manqiangrexue
Brigadier
Who? A country that started a few decades ago shorter than Russia's knee but now has a much higher GDP than Russia, and growing faster than Russia in economics, tech, and military?
I love Russia; I love it second only to China. Amongst all foriegners, I admire Putin the most. But Russia played it tough by feverishly building its military at the first oppertunity and becoming obviously hostile to the West too soon, and so it was not allowed to build a strong economic base, which, historically, you needed Western support to do. Without this economic base, Russia's challenge to the West was self-limiting; it will always be a pain to deal with but not a real challenge. China, on the other hand, played it smart, by pretending to be pliable and accepting at first so the West thought it was no threat. It got rich integrating itself into every critical economy in the world and became the largest trading nation. After this economic base was built, China boosted its military and by the time the West saw that threat, it was too late because China had already gathered all the tools and supplies it needed to keep going in the same trajectory. Every example of a weaker nation that you bring up doing differently from China proves that China's way is better.
