have their own militias. The idea is to not rely on the power of the state alone to protect Russian territory, but to settle the land with people who will be hard to dislodge by temporary foreign incursions. Russia’s leaders are thinking far into the future.
Russia will do anything necessary to protect its territory, including “population transfers” of non-loyal people. They would not hesitate to deport all Chinese or Muslims or whoever from Russia if they thought it were necessary.
“Which would be a type of poetic revenge for how Russia handled Manchuria 100 and some years ago.”
The Russians and the Chines were killing each other as recently as 1950s. There was some border issue.
Russia FEARS China. China is still the middle kingdom. I have a hard time believing that anyone will move into Siberia. It is desolate, the Chines do not leave their limited national boundaries.
China too has indigenous population issues, Muslim included, that are not reported by the US Commie press