Is Putin Embracing China to Expand Russia's Empire?

Russia needs to do something to loosen China's tightening embrace

Is Russia truly embracing China in order to expand Russian security? Even as it alienates the West into rearming?

Is this the way to look at Russia's strategy to secure its vast land borders?

Despite the talk of an eventual peace in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin will continue to step up in countries neighboring Russia, and the West needs to be better prepared. Areas to Russia’s south and east are considered particularly important to Putin. Putin’s Look East policy was first introduced in 2012, and predates the two Ukrainian wars. In the same year Russia adopted a critical new law, the 2012 Federal Law, which for the first time set a clear definition of the Northern Sea Route and its geographical scope.

Putin’s emphasis on the south can been seen in the Kremlin’s ongoing ambitions vis-a-vis the North-South corridor project, otherwise known as the Iranian route, a 7,200-kilometer corridor that connects India with Russia via Iran. Like the Northern Sea Route, part of the northeastern passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic seas, the North-South corridor seeks to provide Russia an alternative to the Suez Canal and a way to sanction proof its supply chains.

Likewise, Russia’s interest in the region to its east can be seen through the continued expansion of trade with China, underpinned by new infrastructure.

Is it also a way to stiff-arm China in the battle for influence in Central Asia? A battle that Russia seems to be slowly losing? A battle made harder by Russia's open attempt to rebuild the Russian empire in Ukraine? Which might have been just the first stop on the Former Soviet Union tour?

Against this backdrop, it’s not surprising that a hastily deleted post by former president—and now deputy chair of the Security Council—Dmitry Medvedev suggesting that after Ukraine, Moscow might turn its attention to the fate of northern Kazakhstan, was taken at face value by many people. But could Russia really enter into conflict with another of its neighbors?

Not now. But Central Asians surely got the message, no?

Russia's position certainly needs bolstering:

Although economic ties remain strong, the countries of Central Asia are seeking ways to reduce their dependence on Russia, and high-level officials, including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, have raised concerns that the region’s leaders are distancing themselves from Moscow.

There is a sound basis for their fears. “China became stronger, and Russia lost is authority,” said Nargis Kasenova, director at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. “China looks like a very attractive partner[.]” ...

Russia’s aggressive assertion of its dominance in the Central Asian region looks likely to backfire on Moscow and accelerate this trend. The Kremlin depends on Central Asia in nearly all the ways the region depends on Russia, and by alienating its neighbors through espionage, mistreatment of migrant workers, and the recruitment of mercenaries, Moscow is simply accelerating its own long-term decline and loss of influence.

Central Asia is vital for Russia to hang on to its Far East regions, including the parts stolen from China during the Century of Humiliation.

But no, Russia continues to batter its military and economy by pounding on Ukraine, thus alienating and alarming NATO into re-arming, worrying Central Asian former Soviet republics, and giving China an opportunity to supplant Russian influence.

Bravo, Putin. #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings

NOTE: Map from the initial article.