A place of slavery, degradation and death no more, the Siberia of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's rendition is but a shadow of the past.
Today, the Siberian landmass comprising Russia's Asian hinterland, and the size of the U.S.A. and India put together, is coveted by China.
Siberia is oil and mineral rich, and very under populated for its size, while China is overpopulated, and being the world's factory, as it were, needs raw materials available aplenty in neighboring Siberia.
Most importantly, the border between the Sino-Russian border that allocates Siberia to Russia, was arbitrarily drawn during the Peking Convention of 1860 when China was significantly weakened by the Second Opium War.
Borders, as put eloquently by Frank Jacobs, are like love and are real only both sides believe in it. China's belief in the immanence of the border is wavering as its fortunes in geopolitics has been tremendously reversed since 1860.
Maps of the world were largely drawn by the Western powers; they are up for redrawing. China could very well bugger Russia with the logic of the same pointy stick that Russia has buggered Crimea with.
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