I have been wondering since this war started, what’s preventing China from just taking ALL of Russia. Like, 2021? That’s Russia. 2025? That’s China now.
Russia would never threaten China with nukes, because 1) China ALSO has nukes, and 2) China has been the only thing keeping Russia afloat recently.
So what if something like 9,000,000 soldiers all collectively invaded Russia from one central entrypoint as far east as Chinas border is along Russias, thus splitting Russias military in a two way war.
The United States wouldn’t get involved because that would mean they’re helping Russia. But also, who else WOULD get involved? Putin is lucky that China doesn’t have ME as it’s head of state. Because from my perspective, it’s free real estate that nobody wants to defend, being occupied by a tiger army, and it’s land is full of resources that if China were to monopolize, would grant them a grip around the balls of the rest of the world.
But it would have to be a scorched earth kind of invasion. The kind that pisses off basically everyone, because it leaves every single Russian, military, or citizen, dead. They’d have to come in, take everything, and kill everything. Take the land. The only thing they have to make sure of, is that they DON’T fight Ukraine. They tell Ukraine “We won’t invade your space, but Russia is ours”. And Ukraine would probably take that deal.
But it seems China is very VERY averse to war right now. Which tells me, they aren’t ready for a war.
Believe it or not, China isn’t Russia. I can’t believe I’m in the position of defending the PRC, but the PRC doesn’t want the international order destroyed by reckless and unrestrained warfare. They just want to replace the West as top dog in that order. They’ll bully and bluster, just as the US does when the carrot doesn’t work, but, Taiwan aside, they don’t have any desire to start an expensive and pointless war.
Right? Why do civilizations fight wars anyway? If not flat out colonialism and dick measuring, then It’s usually for resources, maybe protection for cultural exclaves if it serves the nation’s geopolitical interest.
All that is to say, Russians are not Chinese. And I don’t think many Eastern Russians would welcome the switch. So, China would be instigating a lot of strife for minimal gains.
Taiwan on the other hand, I can at least understand. I don’t agree with the stance, not in the least, primarily because I believe democracy is superior to communism. Nevertheless, if I had my adversaries 100 miles off my border and their existence hampered me economically and militarily, then I absolutely would subjugate them in any way possible.
Because first of all they would then have to care for all of Russia’s very nationalistic citizens. Second, why would they do anything while they can just sit and watch Russia piss away their entire economy and military?
Look dude, Imma be blunt, but this take has got to be one of the dumbest takes I think I’ve ever seen regarding politics.
You really think there wouldn’t be any consequences at all for just culling 100 million people off the face of the Earth? That’s more than every single death in World War II.
Russia and the world is lucky to not have you as the leader of China because frankly your username matches the quality of the take.
Russia is an important geopolitical ally for China. Tension between them is not advantageous at this time.
Also, Americans love dunking on the Russian army, and while it maybe wasn’t as formidable as we thought, it’s still significant. It’s not as if it would be totally free.
Uhh, they’re getting dunked on by their own version of Canada.
It would be a wipe, Russia has nowhere near enough people to defend siberia, kthey can’t even defend a few hundred miles south of moscow.
So how many times did the US invade another country and won within a three days “special operation” time?
what’s preventing China from just taking ALL of Russia
What for? Russia is already drifting into becoming a China’s satellite state. Besides, there’s another resource-rich, sparsely populated, 99.9% Asian country right by their border, with barely any security and which would’ve been part of China already if not for some weeb. If they are going for conquest, Mongolia would be the second target right after Taiwan, but attacking it would tip off Russia to go all in on defense.
Russia would never threaten China with nukes, because 1) China ALSO has nukes, and 2) China has been the only thing keeping Russia afloat recently.
The problem here is the amount of them and population density. Just one bomb dropped randomly somewhere in China would probably cause more casualties than the entire Chinese nuclear arsenal targeting the most populous Russian cities. And Russia has an order of magnitude more…
Mongolia is a democracy and NATO partner there’s a chance that the west would actually care. Mostly though neither China or Russia are even trying to touch it because they prefer having a buffer state in between them that is not aligned to either, but has the diplomatic wherewithal to have good relationships with both.
Also it’s a fucking desert plateau. There’s a reason there’s so few Mongolians. Few things grow there and practically nothing grows well, and there already is quite an issue with overgrazing because animal husbandry is pretty much the only thing you can actually do on the land. And who is to say that copper is going to be cheaper after you conquer the land? It’s not like Mongolia would be unwilling to export. Even if you could do it for cheaper, still probably not worth the political headache. And sanctions.
Mongolia is a democracy and NATO partner
Seeing how they were happy to meet Putin the other day, it didn’t look like. It was like watching a dog meeting his master after a long time
You’re right, nobody wants to defend it. There’s nothing there worth defending. I mean, there’s Vladivostok, but it’s not really worth going to war over. They could take a sliver of land at the Russia/NK border so that they could build a port, but I’m sure they have no issue with river traffic as it is, or just trucking into North Korea to use one of their ports. I’m sure China funded their construction anyway.
Russia would never threaten China with nukes, because 1) China ALSO has nukes, and 2) China has been the only thing keeping Russia afloat recently.
But it would have to be a scorched earth kind of invasion. The kind that pisses off basically everyone, because it leaves every single Russian, military, or citizen, dead. They’d have to come in, take everything, and kill everything. Take the land.
First of all, if you’re being invaded by an army planning to genocide your entire population, then you have no reason not to use every weapon in your arsenal. If the options are A: China kills 100% of your populace or B: Launch nukes and even 1% of your populace survives whatever follows, then B is the most rational choice.
Secondly, there’s no reason to assume that states will make rational decisions to begin with. I’d say the current state of affairs in Ukraine is a very good example of that in action. So even if China wasn’t planning to genocide all of Russia, even if it was some kind of “benevolent” invasion where they were going to tiptoe around the flower beds, gently pry Putin out of the Kremlin, and basically leave everything the same except that now Russians pay for groceries with renminbi instead of rubles… there’s still every reason to imagine that Putin and his top brass would still launch nukes on the mere principle of the thing.
So no, let’s not glibly plan for a fast forward on nuclear Armageddon, thank you very much.
On a less deranged take, there’s definitely potential to mend the Sino-Soviet split. Their interests and capabilities dovetail quite a bit, but I suspect unification is wildly impractical for any number of cultural and historic reasons. OTOH, if they presented a Warsaw Pact-style alliance, perhaps using the cudgel of mutually assured economic destruction instead of nuclear destruction, that’s a hell of an act for the West to try to follow.
The US would get involved, two advisaries attacking each other would give the US opportunities to leverage influence and destabilize. The dangerous thing is that they have nukes so there is a delicate balance when trying to destabilize while ensuring advance weaponry does not fall into the wrong hands.
Russia has kinda shitty land afaik. Not a ton of resources either, iirc. I believe a decent chunk of it is tagia forests and (soon to be) swampy permafrost zone. Not that much of china’s land is great for stuff like farming either. Bragging rights, I guess, but other than the people, I think most land is of little use.
Ah, well you see, China doesn’t have a casus belli to claim all of Russia. Of course, they might have deployed their foreign minister over to Fabricate Claims, but if so, they haven’t had much success with it. The most they could take right now is a duchy or a county, and it’s just not worth the Prestige penalty, or the costs of keeping their levies raised long enough to get their Warscore to 100%.
But it seems China is very VERY averse to war right now. Which tells me, they aren’t ready for a war.
Most american shit I’ve ever heard.
Then they should prove us wrong. Whenever they’re ready, we have nothing planned.
You mean nothing other than the 4 wars the US is involved in. It’s cute that you think this is a good thing, most countries go for the healthcare and infrastructure.
Because China has never had expansionist ambitions. I know that goes against hundreds of years of Yellow Peril tropes in Western media, but it’s true.
China’s history has been a cycle of ethnic Han states uniting into a larger ethnic Han state, and then splitting, and then re-uniting. As Han populations spread, those areas would eventually be integrated into China, but China had very little interest in annexing non-Han areas.
Before anyone asks, Tibet was unified with China when both areas were conquered by the Mongols. It wasn’t an act of Chinese expansion.
And Vietnam was considered to be a Han area. The literate classes of Vietnam spoke Chinese and were culturally Chinese before being incorporated into the Han dynasty.
Because China has never had expansionist ambitions. I know that goes against hundreds of years of Yellow Peril tropes in Western media, but it’s true.
That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
No, of course they don’t have expansionist ambitions, because they consider a large part of Siberia theirs, including Primosky Krai which was ceded by the Qing after the opium wars, they lost Korea and Taiwan in the Sino-Japenese War.
They want what every country that once owned 1 speck of sand beyond their borders 1000 years ago wants: “Repayment of past injustices!”, just like Israelis want Israel and Jerusalem, Russia wants Ukraine and the other republics, Andalusia wants independence.
Sometime, long ago, their country was great, and they deserve it back, because the moment it had the largest borders was the right moment, and everything since then is an insult to their greatness.
Moscow to this day still considers itself heir to Rome, as stupid as that sounds, the greatest empire in history devolving into a bunch of drunk gangsters and pimps.
That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
But it’s true.
No, of course they don’t have expansionist ambitions, because they consider a large part of Siberia theirs, including Primosky Krai which was ceded by the Qing
This article was literally about China not wanting Primosky Krai, and the president of Taiwan asking why.
You didn’t read the article, did you?
They want what every country that once owned 1 speck of sand beyond their borders 1000 years ago wants: “Repayment of past injustices!”
No, they want the unification of ethnic Han states, which is why they want Taiwan and not Vladivostok.
what’s preventing China from just taking ALL of Russia
The same thing that’s made china not have an overt military conflict for the past half century: they’re not a militaristic, expansionist country. I know that’s inconceivable for bloodthirsty Americans, but really, give it a thought, which country has participated in more overt conflicts in the past half century.
The same thing that’s made china not have an overt military conflict for the past half century: they’re not a militaristic, expansionist country.
Uh…
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia all disagree..
India disagrees.
Nepal disagrees.
Bhutan disagrees.
I could keep going but my train is almost at my stop. China tries their best to keep their conflicts on the quiet-side to prevent sanctions like the west did to Russia.
Thank you for proving me right by bringing as your utmost evidence BBC (the unbiased source that uses the grey “China filter” on videos) reports that “some countries are purportedly sad because of a map”. Really, very telling that that’s the best you’ve got. In the meanwhile, NATO bombed Yugoslavia and Libya, and the US outright invaded Iraq and Afghanistan to name just a select few.
You guys are unbelievable.
they’re not a militaristic, expansionist country.
I’m guessing the Dalai Lama doesn’t agree with you on that one.
That is what the Chinese leadership likes to claim. That it’s cultural, and their culture is one of trade and cooperation, not expansion. And I don’t doubt that they are earnest in saying that. I mean they truly believe themselves to be different. But we know that once a power becomes global, i.e. when its interests and investments extend well beyond its borders, its military presence will also expand, and it will engage in conflict to protect said global interests. Whether it’s the US, Russia, or China, the dynamic at a certain level is the same. China is already growing a more formidable army and expanding into the South China Sea. This is only the beginning.
Please tell me of China’s military expansionist tradition over the past 50 years
