Fascinating development: With its military decimated and its economy in tatters, Russia quietly opens the port of Vladivostok to China - 163 years after the Qing ceded it to the Russian Empire.
thinkchina.sg/russia-opening…
Access to Vladivostok offers the opportunity to boost manufacturing and trade in the cities of China’s northeast interior. It's also likely to embolden Chinese nationalists who would like to take the former Qing territory from a weakened and isolated Russia.
As it happens, China's giant shipping company COSCO answers directly to the CCP and cooperates regularly with the PLA Navy.
And as @cnlyonsjones notes in this @ASPI_org report from 2021, COSCO even has its own militia. Both COSCO and China Merchants can be viewed as extensions of the CCP itself.
aspistrategist.org.au/the-port-opera…
Not saying China will seize Vladivostok, but it does seem that Putin's war on Ukrainian sovereignty has created new risks for Russian sovereignty over its lone Pacific port, while substantially increasing Xi's leverage in their relationship. Massive 烏龍球.
If Kissinger is recounting a true story here, Deng Xiaoping considered Vladivostok and environs to be Chinese territory
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