What has population to do with that? Russia has the resources for all these people which I cannot say for Europe. Moreover, Siberia now is very scarcely populated which fact the Chinese is undoubtedly aware of. Europe is overpopulated. If Russia is to give free land in Siberia how many people would migrate there? (I'm only partly serious, of course, but I'd suspect that Europe would be more glad to deal with Russia than with China, but I might be wrong).