You don't say?
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. The plans is for China to 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. Despite that threat Russia has made itself more vulnerable by becoming more dependent on the Chinese currency (the yuan) as a way to deal with the growing list of Western (especially American) sanctions. By selling off euro and dollar denominated assets (bonds, government debt) and switching to yuan denominated equivalents Russia becomes more dependent on (and vulnerable to) China. Yes, all is going according to plan.
It's almost as if Russian hostility to NATO and other Western neighbors is all about concealing Russian appeasement of the looming China threat.
Yet Russia isn't ready to resist China. So the two had lengthy talks, which was reported over a week ago:
Yang Jiechi, a member of China’s Communist Party Politburo, will be in Russia from Tuesday to Friday to take part in the latest round of the China-Russia strategic security consultation, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.
He will co-chair the meeting with Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Xinhua reported.
It will be interesting to see what the talks achieved and whether Russia looks like anything other than a near-client state desperate to keep China at bay.
UPDATE: Ah, just call it Sudetenskayaland and embrace the appeasement of China!
Earlier this week, Russia offered to bail out China from the trade war with Washington. Moscow offered 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of arable land available to Chinese farmers to meet its large-scale demand for soybeans — and of course, prevent a massive soybean shortage that would lead to political/social upheavals across the country. ...
Dubrovskiy [Director of investment for the Far East Investment and Export Agency, a non-profit organization] said that all of the 3 million hectares of farmland in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District is now available to farmers, adding that the region could become a hotspot for dairy farming or the growing of crops, such as soybeans, wheat, and potatoes.
Seriously, this sounds like Russia offering a little of their land to China in the hopes of stalling China's grab for much more. Letting Japan and South Korea participate sounds like mere concealment of Russian appeasement of the more powerful China.
