China is well beyond replacing Russia as a world power. Russia's GDP is ~1.658 trillion USD, which puts it below Canada. China's GDP? ~13.61 trillion USD.
Russia is pretty much a washed up has-been with nukes.
They weren’t going to be the second economic power, but no reason they couldn’t have been number four behind Japan. But they could not help it, they squandered it.
[0]https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/4/16251226/russia-ai-putin-r...
China ceded a whole lot of territory to Russia without too much of a fuss. The whole of Mongolia was part of Qing, and they gave that up. Dittobfor Vladivostok.
China's border disputes with India was created by the British, who just draw a line somewhere without consent. China offered to draw turn the Line of Actual Control into the official border, which means China would get about 30% of the land, but India rejected that offer, so now we are at a perpetual border conflict.
Contrast with the ROC (Taiwan), which officially still includes it as far as I know although it treats it as an independent country in practice.
But in reality, they are neighbors and China has (or is in the process of) replacing Russia as the #2 power. So, while US has a lot to be careful for, it does indeed make sense that Russia has a more immediate threat.
If China becomes more powerful, it will start flexing muscle as the Russia-China border also, just like it flexes its muscle at its every other border.
Now, if we add that to the whole conspiracy theory about Trump and Russia, then things will start to add up even more.
Interesting...