How Vladimir Putin’s embrace of China weakens Russia

“China sees Central Asia first and foremost as a way of stabilising Xinjiang. But it is also a testing ground for China’s foreign policy and the country’s ability to push into Russia’s normative space," says Raffaello Pantucci of the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank in London. China is rewiring the whole region. All roads used to lead to Moscow. Now all roads lead to Beijing,”