While I agree with a lot in these posts there are some key points I quote above I beg to differ on.
Russia still has many aspects of its arms industry leagues ahead of China's but China now has other valuable aspects of its own arms industry to offer. Given forthcoming economic weakness in both countries and conventional forces non-superiority against the full range of potential foes, it makes a lot of sense for the two to commit to joint R&D (or component sales) for future systems as well as to improve upon existing projects sooner rather than later.
In the Bhadrakumar article I think he underestimates the internal cohesion issues Russia, China, as well as all their Central Asian partners face. They are serious even without third party exploitation and it is clear there are active, resourceful, and interested third parties already working hard to exploit them. Russian and Chinese influence in and relations with their containment periphery neighbors are also more tenuous and fragile than they appear, with the containment noose tightening in full swing and unlikely to abate.
At the current juncture of the "great game" everyone's plans have been laid out, the question is how quickly and effectively each one is followed through and leveraged. There is also the wildcard of how the international economy performs.
