Today #Russia and #China play best friends forever and #USSR had been traditionally placed in the same “communist” basked as China. Some fun facts that especially tankies are getting completely wrong today.^1
Since 1950’s China and USSR were actually conflicted over each other’s interpretations of #Marxism and in 1960’s the conflict nearly escalated into a full-scale nuclear war between the two countries.
China criticised CPSU (Communist Party of Soviet Union) over Soviet invasion of #Czechoslovakia (1968)^2 and “Brezhnev Doctrine” which denounced any Marxism version outside of the Soviet one as “reactionary” (Marxist newspeak for “heresy”). This included both Czechoslovak reforms and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in equal manner. At that time China actually developed complex relations with Eastern Bloc countries such as Romania and Czechoslovakia behind Kremlin’s back.
Essentially, everyone called each other “reactionary” and claimed their Marxism is the correct one. Any resemblance to past religious wars is entirely incidental. 😉 In 1968 Chinese diplomat Zhou Enlai speaking in Romanian embassy in Beijing called Soviets for “fascist politics, great power chauvinism, national egoism and social imperialism”.^3
Does that ring any bells? 😉
Soviets and China had a number of unresolved border issues in Manchuria. In 1968 China started escalating these, actually killing Soviet border guards. Moscow, knowing of China’s nuclear weapons and Mao’s confrontative attitude preferred to deescalate… which only encouraged Chinese.
Does that remind anything from contemporary history? 😉
At the peak of the conflict in 1969 USSR found itself in the position of a country with high-tech army challenged by a low-tech army which relied on millions of conscripts and human wave tactics.
Does this ring any bells? 😉
In 1969 Soviet army managed to push back overwhelming several Chinese offensives near the island of Zhenbao in spite of their overwhelming numbers with ratios up to 1:10 Soviet to Chinese. That was possible primarily due to the technical advantage, such as then-advanced T-62 tanks.
A ceasefire was signed in 1969 - on Chinese side by the very same Zhou Enlai who called Soviets “fascists” only a year before, but the actual peace agreement was only signed in 1991. The conflict was only completely resolved in 2008 (!) when Russia ceded 340 km² of the disputed lands to China.
As you can see, contrary to the mythology carefully constructed by modern “geopolitical realists”, there’s nothing constant in Russian or Soviet policies. Russia can not always win armed conflicts, it can cede territories and in general conflicts can be won in spite of imbalance of power. Oh, and calling others “fascists” was used by everyone and Russia was both an user and a recipient of this nomination.
@kravietz Can confirm that the border between China and the USSR in 1989 looked like a war could break out at any minute. I crossed from Zabaikalsk to Manzhouli on the Transsiberian and I'd call the atmosphere at the border at that time... tense. Lots of soldiers on both sides, pillboxes and razorwire fencing on every hill on both sides.
As of what China is doing with Russia right now, my guess is that China wants a chunk of Siberia. Global Warming will force China to go north.
@rameshgupta@kravietz China looks at Russia being stuck in Ukraine’s bear trap as an opportunity. They don’t need Russia to win, they need Russia to be distracted.
All of eastern Siberia will be prime real estate once the permafrost has thawed out in about 30-50 years. And at the same time much of southern and eastern China will be frequently flooded and too hot to be livable. This is not hard to figure out.
I don’t have special insight into the heads of #Putin or #Xi. I connect dots in publicly available knowledge, and share them if they make sense and other tangential info seem to corroborate them.
Whenever I do this though, I always cite links to sources so others can either accept my ideas or reject them by evaluating the supplied source material.
But the fact stands - China will need to expand north for food production as the southern provinces are getting hotter and more flood prone. Siberia is right there and Russia will be weakened for decades after whatever they are trying to achieve in Ukraine.
I agree with you that #China is looking northward. That is why I linked my post about China claiming to be an arctic power despite have no arctic presence.
However, I believe #Russia and China are partners-in-crime, with Russia being the #juniorPartner. They both need each other for their agenda. I don’t think China is looking to distract Russia and grab some territory while it is trapped in #Ukraine 🙂
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