Russia is scheduled to continue appeasing China for five more years.
China not too subtly bullied Russia into transferring missile defense technology to China:
As an incentive for Russia to cooperate, and provide the needed tech, Chinese Internet censors were ordered to allow open discussion about Chinese claims on a quarter of the Russian Far East and most of the prime coastal areas. China never cancelled these claims, even in the 1940s and 50s when China was very dependent on Russia.
This Chinese pressure made Russia's appeasement of China less concealed. And have no doubt. What Russia is doing is appeasement:
Russia complains loudly about American and NATO plots against Mother Russia when in fact NATO in Europe has mostly disarmed while America was happy to not think about Russia much.
From our point of view, this makes no sense. Can't Russia see that the West is no threat while China is the threat? Why not work with us?
Well, from the Russian point of view, Russia is acting very logical.
Russian power collapsed in 1991, leaving their Far East vulnerable to China whose power soon began to rise even as Russia's power continued to erode.
Was it logical for Russia to openly treat China as a threat and cozy up to the West that was disarming and never going to help Russia defend the Amur River line?
Not really, when you think about it. Yes, in the end, Russia will have to recognize that China is a threat and not NATO. But we're far from whenever "the end" is and until then Russia can't afford to anger China.
So Russia sells weapons designed to point China's modernizing military out to sea against America, Taiwan, and Japan rather than against Russia.
This isn't just clever politics. This is a form of appeasement.
The Russian-Chinese treaty of 2001 that muted Chinese claims was set to expire this year. The treaty also required Russia to provide military technology to China. Hence the Chinese propaganda offensive on territorial claims to push Russia to share missile defense technology.
You recall the Chinese claims, right?
Does China seem like the kind of country that just lets old territorial claims die? And for China, how old is the 19th century, really?
But rather than let the treaty expire, at the end of last year the treaty was extended 5 years:
The Russian-Chinese Treaty of Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation that expires in July 2021 will be extended for another five years with its basic provisions remaining intact, while introducing some modifications, the Russian ambassador in Beijing, Andrey Denisov, said on Tuesday.
Man, that got little air play in the West, eh? I look for this and saw nothing. It took a web search to get the December 2020 news. I assume the basic provisions are that Russia provides technology (while it can before China passes them by in all defense technology) in exchange for China being quiet about the border.
The missile defense technology transfer really hurts Russia, which relies on nukes for territorial integrity. Especially in the weakly held Far East.
And Russia will need to treat NATO like an enemy for five more years. So Moscow's moment of clarity is put off.
I wonder what the treaty "modifications" were? I assumed Russia would have to pay a price for an extension of China's silence on the border.
Clearly Russia did not reach economic and military benchmarks by 2020 that would have allowed Russia to end their policy of appeasement. One more 5-year plan will do the trick, eh?
Luckily for Russia, China isn't ready to move beyond that treaty and declare Russia's Far East a core Chinese interest. Yet.
