Recently, however, I've wondered if direct conflict between closer neighbours, both powerful, might be more probable. China and Russia. Once former allies, but never without their differences. Spheres of influences in Eastern Asia are changing. China may now dominant the former Soviet Republics, as the power of Moscow wanes.

Could a situation arise to place these two sub-super powers at arms?

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China''s relentless economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s heralded its emergence as a great power in world politics. As its economy expanded, China seemed poised to become the second-largest economy in the world. At the same time, it modernized its military and adopted a more assertive diplomatic posture.

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from: an abstract

I think this is also the premise of Tom Clancy's novel: The Bear and the Dragon (which I haven't read).

Clancy:

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"More recently, there's been border conflicts in the Amur River region where Russia and China meet (in the north)," he continued. "So there's been rivalry there, and the principal reason is China has a lot of people and not enough space and the Russians have not too many people and a lot of space."

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At the end of This Essay, by Alexander Lukin - a senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) of the Russian Foreign Ministry and Director of Institute for Political and Legal Studies in Moscow - he concludes:

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The Chinese side, which for its own reasons is also interested in a partnership with
Russia, recently began to show more understanding toward the psychological problems plaguing the relationship. It consistently explains that no central plan of Sinofication of Russian territories has ever existed and shows readiness to cooperate with the Russian authorities in preventing illegal immigration. During his visit to Moscow in February 1998, Chinese premier Li Peng made official statements confirming this position and called Chinese citizens who stay in Russia to adhere to Russian rules and emigration laws. Thus, there exist good grounds to believe that popular fears and distrust in the Russian border regions will have only limited influence on the overall development of Russian-Chinese relations. However, the pattern in the evolution of Russia’s image of China has for a long time been that China threat theories became more popular at times when Russians think that their country is weak or is unable to develop its Far Eastern regions enough to withstand a challenge from China. If the current Russian leadership fails to stop the process of the country’s weakening and to implement a strategy of development of the RFE, these theories may once again begin to make headway in Russia’s practical policy.

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Thoughts? What would such a conflict mean for the USA? For Nato? For the UN (conflict between two veto powers)? India? Pakistan?

[ 28 August 2004: Message edited by: wei-chi ]

Since then, they've built up their arsenal greatly, while the Russian equivalent, as everyone knows, is in serious decay.

How can any country that has the ability to unilaterally destroy the earth as we know it be considered anything other than a "superpower"? There is no doubt whatever that the U.S., Russia, and China all have that capacity. Britain and France are both borderline on that definition; but each have the nuclear capability to destroy society as any of us know it.

Dump the bonds, and their massive holdings of US dollars, onto the market, and the US is out of gas and broke in a few weeks or months. Economic crisis, to say the least, and very easy to do. Not without some cost to China, of course.

Of course, that would mean the US would be forced into a war of some sort, somewhere. But at their level of military expense, not many could finance them foir long, and not many would with that much instability. Not to mention, most countries with the capacity would have little interest in financing the death throes of an aggressive superpower.

It amazes me that the neocons think Bush is making them more secure. Don't they realize that debts are owed to someone? With a debt comes obligation and weakness, as anyone who has staggered under a student loan or credit card can tell you.

At some point, China will decide it is time to take back Taiwan. Their military establishment has spent the past 40 years thinking about how to do that without getting waxed by the US. It's been awhile since I studied the issue, but some schools of strategic thought in China focus on asymmetrical stuff, like flattening the internet through focused hacking (we know it could happen), blasting all the satellites out of the sky, and devastating the US economy.

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China and Russia. Once former allies

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China and Russia have had border tensions for decades but their cold war has never become hot.

It is more in China's interests to continue mending relations with Russia due to the energy equation.

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Originally posted by WingNut:

Really? When?
During the Korean War both China and Russia might have been giving some material support to the Noth Koreans, and China direct military support, but it was more a case of "the enemy of your enemy .. blah, blah," type of thing than any real alliance.

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I think it was a Soviet delegate who brokered a peace deal with the UN. The American's were sat on the Iallou River staring over at China and eating Thanksgiving dinner. That night, hundreds of thousands of Chinese and Korean soldiers moved in, and the UN force led by the Yanks had to pretty much run away before they were run over. Soviet pilots flew MiGs with Chinese markings.

Their common enemy is and always has been the American's. MacArthur wanted to nuke Korea in order to draw the Chinese and Soviets into a nuclear war. They would have murdered hundreds of millions of human beings in order to kill an idea.