Friday, July 27, 2018

Russia Needs to Be Hit With the Clue Bat

Hey Russia! While you wet your pantskis over a few hundred American Marines in Norway, China is a growing threat to your Far East:

Not all Chinese foreign investments are in trouble. Case in point is Russia where China has quietly taken control of the local economy in those parts of Russia that border China and North Korea. That explains why China has ignored North Korea using Russia and Chinese cargo ships to illegally export coal. North Korea moves the coal (illegally) into Russia via truck where it is exported on ships owned by Chinese companies. China is tolerating this because Chinese firms have been exploiting corruption in Russia (which is worse than in China) to dominate the economy in the Russian Far East (the area between Mongolia and the Pacific coast). China has a historical claim on this area which China revived after World War II when the communists took over China. Those claims led to border skirmishes during the 1970s that were halted when Russia made it clear it was prepared to risk nuclear war over this issue. That Russian policy still stands, although it is not publicized. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the Russian economy went free market and open to foreign trade and investment China saw an opportunity to get back its lost lands in the Russian Far East. China will slowly absorb the Russian Far East economically and demographically (with more Chinese settling in the Russian Far East, legally or otherwise.) Eventually Russia finds that Chinese comprise most of the population in their far eastern provinces and control the economy as well. This approach takes longer but is less likely to trigger a nuclear war with Russia.

I have noted that China's territorial claims against Russia were suspended in a twenty-year treaty in 2001.

The year 2021 is getting darned close.

I wonder if Trump is blundering about (verbally--policy is clearly trying to contain Russia) on Russia or is figuratively hitting Putin with this particular clue bat to get them to end their pointless hostility to America and NATO.