Wow , interesting . So official events need a sprinkle of human error for extra smoothness . <| sep |> Its that fucking fish eye FOV ! !<| sep |> Brandon Sanderson is an amazing author and I really like the depth in his books . He makes character actions and intentions very clear , so you don ' t have to guess at what a gesture or phrase may mean , and a second reread of his books always brings up this interesting hints and clues and also an AWESOME use of patterns and consistency that my aspie brain likes very much . <| sep |> Don ' t fall for the bait , mate . <| sep |> The natural course of history would tend to agree with your idea of the existence of the intractable seeds of conflict between China and Russia . But that ' s also assuming China and Russia exists in a vacuum . Other actors exert equally strong pressures on Russia to counteract the historical ChineseRussia animosity . I did say 2013 is a long past era because it ' s before the Euromaidan , Crimea , the economic sanctions on Russia , the Russian intervention in Syria and the insanity of 2016 . It ' s all but frozen relations between NATO and Russia into the foreseeable future . Trump is the greatest wildcard I see , but even so , four to eight years of the Trump administration may not be enough to reverse the US stance on Russia . As long as NATO and the US applies strategic pressure and interferes with Russian designs in Europe , geopolitical reality will force Russia to align with China . This also implies that as long as the US remains a peer competitor that uses its global influence and military power to contain Russian and Chinese influence simultaneously , there can be no USRussian rapprochement . NATO minus US rapprochement is even harder because NATO contains Poland and the Baltic states , all of which share much greater animosity towards Russia than Russia towards China . I ' m skeptical of Chinese moves into its northern flank against Russia because China is also constrained by the possibility of its neighbours balancing against it , in your case , a RussianJapanese axis China can illafford . It will have to achieve unparalleled success in its aims in the South China Sea and Western Pacific , essentially kicking out the US before it can turn its gaze elsewhere . Such paradigm changing scenarios won ' t see play for many decades , well into the latter half of this century . So I believe the quicker the US becomes a nonfactor in Eurasian affairs , the quicker I believe your idea has more merit . I ' m simply doubtful the US will do so of its own violation .