RUSSIA, CHINA, AND THE FAR-EAST - OLD GEOPOLITICS OR A NEW PEACEFUL COOPERATION

The future of Russian-Chinese relations remains one of the most obscur e issues facing the world at the end of the 20th century, So far, thes e relations have been rather friendly, and Moscow is seemingly unconce rned about the growing economic disparity between the two countries wh ich evidently favors China, However, outside the Kremlin many politici ans and experts express genuine fear about China, They continue to rem ind the people that, only a few dozen years ago, both nations were on the brink of a nuclear confrontation, The author of this paper muses o n whether the old geopolitical conflicts have already left the histori cal scene, and if the 21st century will witness the cooperation of the two former communist giants with a common border three thousand miles long, Being inclined to believe that geopolitics is still a force to be reckoned with, the author points to the Russian Far East and also t o Central Asia where he considers a confrontation between both countri es is most probable, The author also discusses how regionalization in Russia and in China can radically change the geopolitical situation in Asia and in the whole world,