Among all the countries in the world Russia is the one and only that can maintain some kind of substantial and unique relationship with the United States. China only has a nominal special relationship with the U.S., one that is known to be a "strategic partnership". Russia's special position makes the Russian President Vladimir Putin bold in his strategic style. It is no accident that the U.S.-China trade war can make great progress after the U.S. midterm elections. President Donald Trump's Russiagate would have had more serious impacts on the midterm elections, but since then, the focus of public opinion has been successfully transferred to China. Different theories of the "China threat" have become rampant in the U.S. and the Russiagate issue that concerns with the legitimacy of political power has become silent in the midterm elections. This highlights the effective approach of Putin's strategic operations and the tacit strategic understanding between the United States and Russia.
In the future, the political status of Putin is expected to remain stable, which means that Russia's political environment would maintain its stability as well. The only challenge that Russia may encounter is accidents. Because of the existing Russian political system, Putin has absolute power. If any accident happens to Putin, the entire Russian political structure will be at risk of collapse. In the long period to come that possibly continues until Putin no longer serves as the Russian president but still maintains a strong influence, such an accident is the biggest risk for Russia and Putin. In fact, it is directly related to Russia's stability and existence.
It is expected that Russia will, in the future, continue to play the role of "bad boy" with Putin's style in global affairs. This is determined by Russia's current economic strength and political influence. Russia's performance in Ukraine and Syria is particularly prominent. After the outbreak of the incidents, Russia took a decisive and strategic intervention and then sought after a certain strategic dominance. This kind of exertion of Russia's influence in global affairs, under the conditions of controllable costs, makes the world wholly unable to ignore the existence of Russia. At the same time, everyone understands the practice is based entirely on the interests of Russia, and not of the rest of the world. This is the basic style of Putin. This is the "bad boy" style that causes issues, intervenes in things and seeks for its own raison d'être.
Russia's main future strategic directions of interest will be in few regions. Ukraine wants to ensure the return and stability of Crimea, so Eastern Ukraine has become a strategic chip, hence this region will not be stable in the future. Putin's strategic purpose is to use Eastern Ukraine to consume the strategic resources of Europe and the United States, and to lock up the strategic achievements of Crimea to ensure it remains within the Russian Federation. In Asia, Russia's strategic goal might be using the limited concessions to allow Japan to give Russia the largest investment and exchange economically benefits for the four-island territory of limited control. Taking into account the needs of the future development of the Russian economy, Putin's strategic move is very pragmatic, but it has a crowding out effect on China's influence in Russia. In Syria and the Middle East, due to the existence of special relations with the United States, Putin's efforts have a greater chance of success. This has made the Syrian Assad government a strategic chess piece for Russia. Russia will not only obtain resources from the Middle East, but can also use Syria to take hold of the entire Middle Eastern region and seek greater geographical interests.
Final analysis conclusion:
As for future China-Russia relations, it will be manifested in the energy aspect. The potential of military-technical relations has been valued less than before. Yet, energy is a crucial factor for Russia to contain China and prevent China from participating in the development of Central Asian countries for the return of greater benefits. Therefore, China's diversification of energy construction is extremely strategic, which will be a key strategic layout to ensure stability in West China and look to greater geographic interests.
