Is China a threat to Russia?

PutZin wrote:First of all, I am disappointed that you're taking sides with that "air head" since I consider you being one of the few normal&rational people on here.

I'm not taking sides with anyone, I'm not coming to Vann7's defense, I have more than enough to disagree with him about - but the biggest disagreements are the ones I have with your post hence why I'm addressing it.

Let's start with your first comment:

A) They need each other yes, but not equally. China is in a far better position regarding economy and diplomacy these days. China is not short of cash, neither is it short of having countries they can buy oil and gas from.

Better economic position, worse military position, worse geopolitical-diplomatic position.

Yes China has good relationships with plenty of countries. But it has bad relationships with virtually all of its neighbours, NK, Russia and the Central Asian states excepted. All the rest of its neighbours are cosying up to the US and hosting its bases; the US has China surrounded pretty much and can apply huge, HUGE pressure in the event of a political crisis such as the one the US is currently having with Russia - where the US hasn't been able to bring as much leverage to bear.

Moreover, the US needs Russian co-operation on a number of international issues; it can't afford to ruin relations completely.
Although, the US can't afford to ruin relations with China even; given China's economic leverage and instruments, it holds the US by the balls. However that's a doomsday scenario, if it comes to that then the world economy is gonna go down in flames.

Countries in Central Asia are trading heavily with China even though Russia has this "Customs Union" going on. The fact is that you can just take a look at who Turkmenistan is selling their oil and gas to; 70% goes to China. 56% of all imports for Kyrgisistan comes from China.

Good for them. An increasing amount of Russian oil and gas also goes to China. Their demand keeps increasing and increasing.

But these are just normal trade relationships; albeit influential ones. You're implying that China has more influence in Central Asia than Russia does. That's just not true. All the military, elite, political influence is pretty much in Russia's hands.. given that Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan pretty much jumped aboard Russia's Customs Union project - that means that they want to economically integrate too.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are more independent and I suspect will maintain a more neutral policy, building relations with all partners as benefits them - much like Azerbaijan.

China is the biggest trading parther of Kazakhstan - and China is also one of the top two economic partners with Uzbekistan. So Russia can call it's "alliance" for Customs Union or whatever, but there is no doubt who has the money and who countries in Central Asia are trading with the most - China being one of the top economic partners.

Yes and Germany was Russia's largest trading partner. Now it's China. Turkey's largest trading partner is Russia.
The Ukraine's largest trading partner is still Russia.

Trading/economic relations do not equate to political relations, there is no 1-to-1 correspondence here.

However, over time, the economic/trading ties will certainly influence and pull the political ties to converge with them, at a speed and to a final position generally proportional to the relative strength of those trade ties.
We're talking varying time scales though; could happen in a couple of presendencies, could take several political generations. And there could well be zig-zags, here and there, but over time the general tendency is usually apparent.

B) I don't see where Russia has succeeded in being more political influential. Russia tried in Syria (still trying), but it isn't working out as of now. While Russia is busy "being influential" in war-thorn countries such as Syria and Ukraine, China is busy making even more money than they have.

Russia didn't try anything in Syria. It was the US that tried regime-change and failed, thanks to Syrian resistance and Russian, Iranian assistance too.
Now the region has turned into a quagmire and the very same rebellion the US and pals were funding has turned against another of the West's pet projects - this time in Kurdistan, and are giving everyone a whole range of headaches in the form of ISIS.

No doubt the Chinese are winning more than anyone out of the current US-Russia tensions. Russia and Europe are rapidly losing money while China just gets the best pickings as a result.

However it's also true - that while if you don't play the game you don't risk anything; you also don't stand to win the prize. Whoever comes off the better from this current round of Russia-West tensions, will ultimately win more political capital, strategic room/military security than anything China stands to gain by staying on the sidelines and making no moves whatsoever.

C) It is the other way around. The whole massive NATO&EU structure is pointing against Russia. Russia has only one real ally left in Europe - Belarus - and that is against whole NATO and the EU.

Having NATO and the EU against you is far worse than having recession/stagnated Japan + third world Phillippines against you. Taiwan can't do anything as the U.S. doesn't even care to sell them strategic weapons anymore and South Korea is the largest economic partner with China.

Yet Russia is more than capable of countering the NATO military forces on the European continent; both conventionally and with nuclear-arms. If America starts introducing massive forces into theatre then of course it would become a problem; but then Russia can withdraw from various treaties, base more forces in Europe and start a build-up of tactical nuclear weapons and IRBMs.

They EU/NATO are also not a monolithic bloc, and in recent years Russia has been making inroads in a bunch of NATO and EU countries in terms of winning political influence.

Turkey is also a NATO member. Just a month ago it made a preliminary agreement on a massive pipeline deal with Russia that puts Turkeys own 'NATO/EU' allies in Europe, in a much worse bargaining position.
If it were really the case that NATO & the EU were all one massive hegemon/monolith, it wouldn't have done that - it would have stood up for the EU's economic interests and told Russia to shove it. Fact is though, is that for Turkey; Turkish interest wins out over NATO & EU interest. And you'll be surprised but for a large number of other EU countries the same is true too. For many of them, confrontation with Russia is not in their interest.

Contrast this to the situation in East Asia and the South Pacific. China is heavily militarily pressed and would be hard-pressed to counter all the US Naval assets in the region, without even talking about their Japanese/SK/Taiwanese allies.
The US is goading Vietnam and the Phillipines into playing silly games with China, and there are still tensions with India too; that the US is hungry to capitalize on.

The real trouble is though, is that China's political purchase in its own region is limited. It's not skillfully exploiting divisions between the US-aligned Asian powers. It's not building its own economic and military bloc in the region. It's not reaching out to traditional US allies in other parts of the world far removed from it such as the Middle East, Europe or North Africa; building joint-military projects with them and ties more and more independent of those with the US.
China is sitting there and it's surrounded. It's strategic position is weak. It knows this, that's part of the reason why it's been so conservative while Russia hasn't. Russia has a chance yet to escape a precarious strategic position. China though, has not escaped, which is why its making the wise choice by conserving its strength, building up economic influence around the world while keeping political moves low-key, and simply waiting for US power to start fading before expanding its reach.

Furthermore if you look at the Pew Research poll, 56% of South Koreans are looking positively on China. But if you take a look at how many hate Russia in the rest of the Europe, you'll have a hard time finding anyone else liking Russia besides Belarus, Serbia and maybe Greece. The latter doesn't matter as they're economically destroyed and still members of both NATO and the EU.

Do you have anything other for this than Western-funded opinion polls or sources?
They are all basically BS and heavily-biased; every single major information source or agency of note seems to have ties with Western intelligence services, editors that sympathise with the party line or just practise self-censorship.

I really have a hard time believing that nearly 70% of Frenchmen for example, have a negative view of Russia - as the BBC claims.
That's basically a Ukraine-level figure; and that country is far more extreme and with far more Russophobic propaganda and war hysteria.

I don't mean to cop-out - but it's true. I really do want to see non-Western opinion polls before I can comment on such an assertion either way.

Thailand is definitely not hostile to China. China and the PLA has great relationship with Thai military and regarding Thailand, 72% of all Thai people view China positively. So there is no hate there and once again, it would be extremely hard for the U.S. to make Thailand hostile to China.

Thailand is a US ally; but this is one of the things I was talking about when I said that China has a hard time actually gaining meaningful influence in its near-abroad and immediate vicinity. Thailand in that case must be one of the exceptions; something like how Russia has been successfully courting US allies or nominal allies such as Turkey, Jordan, Italy, SK, Israel, Greece...

Three countries in Asia that are hostile to China and where majority hate China are: Japan, Vietnam and the Phillippines - and that is no threat at all.

Japan has a proffessional, modern military; far more of a threat to China than any NATO country is to Russia's military apart from maybe Turkey or the US of course.
Phillipines will be a pain in the ass to occupy any part of, although a naval victory over them should be pretty easy to achieve.
Vietnam is not so rich but it's a helluva tough customer, and they have some of the latest Russian weapons. China would be hard-pressed to beat them.

China is friendly with South Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Central Asia, Russia, Lao PR, Cambodia, etc. Not only is China friendly with these countries vis-a-vis diplomacy and international relations, but majority of people in these countries doesn't have anything against China. Just check the Pew Research and other polls.

I doubt that the majority of the people in these countries have anything against Russia either. And actually all of these states have friendly relations with Russia too; some quite close.

Russia on the other hand is now a top 5 country along with Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan that are view most negatively around the world.

I notice that you didn't include the US in this list. That's how I know it's BS.

So I cannot see Russia doing much "manouvering" as Russia has been losing influence in several countries for the past 15 - 20 years (Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria) comes to mind - and now Ukraine.

Russia has huge influence in Iraq & Syria right now.
Libya? Excuse me, Gaddaffi was an 'ally of convenience' (and not even that as Russia didn't Veto the NATO intervention) but Russia hasn't had any influence there since the end of the USSR.
Yemen? Don't even know what's happening there, I think last I heard the rebellion there is about to overthrow the government.. best make sure to have influence with whoever comes next - rather than the ones in power now, don't you think? Unless the ones who come next are Al-Quaeda of course.

Since you've brought up the Middle East & North Africa, I'll use it as an example. During the Soviet period the USSR had no influence in Israel, Jordan, Iran or Egypt (post 70s).
Now it has won a boat-load of influence in all 4 countries. And many multi-billion dollar arms contracts too. Russia has won big contracts in the UAE, Algeria too. Even the contracts in Libya are going ahead; with its new government.

Losing influence? It's gained opportunities that wouldn't have been imaginable a quarter-century ago. Now even the Western-linked or installed governments in the Middle East (Iraq being the fastest case; Western-installed to pro-Russian in just 10 years), are in absolutely no hurry to squander relations with Moscow and still turn to it for arms purchases and political support on certain issues.
To a lesser extent it's the same story around the world. With the exception of Eastern Europe, where the governments are obssessed with countering Russia with EU tax dollars.

Use 1990 as your starting point and figure how who's influence has expanded since then.

Undoubtedly Russia's, actually if we use the end of the USSR rather than the Soviet period as the starting point - then the results are even more in favour of today's Russia. In 1990/1991 no-one gave a crap what the rapidly breaking-apart USSR was doing or saying whatsoever.

Finally, China has no problems with South Korea or Israel at all. So I really don't see why you're counting these in on "Russia's" side.

I'm not counting them as on Russia's side, I'm giving them as examples of US allies that Russia has developed close political and/or military-industrial relations with. There are many, many examples of US client-states, NATO allies or EU members that have developed close ties with Russia, independent of their ties with the US.
With China there are such examples too - you pointed to Thailand for example, but on the whole; far less. Hence my point. Russia has been more successful diversifying its political portfollio.

Don't have much problems with Turkey either; they even chose Chinese SAMs over Russian SAMs, until U.S. pressured Turkey to cancel.

Meanwhile every other country has chosen Russian SAMs over Chinese where the choice was presented; I know this isn't your main point but I couldn't resist.

The "others" would be Vietnam, since that's the only country you can count as Russia-friendly vis-a-vis China. Even with Japan that is hostile,
they still trade a lot more with China than they do with Russia.

Japan can't simply afford to be "tough" economically on China or any other country for that matter.

Why are you pitting Russia against China? Actually these two countries have great relations and will continue to have in the near-future, neither of them is suicidal enough to fulfill the biggest neo-con wet dream by turning on each other while the US looks on at the fools.

Our whole discussion here is not about Russia vs. China, but about which of Russia or China is in a better position when it comes to taking on the might of the American empire.

You must be new, and challanged.

- # of chinese living in Russia is less than Canada or US.
- # of Chinese living in Siberia is less than the # of Chinese in Moscow.
- China had more manpower and gear than Soviet Union back in 1969.  Check who won that conflict (hint: it wasnt China).
- China has no claims on Russia as last territorial dispute was dealt with as Russia gave back land it conquered from China in 1969 conflict.  All Chinas attention is towards Asia like Korea, Japan and the Phillipines.
- They are Chinese, not Chinks.
- Human wave system doesnt work and Russia also has nukes too.  So neither side will attempt.
- Both have a common enemy.

I could go on but you will not read it.

Well, I think that is why Russian gov was pushing Vietnam and south Korea to invest there as well, same with Japan, as China has poor relations with those groups as well.

I think that is why Russian gov pushed that far east investment projects (still mainly oil and gas related) and free land for Russians in hopes to move capital there.

There can be only so much they can invest there.  If the people are not interested, then its a problem.