 I should have you know that the beginning of this video will sound a bit familiar to some of you, and that's because it's the same as my last video. I decided to combine both parts into one long video and delete the shorter one, as this topic cannot be properly explained without the full context, so enjoy the video. I set up a poll about three weeks ago, asking what you all thought Sino-Russian relations were like today. One of my viewers said it best with this statement, they are at best allied by circumstance. Today Russia and China have similar geopolitical goals, simply put, both countries regional rivals are backed by the United States, so it would make sense for them to work together. But it can be seen even today that the long term goals of Russia and China will inevitably clash. With a warming world leading to the opening of new farmlands, resource depositories, and trade routes, Russia and China will inevitably have to come head to head with their competing aspirations. What will this look like, and what is the future of Sino-Russian relations? A short disclaimer, this video does not reflect what I want to happen, or my hopeful opinions. These claims are rooted in many factors that will inevitably shake up the geopolitics of the region, one way or another. This is one possibility of the way things could go, if China plays all of its cards right. This will be a very quick overview of the history of Sino-Russian relations, starting after World War II. The Soviet Union helped the Communists win the Chinese Civil War in 1950, but relations began to fall apart in the late 50s due to ideological differences between Khrushchev and Mao. The two countries reconciled in the 90s after the Soviet Union fell, and China had effectively switched to some form of free markets. Today the countries work together in infrastructure development through the Belt and Road Initiative and through the shared goal of competing with American influence in Europe and Asia. This brings me to my main theory on Sino-Russian relations. America is doing more to keep the two countries on war than they are themselves. Their future geopolitical goals will clash too greatly in the future, however, for any alliance to form, or for the common rivalry with the United States to matter enough to stop them from quarreling. A combination of demographic issues, the effects of global warming, and the competition for resources will be the main reasons for future disputes. The two main regions that will spark this rivalry are Siberia and Central Asia. Russia owned Siberia instead of China for a few reasons. After defeating the Tatars of Kazan in 1552, Russia moved across the Siberian plain to the Pacific Ocean in the 17th century, with no serious opposition to their advance. China during most of this time was ruled by the isolationist Ming dynasty, which had very limited contact with other nations. The more expansionist Manchu-led Qing dynasty took over China in the 17th century, but were subjugated by technologically superior Russian forces, leading to land losses in the north. Throughout most of this period of Russian conquest, Siberia was cooler than it is today, and significantly cooler than it will be in 50 years. Global warming will make Siberia a very important region for a few different reasons in the next few decades. The warming Siberia opens up a ton of new farmland, which could over time create many new settlements. This brand new farmland could potentially feed hundreds of millions of people, if used efficiently. Remember, Siberia is huge, and the landmass that will become suitable for farming and permanent civilization is significant. This is also important due to the effects of warming within China. Though the south is not going to turn into a Sahara like many fearmongers would like to claim. The Gobi Desert is expanding, and a significant amount of land in northeastern China is drying up. The new Siberian farmland would be a prime replacement for this. Farmland is not the only resource that China would want to control on a warming Siberia. There are already significant oil deposits in the island of Sakhalin, and oil and gas are abundant in other parts of Siberia, especially the northwest. The warming of these lands would make harvesting these resources much easier and cheaper, leading to the added economic benefits. The warming Arctic would also give huge advantages to whoever controls it. Shipping time between Europe and China would significantly be reduced, due to the Arctic past being much shorter than the current route that goes through the Suez Canal. Whoever controls this part of the Arctic is bound to make a lot of money with ships passing through their economic zones. With all this said, wouldn't this just make Russia a great power again? With all these new opportunities, Russia could easily rise to global dominance in farming oil, gas, and trade, right? To assume this would be to forget one of the most major aspects of Siberia today, which is its demographics, the entirety of Siberia has a population of around 34 million. Meanwhile, the megalopolis of Guangzhou, Zhenzhen, and Dongguan in the Pearl River Delta has 78 million people. I would call Siberia a great waste of population potential. Russia the climate is in fact very habitable, even though it only straddles the south of the region. So why does it have such a small population? Before Soviet times, many Russians, Ukrainians, and Cossacks moved out east to have more autonomy. After the Soviets took control of Russia, they forcibly moved people away from their homes to settle the area. However, the Soviet Union shot themselves in the foot by simultaneously artificially reducing the birth rate of the country. Before their population could sufficiently grow to people, the Siberian plain, the birth rate was reduced to below replacement levels by the 1970s. At this point, there was not much they could do to populate Siberia. World War II had killed tens of millions, mostly men, and millions more starved in the 1930s or were sent to gulags by Stalin. I'll explain this in better detail in another video. The long story short, the Soviet Union failed to populate due to both factors in and outside their control. At the same time, China's population expanded today to 1.4 billion, despite their one-child policy and the famines in the early days of the People's Republic. Today, China's side of the border has several cities with over 1 million people, while Russia doesn't have a single one. The population density difference on either side of the border couldn't be clearer. This is a major problem for Russia. Both Russia and China have very low birth rates, and will have to face internal issues to resolve their aging crises as a result. So both are racing against the clock to expand their influence before they won't have the opportunity to do so for at least another century, or at least until they get their demographics in order, meaning higher birth rates. Let's face the facts. China only needs to move 70 million people to Siberia to have an outright majority in the region. This is less than 7% of China's population, and moving these people up north away from the congestions of cities like Beijing would have a major positive for the country. With all this new farmland caused by global warming, Chinese people would be pleading to move up north for economic opportunities. Creating large cities near the oil and gas sources of Siberia is very probable, and these cities would likely become very rich. The populating of new lands would also fix a lot of China's demographic problems, as the birth rates of Chinese transplants to Siberia, especially in rural areas, would be significantly higher than the replacement rate, so there are enough farmhands to produce enough food. Russia could potentially do this as well, but it's important to note that China has a huge head start in populating Siberia, as its population is 10 times larger. In the long term, it makes much more sense that Siberia would become Chinese-controlled, probably as a capitalist public state, to maximize the economic output of the region. The way the economy works would be similar to parts of Shanghai or the island of Hainan, where the economy is significantly less government influenced than the rest of China. This is all not to mention China controlling the Arctic trade routes that would otherwise have to pay Russia to travel its ships through. The capture of Siberia would possibly be the best thing that happens to China in the 21st century, but would simultaneously be a huge blow to Russia, effectively stripping them of millions of square miles of potential farmland, their main oil reserves, and a shit ton of money that would have come from Arctic trade routes. This is not the only region that Russia has to defend from Chinese influence, however, Central Asia has been a region controlled by Russia, either directly or indirectly, for the past 200 years. Today, the Collective Security Treaty Organization exists as a collective defense alliance of a few post-Soviet states, led by Russia, with a couple member states in Central Asia. Russia also leads the Eurasian Economic Union, and the commonwealth of independent states to keep influence there. However, China is already winning in Central Asia. The Belt and Road Initiative has reached every country except Turkmenistan, and these countries are becoming more economically linked to China every day. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are the most affected countries by China's debt trap foreign policy strategy, where China pays for huge projects in countries that cannot afford to pay it back, therefore being trapped into China's sphere of influence. China is also making inroads to do the same thing into Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan is not as economically tied to China as these other countries are, but China still has the ability to suck it into its orbit through the Belt and Road Initiative and the debt trap strategy. The mineral resources and the oil and gas reserves that Kazakhstan deposits would be very strategic for China to have under its control. Turkmenistan, being very small in population and open with large gas reserves, is another easy target for China. Global warming in this region, unlike Siberia, would not really be a positive, as the climate is expected to get drier. The only country that would be able to supply food and water in these regions would end up being China, with the control of the Siberian farmlands and their own farmlands. Though Central Asia is expected to grow in population from 75 today to 100 million in 2050, the population is still very small in comparison to China. China would probably move at least 50 million people to Central Asia, and though they would not be a majority, the Chinese would have a very affluent and politically influential minority, forming a similar demographic situation to the one today in Xinjiang. However, these regions are likely to become capitalist puppet states of China, like Siberia, to optimize the economic potential of the energy sector there. With this, Russia would lose another major region of influence, and with likely sour relations with China after such events, would have to find new partners to supply its energy sector. After explaining all of this, how likely is it that the scenario is actually going to play out exactly as I've described it? Well, probably pretty low for one main reason. There are so many different delicate pieces that China needs to put together to use its full potential and secure its positions in Siberian Central Asia. China needs to be extremely clever in the way that it goes about asserting itself in these regions. Some of their current strategies, like moving their people to Siberia and handing out Chinese passports to the expats, or setting up cultural and economic institutions in Central Asian nations, are good starts. However, Russia is not batting a blind eye to this rising issue, and if the country can keep its current stability, they will effectively resist Chinese immigration to the country to stop this scenario from happening. If Russia is stopping the Chinese from settling in Siberia, there's a high chance that China will attempt to take the region by force. With this, we could see a Russo-American coalition prevent China from conquering Siberia. As in the current state of geopolitics, America would much rather have Russia control Siberia for a variety of reasons. However, America and Russia would need to resolve their meaningless quarrels before such a coalition could be formed. I'll explain more about the importance of a Russo-American partnership in a later video. There's also a very high chance that China will not use the full potential of the resources it gains access to in Siberia and Central Asia, even if it gets there. Though I have described what an optimal system may look like for China in going forward with the managing of the new territories, it goes without saying that China would rather have more control over these regions than less. Having a totally free economy in these regions could incentivize more Chinese to move there than expected, and ultimately show the flaws of a tightly controlled economy of China proper. China is not a naval power. If it wants to expand, it will do it by land. It is already attempting this and is working to a degree. They may have to give up their investments in the short term in Africa, or try to promote their naval dominance in the South China Sea so that they can completely focus on moving their power projection to mainland Asia as they have done for thousands of years prior. Their success in doing this depends on the many factors that I have described in this video. To succeed, everything must work in China's favor. If one of these requirements fails, China fails. Thank you all for watching. Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this video with all of your friends. Let's get to 5,000 subscribers by September, so please share my content with everyone you know. If this can be achieved, expect even better content from this channel. Come take a look at my new Patreon and Discord server, and I'll see you guys next time.