Russia has shown to be willing to use natural gas as a geopolitical weapon. There is no chance China will become dependant on natural gas from outside their border.
I'm thinking that China could flip the script by getting Russia to become dependent on Chinese money buying their gas. Use just enough of it to establish the relationship, but not so much that a pipeline shutdown will overly harm the Chinese economy.
The population ratio (~10:1) and GDP ratio (~4:1) makes it possible to create this scenario.
Not only that, but Russia-Chinese relations have not always been smooth. They have had dustups over one of the longest land borders in the world before.
With this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Sino-Soviet_Border_Agreem...
I think border disagreement already solved. Besides, I believe they realize the contention between them only strengthens NATO over them.
I think the possible conflict nowadays is influence over central Asia. However, they might share the influence with China got the economic influence and Russia got political influence.
It is interesting to predict this balance post-Putin though.
