The most valuable commodity for China here is reputation. If they are willing to uphold a deal even when the other party is caught in a moment of weakness then other countries are going to be willing to sign deals. This is very useful when the US starts trying to get the rest of the world to boycott China and Chinese companies so I don't see any value is going for a landgrab.
Besides, it's much more useful for China to leave Vladivostok in Russia's hands than to control it themselves. As long as Russia's military has access to the Pacific, then that's an extra headache for Japan and the US to deal with so it's in China's interest to keep the current borders. But I'd say that this is a much less important factor in Beijing's calculations.
Reputation huh? Now we are going back to the soft power vs hard power thing again.
You know with all that has happened in just the last few years, I am more convinced that soft power is overrated as hell and really is a second thought to hard power.
I remember people whining about how China has crap soft power and reputation and how they are jealous of places like Japan or South Korea who have it. Well now both are seen as old aging has-been vassal states with low birth rates who now need to consider asking immigrants to come to their countries to save them. South Korea has went up and fallen down in such a short time its amazing. Like they have a president who thought it was a good idea to declare martial law without a plan, Samsung and others are losing out, their sporting performance is going down hill, Kpop is no longer as cool etc.
Meanwhile China who has been slandered for years and years is suddenly "cool". Get real. The reason China is "cool" is the cumulation of decades of hard work to get its technology, living standards, infrastructure etc to world class while everyone else was mocking it. It didn't need to do a huge advertisement show of its weapons. The recent fight between India and Pakistan let China's prowess prove itself on the battlefield rather than arguing on the internet about how good it was on paper. Basically China's prowess can simply no longer be denied and now people are forced to accept it.
Anyway where I am going with this is if China was to do something, its less to do with reputation and more to do with being practical. It is not practical to start landgrabbing Russia when it has its hands full already with US, Taiwan, Philippines, Japan and even India. China already has enough guys to deal with, it doesn't need to make another one. Not having to worry about the north or west parts of China is something it has almost never seen before.
Its just frustrating to watch Russia at the moment given how good it was on paper. Russia is strong enough so it doesn't need China's help etc. Thats fine but please actually live up to it. Otherwise its like a teammate who says he can handle it and it turns out he can't so now the team is fucked.
