Wow, great discussion folks.
Re-Geoengineering
Both T. Greer and Martin make very good points. It is however interesting that ultimately, despite that Greer is much more optimistic about technological progress, we all come to the same conclusion - if successful, effective cooperation on geoengineering is going to be extremely hard to achieve, and may easily tip over into geophysical warfare.
I liked Martin's remarks on technology. It is going to be very interesting seeing whether progress in this area is going to accelerate, decelerate, or stay the same. Not only money and resources are involved, however, but the nature of different technological branches as well. If you look at genetics or IT, one might conclude it will continue accelerating, perhaps away into a technological singularity; look at more mundane, but more central, things such as the internal combustion engine, and you might conclude progress is already slowing down rapidly, despite the proliferation of R&D centers and universities around the world.
Based on these observations, my strong impression is that much of the physical base of industrial civilization will retain its basic current, form - a world of highways, railways, steel mills, conveyor belts, mines, etc. However, it will be rapidly overlain by a global electronic net of ever bigger scope and overall intelligence, which will allow the entire system to become much more efficient and much more "controlled". But it will still remain the same system, based on extracting resources and emitting pollution; all its efficiency gains swallowed up by increased demand from emerging Asia (at a global scale, the Jevons paradox will continue).
This is unsustainable for any significant amount of time, which is is why I believe there *will* be attempts at geoengineering, like Greer; but like Martin I am very skeptical as to their chances of success.
Re-the China / Russia relations.
The Rosstat estimates of Chinese migrants are indeed low (the true figure is around 250,000, according to the non-polemical academic studies). For today, there is relatively little settlement of Chinese in Russia. Wages in the Russian Far East are somewhat higher than in North-East China, but the advantages are eaten up by bribes and living in an unfamiliar, costlier environment. According to polls, the vast majority of Chinese seasonal migrants to the Far East have no intention of staying.
I've written an essay on this topic, The Myth of the Yellow Peril: Overhyping Chinese Migration into Russia. The last bit may be worth quoting at length since it directly touches on many of the issues raised.
I will now go beyond demography into geopolitics. China is not the monolith that it is usually painted as in the West; its strong central government conceals a greater deal of simmer, dynamism and regionalism. The idea that it could organize a successful stealth demographic invasion of the Far East is preposterous. The only way in which something like this could succeed would be if Russia were to collapse again and to a far greater extent than during the 1990's, e.g. like during the Civil War when Vladivostok was occupied by the Japanese. This is possible, but highly unlikely.
What you have instead is a reversion to Nineteenth-century traditions, in which Korean and Chinese laborers and traders made seasonal migrations to the Far East and built up sizable, but far from demographically dominant, communities in the region (who were later deported to Central Asia in 1937 over fears of Japanese espionage).
Why a Russo-Chinese War Is Extremely Unlikely
Speaking of which, that would be a real concern if China were to ever invade. That said, Chinese expansion has always been primarily aimed at South East Asia - today's strategic posture and Chinese military planning in general emphasizes a limited, hi-tech war against the likes of Taiwan, Japan the U.S. Historically China aimed to achieve three geopolitical aims in the following order:
1) Maintain central authority over the commercial seaboard and the peasant hinterland
2) Surround itself by a buffer of vassal states on land - Tibet, Sinkiang, Mongolia, Manchuria, etc.
3) Build a strong navy to repel sea-based foreign predation, protect its trade and extend its influence over East Asia. Now and in the future, China is going to have cope with a panoply of threats to those geopolitical goals - rising inequalities, a disconnected bureaucracy, ethnic separatism and American and Japanese sea power. In other words, it's going to have its hands full and Chinese willingness to pursue reconciliation and friendship with Russia is a reflection of its need for a safe strategic rear (see Sino-Russian Relations in China Debates the Future Security Environment, Michael Pillsbury).
China is going to run into severe ecological problems within the next few decades. Water tables are plummeting in the country's northern breadbasket, crop yields are stagnating and the deserts are spreading. The south has plenty of water but is threatened by inundation due to the melting of the icecaps. The rivers that feed its people and industry are going to run dry as the Himalayan glaciers melt away. This means that as soon as the 2030's, overpopulated China will be faced with a scenario in which it will either have to acquire new lands or face a sustenance crisis, perhaps culminating in a die-off typical of past cycles. Would it invade the Russian Far East?
The problem with this is that even if it were to succeed in conquering it, actually building up the infrastructure for human accommodation will take decades; the land is barren, mountainous and will remain very cold even after significant global warming [Haushofer's point about lack of infrastructure]. The actual war will be very costly for the Chinese because the Russians will almost certainly use their huge stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons to check the assault. Should the Russians lose, it's possible they will unleash their much superior strategic nuclear arsenal or even worse weapons on China - thus destroying their industrial infrastructure and precipitating a massive die-off.
Hence I believe that if, or more likely when, ecological problems reach a critical point in China they will expand into (by then collapsed?) East Africa, using the mighty navy they foresightedly built up to forestall anyone who has a problem with that. It will also guarantee continued energy, food and resource flows into metropolitan China from Australia and Latin America. Eventually it is possible that Russia (and Canada) will fully open up their borders to immigration from the sinking and drying south, in which case the Far East will become Chinese. But this is all futuristic speculation.
One more thing not covered above. What will happen IF there is a Chinese collapse with massive refugee flows, in which the Chinese state does not make a last-ditch attempt to conquer Lebensraum? Given enough ruthlessness and disregard to human rights, the Russian Army, or any modern army, has the full technical capability to defend its own soil from any amount of unarmed, desperate refugees. It won't even be a fight. The big question in this scenario is whether it would come to that.
