Military historian Sarah Paine argues that Russia, particularly under Stalin, systematically sabotaged China’s rise for over a century, delaying its development by decades through territorial theft, strategic manipulation, and deliberate destabilization. The relationship between the two powers has been defined by a continental empire logic in which neighbors are either threats or targets, and Russia repeatedly exploited China’s periods of weakness to serve its own interests.
The continental empire paradigm
Both Russia and China historically operated as continental empires, following a shared set of rules for survival and expansion:
Avoid two-front wars by taking on neighbors sequentially
Prevent great powers from emerging on your borders
Destabilize rising neighbors, ingest failing ones, and create buffer zones
Expand opportunistically, with no built-in mechanism for when to stop
This paradigm explains why Russia and China are surrounded by dysfunctional or failed states, and why neither has enduring alliances—neighbors eventually recognize the hegemonic power as a long-term threat.
The same logic is visible in real time in Syria and Ukraine, and it underlies the ruins of many Eurasian civilizations.
Russia’s repeated sabotage of China (mid-19th to mid-20th century)
The Opium Wars and territorial seizures (1858–1860):
While China was fighting the Taiping and Nian Rebellions and facing British and French military pressure, Russia offered to mediate.
In exchange, China signed the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Treaty of Peking (1860), ceding vast territories in Central Asia and the Pacific coastline to Russia.
The Qing Dynasty viewed these as temporary concessions, not understanding that Europeans treated such treaties as permanent.
The Triple Intervention (1895):
After Japan defeated China in the First Sino-Japanese War and claimed the Liaodong Peninsula, Russia organized France and Germany to pressure Japan into withdrawing.
Russia then seized the very territory it had denied to Japan, triggering a scramble by all European powers and Japan to carve out concession areas across China.
Instead of one small Japanese concession, China lost sovereignty over large portions of its territory for generations.
The Karakhan Manifesto (1919) and the myth of Sino-Soviet friendship:
Deputy Foreign Minister Lev Karakhan issued a manifesto offering to return all territories taken under unequal treaties, presenting the Bolsheviks as China’s anti-imperialist friends.
As the Bolsheviks consolidated power, they quietly walked back the offer, substituting vague promises of future negotiations for actual territorial return.
Russia did not return its concession areas until the 1950s, after the Western powers had already given theirs back. Russian concessions were by far the largest of any foreign power in China.
The manifesto became the origin of the enduring myth of Sino-Soviet friendship, even though the promises were never honored.
The First United Front and the Chinese Civil War (1920s):
Russia funded and structured the Whampoa Military Academy, training both Nationalist and Communist officers, enabling Chiang Kai-shek’s Northern Expedition to nominally reunify China.
The price was that the Nationalists had to admit the Communists into the party, creating the United Front.
Stalin wanted the United Front maintained to support his argument against Trotsky’s theory of world revolution. The Chinese Communists, who wanted out for fear of being killed, were ordered to stay.
When Chiang Kai-shek reached Shanghai, he turned on the Communists and massacred them, forcing Mao to adopt a rural strategy. Stalin then used the Communist defeat to discredit Trotsky.
The 1929 railway conflict:
When warlord Zhang Xueliang tried to reclaim the Chinese Eastern Railway from Russia, Stalin deployed over 100,000 troops with tanks and aircraft to crush the attempt, keeping the railways.
The Second United Front and the Sino-Japanese War (1937):
Facing the threat of a two-front war with Germany and Japan (linked by the 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact), Stalin scripted the Chinese Nationalists and Communists to unite against Japan.
The strategy worked: Japan escalated massively in 1937, overextending southward away from Russia, and the two-front war never materialized.
The Chinese bore the cost—millions of deaths and refugees—while Russia avoided fighting Japan directly.
The deindustrialization of Manchuria (1945):
In the final weeks of World War II, Russia launched Operation August Storm, deploying 1.5 million soldiers to take Manchuria.
Russia stripped Manchuria of its industrial base: 83% of electrical power equipment, 86% of mining equipment, 82% of cement-making capacity, and 80% of metalworking equipment, shipping it all to Russia.
Russia also took 640,000 Japanese POWs as slave labor and seized the northern islands (still disputed today).
China had been fighting Japan for 15 years; if any power deserved reparations, it was China, not Russia, which had participated only in the final weeks.
The detachment of Outer Mongolia:
The Yalta Agreement stipulated that the “status quo” in Mongolia be maintained. Stalin interpreted this to mean the existing Russian sphere of influence in the north, effectively detaching Outer Mongolia from China.
Mongolia had been part of the Qing Empire, never the Russian Empire. Stalin had already taken Tannu Tuva (larger than England, rich in gold) in 1944.
Combined with the territories taken in 1858 and 1860, the total land Russia removed from the Chinese sphere of influence exceeds all US territory east of the Mississippi.
Stalin’s advice to halt at the Yangtze (1948):
As Mao’s forces advanced southward during the Civil War, Stalin advised him to stop at the Yangtze, which would have left a divided China with a Nationalist rump state in the south—consistent with the rule of keeping neighbors weak.
Mao ignored the advice and continued south.
The Korean War (1950–1953):
After China intervened and both sides dug into tunnel systems, the war stalemated. Stalin saw a low-risk, high-reward strategy: fight to the last Chinese to weaken the United States, delay China’s development, and tie China more closely to Russia while giving Russia breathing space to rebuild.
The war also deepened China’s international isolation, making it dependent on Russia.
The reversal of the power balance
After Stalin’s death in 1953, Russia never again had a leader of comparable strength. Mao, by then, understood that Russia did not want a strong China.
Growing Sino-Soviet tensions under Khrushchev:
Mao believed he, not Khrushchev, should lead international communism, given his success in reunifying China.
Mao opposed Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization (which threatened his own cult of personality) and peaceful coexistence with the West (contradicting Mao’s anti-Western Cultural Revolution stance).
Khrushchev was alarmed by Mao’s unannounced provocations in the Taiwan Strait crises (1954, 1958), which risked triggering nuclear escalation under the Sino-Soviet Friendship Treaty.
Mao refused Khrushchev’s request for a combined submarine base and was denied atomic bomb plans in retaliation. The split became public in 1960.
The two squabbled endlessly over aid to North Vietnam, with the North Vietnamese skillfully playing both sides for maximum support.
China’s nuclear weapon and the border war (1964–1969):
China detonated its first atomic bomb in 1964, freeing itself from Soviet nuclear dependence.
Mao then publicly demanded the return of all territories Russia had taken, referencing the full list of stolen lands.
A border war erupted over Zhenbao (Damansky) Island in the Amur River. Russia had claimed both banks of the river, contrary to international law (the thalweg principle).
Russia approached the United States about using nuclear or conventional weapons against China’s nuclear facilities; the US refused both requests.
Mao recalculated: the country that wanted to nuke you was your primary adversary. The Sino-Soviet split reshuffled great-power alignments, allowing the US to play a swing role.
China’s rise under Deng Xiaoping:
Deng’s economic reforms produced roughly 20 years of double-digit growth, compounding dramatically.
Russia’s terminal decline:
After strong post-WWII growth, Soviet growth rates fell to 1–2% below US rates by the mid-1970s, with devastating compounding effects.
Brezhnev’s 18-year rule (1964–1982) was marked by accumulating non-performing Third World commitments and a sclerotic economy.
Soviet budgets relied on energy revenues for up to 55% of income; oil price declines were devastating.
Brezhnev’s successors (Andropov, Chernenko) died in rapid succession, reflecting systemic decay.
Gorbachev’s reforms (from 1985) inadvertently destroyed the Soviet Union, losing Eastern Europe and the ethnically based constituent republics.
By the end of 1991, Russia was reduced to a much-diminished rump state, followed by years of instability.
Russian imperialism and its ideological justifications
Russian national identity is built on vast territorial extent and the ability to dominate others, not on wealth creation. Russians measure greatness by land and power, not prosperity.
Russia has posed an existential threat to its neighbors throughout history, eliminating countless states—many now forgotten.
Medieval and early modern expansion:
Muscovy destroyed rival Russian principalities (Novgorod, Rostov) and Central Asian khanates (Crimea, Kazan, Astrakhan, Kokand, Khiva, Bukhara).
European neighbors (Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Sweden, Finland) were repeatedly partitioned or vivisected.
The partitions of Poland and post-WWII ethnic cleansing:
In the 18th century, Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned Poland. Russia claimed it was taking the “Polish Empire,” not Polish territory—a technicality.
After WWII, Russia moved Poland 200 kilometers west into German territory so Russia could absorb eastern Poland, then ethnically cleansed the region, creating homogeneous states at the cost of millions of displaced and dead.
The Soviet template for bloc-building:
Control the power ministries (Defense, Interior) to monopolize coercion and eliminate opposition.
Control Justice and Information to arrest or kill at will and suppress the story.
Control Agriculture to redistribute land, buying allegiance and destroying class enemies.
The “big lie”: Soviet imperialism was justified as anti-imperialism, even as Western powers were decolonizing.
Democratic forms were maintained as fictions—states kept their names, elections were held, but outcomes were predetermined.
Regional strategies:
Ethnic cleansing, moving countries (Poland westward, Mongolia eastward), and creating stepping stones for future expansion (Kaliningrad, Moldova/Transnistria, divided states like Germany, Korea, and China).
Divided neighbors quarrel over borders, allowing Russia to set terms and absorb territory piecemeal.
Ideological evolution:
Under the czars: the “Third Rome” doctrine (Moscow as the successor to Rome and Constantinople) and Russian Orthodoxy.
Under communism: world revolution as the legitimizing ideology.
Under Putin: neither communism nor Orthodoxy is marketable; he is left with territorial size as the sole basis of greatness.
Russia’s nightmare scenarios:
The “Mongol yoke” (13th century): Russian elites became tax collectors for the Mongols, establishing a legacy of resource extraction rather than wealth creation.
Devastating defeats by Napoleon, in WWI, and in WWII.
Putin’s current war in Ukraine is leaving Siberia wide open to Chinese ambitions—a potential “Chinese yoke.”
China’s existential problems and its own imperial logic
Civilizational identity:
Traditional Chinese thought held that there was only one civilization—China’s—based on Confucianism, which served as a world order for millennia.
The pillars of legitimacy have eroded: ethical rule is gone under the Communist Party, and economic growth is slowing. The party is left with territorial expansion as its remaining source of legitimacy.
This drives incursions into India, South China Sea island building, and threats to Taiwan.
China’s nightmare scenario:
The collapse of the state into periods of chaos (Luàn, 乱), as happened repeatedly in Chinese history.
The Soviet Union’s disintegration serves as a warning that communist regimes may not be permanent.
The conundrum of one-party rule:
If the economic theories underlying communism are discredited, how does the party justify its monopoly on power?
The party has not solved this problem and is relying increasingly on jingoistic nationalism.
Lessons China drew from Gorbachev:
Deploy tanks against unrest immediately; do not hesitate.
Pursue economic reforms but never political reforms.
“Sinify” minorities to prevent the kind of ethnic-based dissolution that destroyed the Soviet Union—this rationale underlies the ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs.
Prioritize party monopoly over economic efficiency, explaining some of Xi Jinping’s growth-depressing policies.
Democracy is incompatible with both communism and empire:
Elections lead to multi-party competition; the communist record makes it hard for communists to win.
Given a choice, occupied minorities leave—hence the Han consensus to hold the empire together regardless of the cost to Tibetans, Mongols, or others.
The generation that survived the Cultural Revolution (including Xi Jinping) prioritizes stability over liberty above all else.
Nationalism as a substitute for legitimacy:
After Tiananmen (1989), the party rewrote textbooks to focus on jingoistic nationalism—evil Japanese, evil Americans—rather than class struggle.
Nationalism is a “heady drink” that clouds judgment, repels minorities within China’s empire, frightens neighbors into coordinating with each other, and impedes de-escalation of crises.
The future of the Sino-Russian relationship
Putin’s break with Soviet caution:
Soviet leaders through Brezhnev were WWII veterans who understood that hot wars are easy to enter and hard to exit. They preferred proxy wars.
Putin has risen to power on hot wars: Chechnya (1999), Georgia (2008), Ukraine (2014, 2022).
He appears to want to reverse all of Russia’s post-Cold War territorial losses, potentially including the Baltic states.
The NATO expansion question:
Putin frames NATO expansion as an encirclement, but the historical record shows that neighbors joined NATO because of Russian imperialism, not Western conspiracy.
Finland and Sweden’s decision to join NATO after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine confirmed that Russian aggression, not Western manipulation, drives alliance expansion.
The prospects of a lasting bromance:
Barring World War III (which could temporarily glue them together), the historical legacy of Russian sabotage makes deep alignment unlikely.
Their primary theaters do not align: Putin is focused on Ukraine, Xi on Taiwan and the South China Sea, on opposite ends of Eurasia.
If the West manages correctly, the two will “take care of each other” while the West maximizes its own prosperity.
China’s growing leverage over Russia:
China has nine times Russia’s population and nine times its GNP, with per capita GNPs converging.
Xi Jinping holds all the cards. The longer Putin’s war in Ukraine continues, the more desperate Russia becomes, and the better the terms of trade China can extract.
China is already moving into Siberia through the Belt and Road Initiative, peeling away Russia’s former sphere of influence in Central Asia.
Siberia has the resources China needs most critically: water. North China has depleted its water table, and Lake Baikal holds over 20% of the world’s surface fresh water. China has a history of massive water projects.
Russia’s future may resemble North Korea’s: a dependent state draining itself while China extracts favorable terms.
The danger of getting your primary adversary wrong:
Nicholas II fought a recreational war against Japan (1904–1905) instead of investing in railways to face Germany, contributing to his overthrow and execution.
Putin is making a similar mistake, pouring resources into Ukraine while leaving his eastern flank exposed to China.
The closing warning:
Quoting Pericles: “I am more afraid of our own blunders than of the enemy’s devices.”
The greatest risks come not from adversaries’ strategies but from self-inflicted wounds—gratuitous trade wars on allies, abandoning alliance systems, going it alone against a peer competitor.
The US should focus on maximizing the prosperity and strength of its friends and partners, as it did with the Marshall Plan during the first Cold War, rather than pursuing zero-sum confrontations.
