Russia is facing a demographic crisis because Putin’s a goddamn moron. Their population is shrinking (thank fuck). If they were to relinquish land willingly (which I cannot imagine), it would never be any region with significant population.
There was a giant drop in the number of men in the Soviet Union during WWII. This has had “echos” in their population pyramid every 20 years, where there’s a shortfall of new babies being born. They never had a baby boom the way the US did.
This affects all the old Soviet states, including Ukraine.
All that is to say that Putin was a real goddamn idiot by launching a war right in the middle of one of these echos when they’re already having population issues.
85% of Russia’s territory is effectively empty. Almost their entire population lives to the west of the Urals. Any territory China would be interested in would be nearly empty.
Further to my point. Edit: sorry, I made a point elsewhere in this thread that China probably sees no value in Russian land. Nor in Russian people, for that matter. China has no dearth of either. Edit 2: out of curiosity, I looked up the population of Primorsky Krai, which was ceded to Russia by China. It’s 1.9 million, or about 0.1 % of China’s population. So there’s no value in that addition to China’s population. On the other hand, there would be at least some benefit from ports on the Sea of Japan. The better to threaten neighbors and deplete fisheries.
0.1% could be significant if it’s like astrophysicists or cardiothoracic surgeons. No. It’s a bunch of Ivans that can’t stop drinking spoiled potato water. Don’t even know how to fix a dishwasher, let alone something impottsnt. Only good for lifting heavy objects and falling down.
Russia is facing a demographic crisis because Putin’s a goddamn moron. Their population is shrinking (thank fuck). If they were to relinquish land willingly (which I cannot imagine), it would never be any region with significant population.
There was a giant drop in the number of men in the Soviet Union during WWII. This has had “echos” in their population pyramid every 20 years, where there’s a shortfall of new babies being born. They never had a baby boom the way the US did.
This affects all the old Soviet states, including Ukraine.
All that is to say that Putin was a real goddamn idiot by launching a war right in the middle of one of these echos when they’re already having population issues.
85% of Russia’s territory is effectively empty. Almost their entire population lives to the west of the Urals. Any territory China would be interested in would be nearly empty.
Further to my point. Edit: sorry, I made a point elsewhere in this thread that China probably sees no value in Russian land. Nor in Russian people, for that matter. China has no dearth of either. Edit 2: out of curiosity, I looked up the population of Primorsky Krai, which was ceded to Russia by China. It’s 1.9 million, or about 0.1 % of China’s population. So there’s no value in that addition to China’s population. On the other hand, there would be at least some benefit from ports on the Sea of Japan. The better to threaten neighbors and deplete fisheries.
0.1% could be significant if it’s like astrophysicists or cardiothoracic surgeons. No. It’s a bunch of Ivans that can’t stop drinking spoiled potato water. Don’t even know how to fix a dishwasher, let alone something impottsnt. Only good for lifting heavy objects and falling down.