Is Russia Starting to Sour on China?

If Lukin's critique is correct, beneath the surface, Russian elites are worried about China.

Recently China's soaring power in Central Asia has been diluting Moscow's economic and military institutions, which were built to reintegrate this region with Russia after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

According to the Central Asian Barometer, 35 percent of Kyrgyz and 30 percent of Kazakhs have a negative attitude toward China and its policies.

Based on research by by Julie Yu-Wen Chen and Soledad Jiménez Tovar, Central Asian university students have faith in Beijing's rising influence over Moscow and the majority of them think that China offers more benefit than harm to Central Asia.

In the long run, it may be fundamentally unacceptable to the Russian psyche and domestic nationalism if Russia becomes a junior partner in Central Asia.

Should China surpass the U.S. as the world's biggest superpower in the future, the global balance of power would shift dramatically, affecting Russian foreign policy.

As Dmitri Likhachev, a prominent Russian intellectual of the 20th century, stated, Russia is a historically unpredictable nation with a long tradition of making abrupt changes.

https://thediplomat.com/2021/10/is-russia-starting-to-sour-on-china/