Marriages of convenience are seldom stable over time, and Sino-Russo partnership wouldn’t be the exception that proves the rule. I say that because the centrifugal forces pushing the national interests of the pair apart are greater than centripetal forces holding them together. Russian population, by all accounts, is on a downward trajectory, especially in the RFE (Russia Far East). Combine that with huge and increasing disparity in economic output, which fuels military capability, one could reasonably say Moscow’s anxiety of being Beijing’s satellite would erode political/economic convenience over time. In the long-run, I see relations between the two less positive and more zero-sum.
