A video has gone viral on Chinese social media calling for China to take advantage of Russia's weakened state and seized large pieces of its territory.
I'm sure I remember seeing NCD suggest this as the ultimate funny thing for China, a year ago. Glad to see Chinese social media likes our ideas.
I hope it spreads to the point where tankies bend over backwards to defend this as not expansions at all, while somehow being on the side of both russia and China.
and space. russia has struggled to build any population of note out east, whereas China has people ready to go and a few decades of belt-and-road construction as prep.
Ok, it seems like the video talks about the dissolution of russia, not just weakened state. The video talks about the day US defeat russia and russia have to dissolve into multiple small countries. They afraid that once that happened, the newly formed independent state will be occupied by US(kinda like Afghanistan) and then china will lose their military strength. To prevent that, china need to annex(their word) it themselves. After that UN is not needed, and everything need to went through China.
So basically its some ultranationalist wet dream in video form.
China has publicly included the loss of Manchuria to Russia in like 1905~ to be part of it's great century of shame and that China considers it part of Greater China.
Expanding North beyond that into Siberia would open up the arctic ocean to them, which if nobody does anything, will only get more valuable as we heat up
I'm not sure how I feel about this, because fuck Russia, but not fuck the Russians. Turnabout is always fair play, but where along Russia's borders would we want another front? I am not well enough versed in Asian geopolitics.
Korea and maybe very specific slivers of the Kazakh border are the only other places along the Russian border where there's really even any sizable population on either side. in all other places its just people fighting with the trees and general mud / general frost.
If you draw a line from the Caspian sea to Vladivostok, which would basically be the contact line between a Russo-Chinese conflict. the only places immediately in range a for either side that have a lot of people are parts of northeastern China, the city of Vladivostok the Korean Peninsula, and Uzbekistan. everywhere else both sides would logistically starve themselves. cause its just miles of nothing
Yeah, fuck the Russian government for what they've done, but I still would have a very hard time supporting two giant forces built of working class no say people and slaughtered on both sides. The Chinese people don't deserve it, neither do the Russians. propaganda clearly works around the globe. We know Russians believe different propaganda than China, U.S., Germany, Hungary, Turkey, UK.. etc.
All of it is different. But supporting any government attacking another right now only kills the people, not those creating the propaganda and spreading it.
yeah china didn't do too great against vietnam iirc.... but as we see with ukraine, by themselves the russians ain't even the strongest army in russia.
I honestly thought about this scenario couple of years back when reading about Russia and Canada possibly benefiting from climate change as their northern areas thaw and become forests and farmlands.
China can fight every other country in the pacific over an insignificant speck of island, or, they could actually grow their boundaries in a way that offers northwest passage access.
I think that it is unlikely that China will do this.
I think that it is more-likely that Beijing will seek to dominate Russia, not to conquer it. China has a 2023 GDP of $17 trillion, Russia of $2 trillion. Russia has ensured that it has to rely on China for various things for at least some time. China doesn't need to invade to see increasing influence in Russia moving forward.
As Western sanctions increasingly isolate Russia, it has become highly dependent on China for trade and economic support, particularly in energy exports sold at discounted prices.
China has capitalized on Russia’s isolation by expanding its investments and economic influence within Russia, with Chinese companies increasing their share of Russian market participation. This economic relationship shows an imbalance, with China benefiting from favorable trade terms.
Western sanctions and the war in Ukraine have deeply impacted Russia’s economy, as seen in the weakening ruble, increasing reliance on China, and signs of Russia potentially becoming a subordinate economic partner to China rather than an equal.
That's maybe not as evocative as the image of Chinese tanks rumbling into Russia, but I think that it's probably a much more realistic geopolitical issue for Russia.