"But surely," I reply, "the Japanese would never share sovereignty with China?" 

"Yes, there are a few problems with this plan." 

What all these Chinese policy tendencies share is the view that before the economic crisis Russia was a convenient and useful partner. Now that the Chinese establishment feels stronger Moscow is considered helpful but inessential. This has started to manifest itself in increased competition between the two powers in central Asia, Chinese companies securing below-market rates for oil, failing gas negotiations and diplomatic strain at the UN and in the SCO. Chinese arms imports have collapsed, the Russian military is reinforcing the Far East and the FSB has made public the first major Chinese spy scandal of the post-Soviet era. And to the horror of Russian nationalists, China has started to "rent" several thousand square miles of agricultural land in Siberia. Sino-Russian ties have peaked; Russia and China are still close, but on divergent paths.

In 2006 a Russian bestseller by the dissident skinhead novelist Zakhar Prilepin started circulating online. It consistently ranked in the top 20 for three years. There are rumours that Putin himself has read it. San'kia is the story of Sacha, a blundering punk-nationalist whose father has drunk himself to death. He begins to "run" with pathetic revolutionaries, baby-faced thugs who can barely tie their own shoe-laces, let alone fight the police. Sacha falls into their company not out of choice but because he is completely disorientated: a cipher for fatherless generation. Concerned by his brawls, an avuncular professor invites him for a word or two. He knows full well how punks smash their heads open banging on the bars of the state. The professor raises his voice: 

"You have nothing in common with the motherland. The same way the motherland has nothing in common with you. There is no more motherland. It's vanished, it's gone. There's no point playing these games — smashing windows, breaking necks and God knows what else. Do you really think that this people, half of whom are alcoholics and the other half are pensioners, need a purpose?"