China desperately needs energy; the Eastern part of the RF is lightly defended. The RF wells in Siberia are in/on permafrost, as are the pipelines. China seems to have developed a technology to keep permafrost frozen through the warmer months for their rail construction (thousands of giant heat pipes - the ground around their rail lines looks like a porcupine, if you've wondered what those spike-things were - now you know). Should work fine for a pipeline, possibly the wells too. I’ve been expecting China to take over those wells (either as a grab or more probably as “technical assistance”) any time now.
Looking at the basins, I've been thinking since about March that both the Kurils and Sakhalin might be a flash point between China and Japan. Japan has a navy quite capable of force projection, and like China is at the very end of a long sea-lane from the Persian Gulf. China has more people under arms, and AFACT, Japan has the more capable navy — particularly outside the inner island chain.
