Very interesting Sam - I don't disagree with your overall conclusion regarding current relations (the Russians really are deeply worried about Chinese influence in their sparsely-populated Far Eastern territories). On the historical front though I'd make a slight correction - from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries Russian relations with the Qing empire were actually remarkably good. The Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 was not an 'unequal' treaty in the 19th-century mould, not least because the Qing were far more powerful than Muscovy in East Asia at that date. The Russians had to give up their claims to the Amur valley after the Qing took their fortress of Albazin, but the Qing were willing to concede their control of territory in Eastern Siberia because at that date they were much more worried about the threat from the Junghar confederacy, and wanted to settle things quickly with Muscovy. Brokered by Jesuit priests, Nerchinsk ushered in almost 200 years of reasonably amicable relations, consolidated by the treaty of Kiakhta in 1722 which allowed Russia, uniquely among the European powers, to maintain regular trade relations with China and establish an Orthodox Christian mission in Peking. It was precisely because of this earlier history of good relations that Nikolai Murav'ev's seizing of territory along the Amur and the subsequent treaty of Aigun were seen as such a betrayal.
Very interesting Sam - I don't disagree with your overall conclusion regarding current relations (the Russians really are deeply worried about Chinese influence in their sparsely-populated Far Eastern territories). On the historical front though I'd make a slight correction - from the 17th to the mid-19th centuries Russian relations with the Qing empire were actually remarkably good. The Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 was not an 'unequal' treaty in the 19th-century mould, not least because the Qing were far more powerful than Muscovy in East Asia at that date. The Russians had to give up their claims to the Amur valley after the Qing took their fortress of Albazin, but the Qing were willing to concede their control of territory in Eastern Siberia because at that date they were much more worried about the threat from the Junghar confederacy, and wanted to settle things quickly with Muscovy. Brokered by Jesuit priests, Nerchinsk ushered in almost 200 years of reasonably amicable relations, consolidated by the treaty of Kiakhta in 1722 which allowed Russia, uniquely among the European powers, to maintain regular trade relations with China and establish an Orthodox Christian mission in Peking. It was precisely because of this earlier history of good relations that Nikolai Murav'ev's seizing of territory along the Amur and the subsequent treaty of Aigun were seen as such a betrayal.