Very interesting responses from both of you. I had not thought of those things; that China has the prerequisite to disintegrate like the USSR did, or the effects on the rest of the world if something happened to the manufacturing industry there.

After reading your comments, it occurred to me that the leadership there is pretty clever and may be looking after their citizens a lot better than what they get credit for - at least in Western media.

The censorship, executions, forced abortions and pollution is PART of the story, but not all of it. If I was an average Chinese and was living a 5 times more comfortably than my parents I would not necessarily be upset just because I could not go on Youtube or have a large family.

About 10 years ago, I worked with a Chinese girl who forcefully defended Chinas politics to all colleagues who could not resist asking her about them. She had both sides of the story, and choose to stick with China's position. I remember her defending the policy of families having only one child, very strongly and eloquently. Of course - this girl was practically a genius, sent abroad to gain work experience. Perhaps her views were part of the reason she was sent on this work exchange. Nevertheless, she impressed me a lot with her near perfect English and fantastic productivity.

Allowing China to disintegrate and fall into chaos, could be worse than keeping a very tight and sometimes ruthless reign on things. Perhaps if China disintegrated, things would be much worse than they were for the USSR - and affect other countries too.

China has not done anything that *really* upsets me outside its own current borders, so according to my worldview, I give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being...

What are the major outlines of China's conflicts and relationship with Russia?