By Joseph E. FALLON

Geopolitics is more art than science. Its results more unexpected than designed. The last 40 years witnessed unprecedented geopolitical transformations – end of the Cold War, German reunification, fall of the Soviet Union, “911”, rise of China, the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. Events no one anticipated. The U.S. – China competition in 2026 continues this trend to expect the unexpected. No one noticed how in the wake of Trump’s actions in Venezuela and Iran, Russia emerged as a spoiler to China’s bid for a new Sinocentric world order.
The bipolar world order which emerged after World War II between the two nuclear armed, superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, seemed permanent. Europe was divided between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Each, in turn, had economic counterparts – European Community/European Free Trade Association for the West and COMECON for the Soviet Bloc. (Maps 1 and 2)

Map 1 – Cold War Military Alliances
Source: “Military alliances in the Cold War”, Atlas of the Cold War, Wikimedia Commons, June 9, 2024;
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/Cold_war_europe_economic_alliances_map_en.png

Map 2 – Cold War Economic Alliances

Source: “A simplified map of the Cold War alliances between 30 April and 24 June 1975. The Soviet and Chinese
blocs are grouped together as one for illustrative purposes”, Atlas of the Cold War, Wikimedia Commons,
June 9, 2024;

Map 3 – Cold War alliances in 1975
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_Cold_War#/media/File:Cold_War_alliances_mid-1975.svg

The Soviet and Chinese blocs are grouped together in Red.
The West is grouped together in Blue.
Neutrals are in Gray.
Pro-Soviet, but non-aligned, India is Gray with Red diamond

Asia was also divided among countries that were Communist, non-Communist, or neutral, with the largest neutral, India, pro-Soviet in foreign policy orientation. Mao’s China was a wild card. (Map 3)
The Cold War rivalry between Washington and Moscow was conducted through proxy wars and coups in Africa, southern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. (Map 4)

Map 4 – Countries with Proxy Battles during the Cold War (1947-1991)
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_Cold_War#/media/File:Cold_War_alliances_mid-1975.svg

But in 1991 that world order, which appeared so stable, collapsed when the Soviet Union suddenly imploded.
The United States was now the lone superpower. For a decade. Then in 2001 came “911”. Washington’s response to al-Qaeda’s attacks on Washington, DC and New York City was immediate. It was full-spectrum war. “The cumulative effect of dominance in the air, land, maritime, and space domains and information environment (which includes cyber-space) that permits the conduct of joint operations without effective opposition or prohibitive interference.”4

It was force projection on such an unparalleled scale it confirmed French Foreign Minister, Hubert Védrine’s 1999 designation of the United States as a hyperpower – “dominating in every single domain (i.e. military, culture, economy, technology, diplomatic) in every part of the world.”5
But Washington soon discovered there are limits to a hyperpower – “imperial overstretch.” This is “the overextension either geographically, economically, or militarily that inevitably leads to the exhaustion of vital domestic resources, decline, and fall.”6 (Map 5)

Map 5 – US Wars, Bases and Expansion Abroad, 2001-202
Source: David Vine, “Maps and Graphics of US Wars, Military Bases, and Related Subjects”, davidvine.net, 2025;
https://www.davidvine.net/maps.html

Map 6 – Geopolitical Hotspots in a Three Primary Theatres World
Source: FES Asia Editorial, “Map: Navigating the Geopolitics of a Three-Theatre World”, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung,
December 12, 2025; https://asia.fes.de/news/three-theatre-world-map.html

Map 7 – Trump Strategic emphasis on Western Hemisphere
Source: Marc Saxer, “Map: US Grand Strategy for the Multi-polar World”, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, May 5, 2026;

Even after the 20-year war in Afghanistan ended in a military defeat at the hands of the Taliban (2001-2021),10 the United States remained trapped in “imperial over-stretch” on three fronts in Eurasia – East Europe, Middle East, and East Asia. (Map 6)
The American public became weary of wars without end. This contributed to the reelection of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2024. “Imperial over-stretches” was replaced by an “America First” foreign policy. This meant first insuring American primacy in the Western Hemisphere; and second only engaging in military actions in Eurasia when American interests are directly threatened. (Map 7)
It is a modification of the scope, but a continuation of the objectives of the Rimland theory of geopolitics. It still contains China. (Diagram 1)

Diagram 1 – Rimland Objectives of Trump’s “America First” Foreign Policy
Source: Sarah Lee, “Understanding Rimland Theory: A Comprehensive Guide to its Significance in Political
Geography”, Number Analytics, May 24, 2025; https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/ultimate-guide-rimland-theory

As the United States emerged as a hyperpower in 2001, China was rising as an economic and potential military, rival. In 2013, Beijing challenged Washington’s global position with its ambitious Belt Road Initiative, funding projects designed to integrate the economies of countries in Eurasia and Africa with China’s. (Maps 8 and 9)
The aim of China’s Belt Road Initiative is economic hegemony over the “World-Island,” which is Eurasia and Africa. The concept of a “World-Island” was first advanced by Halford J. Mackinder, a father of geopolitics, in his 1904 work, The Geographical Pivot of History.12 He presented a map with the borders and sub-divisions of the “World-Island” in his 1919 book, Democratic Ideals And Reality: a study in the politics of reconstructions.13 (Map 10)

Map 8 – China’s Belt Road Initiative encompassing the “World-Island”
Source: “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Where it goes and what it’s supposed to accomplish”, CBC News, November 27, 2019.

Map 9 – Land corridors of China’s Belt Road Initiative
Source: “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Where it goes and what it’s supposed to accomplish”, CBC News, November 27, 2019.

Map 10 – The borders of Mackinder’s “World-Island”
Source: “China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Where it goes and what it’s supposed to accomplish”, CBC News, November 27, 2019.

Map 11 – From the Arctic to the Antarctic: Concentric circles of China’s strategic space
Source: Nadège Rolland, Mapping China’s Strategic Space, The National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR Special

The “World-Island” covers 57 percent of the surface area of the globe;18 and contains 86 percent of the world’s population.19 Bounded and bonded by land routes and sea lanes, it is a self-contained economic, as well as geographic, unit.
The World Bank notes Eurasia alone “is one of the most natural resource-rich regions in the world, with 31 percent of its proven natural gas reserves, 17 percent of oil reserves, 23 percent of iron ore, 14 percent of gold, and 7 percent of copper.”20
By its Belt-Road Initiative, China seeks to exert economic, and thereby, political influence over the countries on the “World-Island.” Beijing’s geostrategy is to isolate Washington internationally, thus replacing the post-Cold War world order headed by the United States with a new Sino-centric one. For as Mackinder observed, “who rules the World-Island commands the world.”21 (Map 11)
In attempting to establish economic hegemony over the “World-Island,” China envisioned Russia as an economic satellite of its Belt Road Initiative and a junior partner in securing Eurasia from Western penetration. (Maps 12 and 13)
China saw Russia in a state of political collapse. It was economically weak, internationally isolated, and in demographic decline.
Furthermore, Moscow has been under Western economic sanctions since 2014 when it annexed Crimea following the coup in Kyiv,22 eight years before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The war enabled the West to justify increasing the number and scope of its sanctions. The West was strangling Russia’s economy to force political concessions from Moscow.
China responded by extending assistance to Russia. It did so for three reasons. The first was to counter Western power projections into Russia, which threatens Beijing’s interests in Eurasia. The second was to economically strengthen Russia, to a degree, to further Beijing’s new Sino-centric world order. The third was to utilize Belt Road Initiative projects and Chinese labor to advance China’s territorial claims to Russia’s Far East.
According to United Nations Population Division estimates on the population size of the countries of the world, China has the second largest population (after India), Russia the ninth.23 Beijing saw in China’s demographics a weapon by which to peacefully annex Russian territory. (Map 14)
On June 9, 2025, Newsweek reported on a leaked eight-page intelligence document by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on China’s threat to Russian territory in the Far East.

Map 12 – Russia’s position in China’s Belt Road Initiative
Source: Galen Murton, “Geopolitical gravity and blanks on the BRI map; or why what is missing really matters”,Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, July 20, 2021; https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/belt-road/research/geopolitical-gravity-and-blanks-bri-map-or-why-what-missing-really-matters

Map 13 – Russia’s position in China’s Eurasia security corridors
Source: John Bew CMG and Dr. Andrew Ehrhardt, “The strategy of security”, Britain’s world: Thestrategy of security in twelve geopolitical maps, Council on Geostrategy, 2025, p. 41; Britains-World-The-strategy-of-security-in-twelve-geopolitical-maps.pdf

Map 14 – Russia’s strategic vulnerability to China
Source: Csaba Barnabas Horvath, “Was China Betting on Russian Defeat All Along?” Geopolitical Monitor, April 25, 2022.

“The undated document appears to have been written in late 2023 or early 2024, according to the [New York] Times. A previously undisclosed unit of the FSB referred to China in the document as “the enemy”…”trying to encroach” on Russian territory…and as posing a serious threat to Russian national security. The report highlights Russia’s deep-rooted mistrust of China across their 2,615-mile shared border, and points out how Chinese nationalists have long challenged 19th-century treaties under which Russia acquired vast territories, including what is now Vladivostok… Per the FSB, China has sought to bolster its historical claims in the Russian Far East by researching traces of ‘ancient Chinese peoples’ in the region…The document suggests that China may be trying to influence local opinion to support its narrative.”27
Beijing officially identifies Russian territory between the Ussuri and Amur rivers and the Pacific Ocean as “Outer Manchuria”. This is the historic land of the non-Chinese Tungusic peoples.28 Imperial China invaded this land in the 7th Century. But was expelled by the Second Turkic Khanate in the 8th Century. Imperial China returned in the 17th Century. But was expelled by Imperial Russia in the 19th Century by the treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860). The territory encompasses 350,000 square miles. (Map 15)

Map 15 – China’s territorial claim to Russian territory
Source: Daniel Peris, “Russia’s age of contraction”, Engelsberg Ideas, September 25, 2025.

Map 16 – Russia – FarEstern region / Federal district Map
Source: “Russia — Far Eastern Region/Federal district map”, Maps of the World, 2002-2024;
https://www.mapsofworld.com/russia/regions/russia-far-eastern-region-map.html

This vast realm includes Russia’s “Primorsky Krai, southern Khabarovsk Krai, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Amur Oblast and the island of Sakhalin.”31 (Map 16)
In 2023, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources issued a notice on the ‘Standard for the Representation of Content in Public Maps’ (Natural Resources Regulations, No. 2).32 Russian place names in Russian territory were replaced with Chinese names. Vladivostok became Haishenwai, Sakhalin Island became Kuyedao and the Stanovoy Range became the Outer Xing’an Range.33
In the meantime, Beijing had been creating “facts on the ground” by employing Chinese workers for projects in the Russian Far East with a concentration on “Outer Manchuria.” (Maps 17 and 18)
On January 4, 2026, MSN reported Chinese nationalists have been encouraging Beijing “to claim up to a third of Russian territory should political and economic instability lead to Russia’s collapse…In a piece published on the widely-read Chinese platform NetEase, the writer urges Beijing to prepare for Russia’s potential state collapse and to position itself to seize control of the resource-abundant territory. ‘Currently, the Russian economy is in a difficult situation: GDP is even inferior to that of a single Chinese provincial region, and inflation is rapidly increasing,’ they wrote. ‘The war in Ukraine has been going on since 2022, the main forces of the army have been transferred to the west, and there are less than 50 thousand military personnel left in the Far East – essentially an empty shell. ‘At the same time, the region is extremely rich in resources: gold, diamonds, oil, which makeup a significant part of Russia’s national reserves. If Russia really collapses, the 7 million km2 of the Far East should not be lost in vain. ‘The region is sparsely populated, cold, with poor infrastructure, and Russia is not able to effectively manage it. In the event of Russia’s collapse, the risk of fragmentation of the Far East will be high. China should prepare in advance.’”34 (Map 19)
Interestingly, the authors ignore Russia’s nuclear doomsday device called “Peri-meter,” or “Dead Hand” by the West, which allegedly is still active. “Perimeter would guarantee that the Soviet Union (and now, Russia) could respond even if its entire armed forces were wiped out.”35 Focus can easily be shifted from targets in the West to China.
There is another chasm between rhetoric and reality. China’s Communist Party obsesses over what contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. On December 25, 2021, Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported: “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has written thousands of internal papers, held study sessions and even produced a documentary about the downfall of its former rival and ideological cousin…’It’s hard to overstate how obsessed they are with the Soviet Union,’ China expert David Shambaugh told the Washington Post. ‘They wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night thinking about it. It hangs over every major decision.’”36

Map 17 – Chinese presence in Russian FarEast
Source: Andrei Zakharov & Anastasia Napalkova, “Why Chinese farmers have crossed border into Russia’s Far East”,
BBC, October 31, 2019; https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50185006

Map 18
Source: Janis Kluge, “Russia-China Economic Relations: Moscow’s Road to Economic Dependence,
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, May 2024.

Map 19 – How China Is Quietly Conquering Siberia
Source: Bogdan Maftei | The Erudite Elders, “A Look Into the Future: How China Is Quietly Conquering Siberia, Medium, November 15, 2024;

The collapse of the Soviet Union was due to corruption and mismanagement leading to a “doom loop” – “where one economic situation creates a negative impact and then another and another.”40 This provokes popular discontent that delegitimizes the regime. The Soviet Union never appeared more powerful than before it collapsed. The “doom loop” is now occurring in China. The Soviet scenario the Chinese Communist Party feared is unfolding.
In March 2025, the Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence released a report: “Wealth and Corrupt Activities of the Leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.” It noted “…when Xi came to power in 2012, he launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign, vowing to take a ‘zero tolerance’ approach targeting ‘flies’ (low-level cadres) and ‘tigers’ (senior officials) alike. His campaign has also targeted officials at department and bureau levels, as well as county and division levels. From 2012 through 2022, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and the National Supervisory Commission investigated nearly five million people within the government and CCP, finding 4.7 million officials guilty… Xi’s anti-corruption campaign more deeply reflects a party-directed securitization, or a targeting of political indiscipline and ideological impurity, particularly at the highest levels of government, in an effort to preserve the CCP’s domestic control and legitimacy.”41 That may be too late. “Many academics and observers claim corruption since 2000 is so widespread that it undermines the regime’s legitimacy.42
Historically, the relationship between China and Russia has alternated between which is the powerful and which is the weak. This is happening today. China is not as strong as she appears and Russia is not as weak as is believed. China is experiencing a sustained economic downturn. Stuck in a “doom loop,” Beijing is facing a structural overcapacity crisis. Its economy defined by “overinvestment, overcapacity, and overproduction.”43 (Chart 1,2,3, and 4)

Charts 1, 2, 3, and 4
Source: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Unclassified-CDA-CCP-Leadership-202503.pdf

Ironically, in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,45 Lenin described the Chinese Communist Party’s Belt-Road Initiative. In competition with other powers, China seeks foreign markets to export its overcapacity so as to maintain its domestic production levels and prevent economic downturn and social instability. “But as Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points out, foreign markets are not big enough for [China’s President] Xi’s plan to succeed. ‘We can’t absorb,’ he says. ‘The world will not accept everything that China wants to export.’”46 A de-globalization of the world’s economy is occurring and China is the loser.
According to Anne Stevenson-Yang, author of Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy, “China has grown almost entirely through capital investment…Because there isn’t enough to invest in, a lot of good money chases bad, and they have reached a limit. The Chinese economy is having a heart seizure.”47 Institutional reforms, political change, opening China’s economy were slogans promoted by China’s Communist Party for Western consumption. In her view, “China is returning to the poverty and isolation of the Mao era.”48
Oddly, under the Obama and Biden Administrations, Washington’s fiscal policies aided Beijing. “China’s internal imbalances have been manageable only because the U.S. has absorbed the great majority of China’s excess production and excess savings. When the U.S. runs a large and widening trade deficit, it becomes a sort of external stabilizer for China, creating the demand and financial absorption capacity that China struggles to generate domestically. As long as the U.S. is willing to keep running that deficit, then China can keep exporting its imbalances abroad and postponing adjustment. [Trump ended that financial support]… China is therefore trapped in a structural bind. It cannot raise consumption without undermining growth; it cannot slow investment without triggering recession; and it cannot continue raising investment without hitting its debt limit. Historically, countries with this exact configuration, Japan in the early 1990s, Brazil in the early 1980s, the U.S. in the late 1920s, the Soviet Union in the 1980s, eventually faced a painful adjustment. Some collapse quickly, others grind through decades of stagnation, but none escape the arithmetic. There has never been a case of a country with this setup to escape this painful fate.”49
Can Russia become China’s new Obama/Biden safety net? Not by Beijing exporting its surplus production to Russia, but by Moscow exporting vital energy resources to China.
China is dependent on foreign oil and gas imports to sustain economic growth. Much of its energy imports have to travel through the Malacca Strait, a chokepoint 560 miles long and 40 to 155 miles wide, situated between Malaya Peninsula and the island of Sumatra. (Map 20)
The “Malacca Dilemma”, as Beijing calls it, is China’s economic “Achilles Heel”. The strait can easily be closed by a hostile power threatening China’s economic stability. (Map 21)

Map 21 – China’s Malacca Dilemma
Source: Reiny Dwinanda, “Indonesia hosts conference on maritime security in Malacca Strait”, Republika, September 26, 2016;
https://en.republika.co.id/berita/en/national-politics/16/09/26/oe4210414-indonesia-hosts-conference-on-maritime-security-in-malacca-strait?

Map 21 – China’s Malacca Dilemma
Source: Atul Kumar, Ananya Vellore, “Indian Ocean Chokepoints: Is China Still Vulnerable?”, Observer Research Foundation, September 9, 2025.

Beijing’s reaction was to utilize the Belt-Road Initiative to establish a shorter, more secure oil route from the Persian Gulf to China. This was the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).52 A massive undertaking, it included increasing the capacity of the Pakistani Port of Gwadar53 for handling cargo and vessels, and linking that port to Kashgar in China through land corridors. (Map 22)

Map 22 – China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to offset the Malacca Dilemma
Source: “Reinforcing China’s Malacca Dilemma”, Center for International Maritime Security, September 15, 2016.

Map 23 – China imported over 5 million daily barrels of crude oil via Strait of Hormuz last year
Source: Paroma Soni and Catherine Allen, “5 charts show China’s oil dilemma after US strikes”, Politico, March 2, 2026;
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/02/iran-us-strikes-china-oil-supply-charts-00806415?bih=951&biw=1710&cs=0&hl=en-GB

Persian Gulf oil could now avoid the Malacca Strait approximately 2,000 miles away and head to Gwadar less than 400 miles east.
Then another geoeconomic obstacle appeared. Fifty percent of China’s energy imports are from the Persian Gulf and must pass through the Strait of Hormuz. (Map 23)
But the Iran War showed the Strait of Hormuz can be closed. This undermines China’s economic strategy by making both the Strait of Hormuz and Port of Gwadar as vulnerable as the Malacca Strait. (Map 24)

Map 24- The Strait of Hormuz and Port of Gwadar: Two more “Achilles Heels”
Source: Arav Menon, “The Gwadar Port: An Insight into the Economic and Community Impact of the Gwadar Port”,
April 20, 2025; https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/7104fad26c7248639f3ac3cddd5ca051

Before the Iran War, a third of China’s energy imports came from three suppliers: Russia, Venezuela, and Iran. (Map 25)

Map 25 – China’s Oil Imports
Source: Yasmin Lockwood, “Mapped: Where China Gets Its Oil”, Visual Capitalist, March 6, 2026.

Diagram 2 – China’s top oil suppliers, 2025
Source: Erica Downs, “Where China Gets Its Oil: Crude Imports in 2025 Reveal Stockpiling and Changing Fortunes of Certain Suppliers, Including Those Sanctioned”, Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs, January 29, 2026;
https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/where-china-gets-its-oil-crude-imports-in-2025-reveal-stockpiling-and-changing-fortunes-of-certain-suppliers-including-those-sanctioned/

Map 26 – Russian oil shipments to China transiting the Northern Sea Route in 2025
Source: Malte Humpert, “Deepening Russia-China Relations Continue to Drive Oil, Gas, and Container TrafficAlong Arctic Shipping Lane”, High North News, Sept.10, 2025.

Now that China has lost ready access to oil from Venezuela and Iran, Russia, as China’s primary energy supplier, becomes an even more crucial partner for Beijing. (Diagram 2)
Prior to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, China was importing oil and coal from Russia via the Northern Sea Route. (Maps 26 and 27)

Map 27 – Bulk container transporting coal or iron ore from Russia to China
Source: Malte Humpert, “Deepening Russia-China Relations Continue to Drive Oil, Gas, and Container Traffic Along Arctic Shipping Lane”, High North News, Sept. 10, 2025.

To offset vulnerabilities, limitations, delays, and expenses associated with importing oil even via secure sea lanes, China’s Belt-Road Initiative is constructing new or expanding existing energy pipelines in Eurasia – Russia, Central Asia, and Myanmar. (Map 28)

Map 28 – China’s energy lifelines beyond Hormuz
Source: “How China is offsetting Hormuz oil supply losses”, Infographics, Al Majalla, April 21, 2026.

To sustain China’s economic growth, Beijing has to insure the needs of coastal China, its economic powerhouse, are met first. (Map 29)
And it is to coastal China that all energy pipelines lead. (Map 30)

Map 29 – China’s economic power house remains the coast
Source: Munir Ahmad, Waqar Akram, Muhammad Ikram, Ashfaq Ahmad Shah, Abdul Rehman, Abbas Ali Chandio, and Gul Jabeen, “Estimating dynamic interactive linkages among urban agglomeration, economic performance, carbon emissions, and health expenditures across developmental disparities”, Sustainable Production and Consumption, 26(3), October 2020; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muhammad-Ikram-53/publication/344543661/figure/fig2/AS:947452446261249@1602901674413/Map-of-regional-distribution-of-China-across-urban-and-economic-developmental.jpg

Map 30 – China / Russia
Source: How a New Russia-China Gas Pipeline Could Reshape Global LNG Trade”, EnergyNow Media, September 9, 2025.

Regional Gas Infrastructure
For “reason of state,” Beijing did not wish to become dependent on Russia as its principal energy supplier, and Moscow did not wish to become dependent on China as its principal market. However, U.S. actions in Venezuela and Iran have altered the perspectives and priorities of both Russia and China.
As China becomes dependent on energy pipelines, emphasis is shifting from geostrategy to economic necessity. And Russia becomes less the economic satellite and more the economic “lifeline.”
One Russian natural gas pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, alone, would dramatically enhance Moscow’s geopolitical position with China. (Map 31)

Map 31 – New Gas Pipeline Stengthens Ties between Russia and China
Source: How a New Russia-China Gas Pipeline Could Reshape Global LNG Trade”, EnergyNow Media, September 9, 2025.

“Gazprom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller has described the planned Power of Siberia 2 pipeline network across Russia, China and Mongolia as ‘the largest, the most massive and capital-intensive gas project in the world.’ There’s more than 4,000 kilometers between the pipeline’s origin point in the Arctic Circle and its potential end point at China’s coastal mega-cities.”65
In September 2025, the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University, reported should Power of Siberia 2 pipeline network (POS 2) become operational and were China “to accept delivery of the full 50 bcm [of natural gas annually] China would be dependent on Russia for 126 to 136 bcm, or about 42 to 45 percent of its projected natural gas imports (pipeline plus estimated LNG) in 2040, up from 23 percent in 2024.”66 And the potential capacity of the POS 2 could exceed 100 bcm annually.
Russia is no longer the “junior partner” and its strategic position may be enhanced by a “perfect geopolitical storm” brewing in China where Beijing’s economic and demo-graphic crises are merging.
As China’s economy contracts, the number of migrants from rural areas seeking work in urban centers, the “floating population” – estimated at 300 million in 2026 – will strain the resources of cities.

Chart 5 – By 2100, China may have more people outside the working-age population than inside it
Source: Laura Silver and Christine Huang, “Key facts about China’s declining population”, Pew Research Center, December 5, 2022.

Chart 6 – China s populations is likely to fall below a billion people before 2100
Source: Laura Silver and Christine Huang, “Key facts about China’s declining population”, Pew Research Center, December 5, 2022.

In a severe economic downturn such as the one Anne Stevenson-Yang suggests, money will become less available to Beijing for subsidizing Chinese settlers in the strategic buffer regions of Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria. A deteriorating economic situation in those regions may propel many Chinese to migrate to coastal cities competing for work and services with city residents and the “floating population.” This will further strain the stability and social fabric of China’s cities, undermining the country’s economy. An example of a “doom loop” whereby one negative precipitates another which then precipitates yet another and so on.
Two more factors contribute to this “perfect geopolitical storm”: China’s aging population, people that are no longer in the work force but need services, (Chart 5) and the dramatic decline in the population of China (Chart 6). Both will adversely impact China’s economy.
If the downward trend continues, the low estimate for the year 2100 is for the population of China to have declined by one Billion, to a low of 488 million.
The medium estimate suggests China’s population falls to 700 million while the combined population of Europe and the United States exceeds China’s and approaches one billion. (Chart 7)

Chart 7 – Population projections until end of century
Source: Charted: Populations of China, India, U.S., and Europe (1950-2100)”, Visual Capitalist, September 10, 2025;
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/populations-china-india-usa-europe-2100/

The change is most dramatic between China and the United States. The population ratio historically favored China. Today, it is 4:1 in China’s favor. However, medium esti-mates for 2100 show that disparity all but erased with the ratio at 1.5:1. This would adversely impact Beijing’s ability to create a new Sinocentric world order.
While falling fertility levels in Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria, in particular, pose a security threat to Beijing. It is an example of the alternating power cycle between Russia and China.
After the 1961 Sino-Soviet split,70 Communist China confronted two threats to its power: a surplus population and exposed borders. Chinese territories most vulnerable were also the most strategic: Xinjiang and Manchuria. Stalin had invaded Xinjiang in 1934 (Map 32) and had occupied Manchuria in 1945 — even though China’s population was 5.5 times larger than that of the Soviet Union.71 (Map 33)

Map 32 – Soviet Invasion of Xinjiang, 1934
Source: https://countries-by-population.fandom.com/wiki/1945_Countries_by_Population

Map 33 – Soviet occupation of Manchuria, 1945
Source: Southern Asia 1934: Soviet invasion of Xinjiang”, Omniatlas, 2011-2016;
https://omniatlas.com/maps/southern-asia/19340316/

Map 34
Source: “Asia Pacific 1945: Occupation of Japan”, Omniatlas, 2011-2016;
https://omniatlas.com/maps/asia-pacific/19450902/

Beijing adopted one solution to resolve both problems. It used surplus Chinese population to colonize, and Sinicize, the non-Chinese “buffer regions’. (Map 34)
However, declining fertility levels are now undermining Beijing’s demographic strategy. (Map 35)
In Manchuria, fertility levels are at “extinction levels.”
While Beijing labels territory in Russia’s Far East “Outer Manchuria” with the implication China will “recover” these lands, a “perfect geopolitical storm” is gathering inside China. One in which economics and demographics may produce quite a different scenario. A Soviet redux. As a result, it is not China that acquires “Outer Manchuria” from Russia; it is Russia that acquires “Inner Manchuria” from China. As Stalin had done, but through oil and gas pipelines, not the Red Army. Whether China economically stagnates or retreats into its Maoist past, the geopolitical advantage in this bilateral relationship is shifting from Beijing to Moscow.
To offset its geopolitical vulnerability, Moscow seeks a “multi-polar” world order to protect Russia’s strategic interests in former Soviet territories. It does not support a “multi-polar” world order that is a mask for “Sino-centrism” whereby Russia is made a satellite of China.

Map 35  – China s Fertility Crises (by province)
Source: “China’s Fertility Crisis: From World’s Most Populous to Demographic Collapse”, Vivid Maps, November 6, 2025, Map source: 远山近水 via ZhihuCredit.

Moscow’s foreign policy objective is for a return to a “balance of power” in inter-national relations “where no single state or coalition can dominate the rest of the system. States are in constant competition for influence and the rough equilibrium that results are precisely what preserve each state’s security and autonomy.”76
As Russia ceases to be China’s “junior partner,” Moscow becomes a spoiler, “capable of depriving a rival of success,”77 to Beijing’s Sinocentric world order. This insures much of the post-Cold War world order remains in place with the United States still capable to act as a hyperpower. For Moscow, the existential threat is not Washington, but Beijing.