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rfmcdonaldWill Baird has an interesting post up speculating about the outcome of the current Russian-Chinese entente, currently formalized in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I tend to agree with his analysis of Russia's growing weakness relative to China, and it's certainly true that a Chinese military base in Belarus would be an epochal event, demonstrating not only China's ability in supporting such a far-flung base but Russia's total acquiescence to this Chinese power-projection into its back yard. Certainly, judging by the crude yardsticks of economic output and other such things, China might well be able to afford more.
The main reason that I'm skeptical of this future right now is that I don't see any particular inclination on the part of the Chinese leadership to involve itself that deeply into the affairs of its client states, least not such large, heavily-armed, and decidedly problematic potential candidates as Russia. A Russia trapped in the Chinese sphere of influence in the same way that, a generation ago, Poland was trapped in the Soviet is one outcome. A Russia that clings to an alliance with China, the relatively wealthy patron that subsidizes its failing military and its natural-resource exports and its pointless little wars against its domestic population is another. Perhaps we shouldn't think of eastern Europe in the 1970s as a model but, instead, Central America in the 1980s.
The main reason that I'm skeptical of this future right now is that I don't see any particular inclination on the part of the Chinese leadership to involve itself that deeply into the affairs of its client states, least not such large, heavily-armed, and decidedly problematic potential candidates as Russia. A Russia trapped in the Chinese sphere of influence in the same way that, a generation ago, Poland was trapped in the Soviet is one outcome. A Russia that clings to an alliance with China, the relatively wealthy patron that subsidizes its failing military and its natural-resource exports and its pointless little wars against its domestic population is another. Perhaps we shouldn't think of eastern Europe in the 1970s as a model but, instead, Central America in the 1980s.
