> China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes

> China would have to be very tempted to conquer more of Asia (some territory bordering the Sea of Japan and Okhotsk), going up the coast to open up more routes for their navy forces into the Pacific. It's interesting to note that this is already kinda the case in economic if not military/political terms: cities like Blagoveshchensk are basically part of Heilongjiang - in that particular case, it is very nearly a direct extension of the Chinese city of Heihe. They do way more trade with China than with the rest of Russia, and in some cases the populations are 30+% Chinese nationals, who often run all the important businesses and, ironically, use the native population as cheap labor. In these conditions, stepping in more formally would be very trivial in the absence of a robust Russian response. Info mostly sourced from The Emperor Far Away, Heilongjiang chapters.