Sarah Paine

So I'm going to try my direction, which is going to be Russia, and say, look—

Russia is the catalyst.

It's taking advantage of the collapse of China.

And it's going to catalyze things in a way that Japan is going to leverage.

And it's going to be Japan leveraging these things that proves that smart decisions in Tokyo answers the question.

So what's going on with Russia?

Russia has always tries to expand its territory.

It is today the largest country on the planet.

Why they need more territory, nobody knows.

But that's what they're after.

And in these days, what they're taking are those two large areas.

And by the time the Bolsheviks finished working their magic, Russians have taken from the Chinese sphere of influence.

The Bolsheviks are beyond today, but it gives you a sense.

They took more territory today

from Chinese fear of influence than the United States east of the Mississippi.

There's a lot of territory.

But in this day, while the opium wars are going on, and while the Taiping and Nian rebellions, the two big ones, are happening simultaneously, the Russians go to the Qing and say, hey, we'll deal with those foreigners for you.

We'll be an intermediary, but just sign on the dotted line for these treaties, giving us all this land.

And the Chinese were vague on

geography and they didn't believe in treaties.