Why a Russian-Chinese Pipeline Won't Happen

Chapters

1. 0:00

   The Mistrust Between China and Russia

   China and Russia do not love each other; they are arguably two of the most racist cultures in the world, and the culture that they're most racist against is one another. The Chinese see the Russians as backwards barbarians and the Russians see the Chinese as peasants.

2. 0:20

   The Geographic Distance Problem

   It's simple geography. It's a distance issue. The population of Russia for the most part is hard up on the European boundary and the bulk of the Chinese population is within spitting distance of the Pacific coast, which leaves something like seven to eight thousand miles of great wide open empty in between. If you're going from European Russia to Asiatic China, you're already talking about pumping costs that are well over $80 a gallon, most likely. That's on top of the tens of billions of dollars that it would take to actually build the pipeline. The oil and natural gas that the Russians have is for the most part in the wrong place. It's almost all in northwestern Siberia, which is actually further from China than European Russia.

3. 2:44

   The Lack of Technical Skill

   There are a few fields going out into Asiatic Siberia, places like Kovikta and Sokhalin Island. The problem here is that the Russians don't have the technical skill that's necessary to tap these fields. Whenever Putin and Xi get together, the conversation always is, hey, let's do a pipeline. And they both always say, yeah, hey, that sounds great. And then they both point at the other one and say, and you pay for it.

On the map

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