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.
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.