卦Trigram 2.0

A quick post to note an interesting article from the UK Telegraph: Why the restless Chinese are warming to Russia’s frozen east. The future of Russia’s Far East region is something I’ve been keeping an eye on ever since I started blogging in 2003, and I think it’s waiting to become a very big story indeed.

In the recent past, we’ve seen that Moscow has abandoned the interests of this part of the country to protect the old European heartland, leading to massive unrest that had to be forcibly put down by flown-in paramilitaries. There’s a hint of secession is in the air – a possibility even acknowledged by President Medvedev.

Of course, there’s no question that Moscow would fight tooth and nail to prevent that. Still, it’s intriguing to imagine the possible future of an autonomous region ruled from Vladivostok, propped up by support from China in exchange for access to natural resources….