He already has...
Its pretty clear Trump's role is to help Russia overthrow China as the 2nd most powerful nation...
That's the wish of the deep state, neocons, etc. But you gotta checkout Chinese and Russian news sources... its difficult cause of language and little is in English. But with the Chinese they don't talk much, you have to pay attention to what they do.
Those neocons have wet dreams of Russia and China collapsing. To do that you first need a successful color revolution in Russia in other words a coup, but this is impossible because the nationalists are firmly in power and they no longer have to share power with the pro-western Atlanticists like they did between 1999-2014.
Crimea basically killed off any real power they had and the public absolutely hates them. For example, they only got about 2% of votes in the last election.
They remain in powerful positions today because Putin is a stickler for the rules and he waits for them to convict themselves before he swoops in and gets rid of them. Look at the arrest of Ulyukaev the former economy minister, when he was caught red handed with $2 million in a bribe scheme.
Now why do you need a complete change in government first to break up the marriage between Russia and China? Its because this is not the whim of Putin, its the long term strategic goal of his power base, its the difference between the survival of Russia or its breakup into failed states. This has nothing to do with Putin at all and even if he goes insane and goes against China, he will simply be removed by those next to him.
Another silly meme is that China wants to conquer the regions bordering it with all the resources. Russia is a nuclear power and less than 10% of its arsenal can turn China into a failed state overnight, and because China's nuclear arsenal is tiny compared to Russia and its anti-missile defense system is in its infancy, Russia will actually survive a nuclear war with China.
Then there is also the desire to conquer border regions, which some people assume that China is lead by an idiot like Saddam, which is clearly not the case.
China will get everything it needs from Russia through trade. Everything Russia needs i.e. all the gaps in its technology and investment requirements can be met by China, and China depends on critical Russian technology for its military. Its a marriage made in heaven and it accelerated because the West acted provocatively and threatened both Russia and China.
This alliance checkmates all the attempts at encircling both China and Russia and the nightmare of Sir Halford Makinder who clearly represented the British Empire's strategy of preventing such a union in Eurasia.
The US inherited Britain's role as a maritime power and they dropped the ball when they created conditions that allowed this alliance to happen.
The problem is that the US deep state is divided, the neo-conservatives and pro-Israel folks have for the first time more power than the old elite and the interests of Israel trump the US.
Israel is the monkey wrench in the whole plan, their short term interests allowed Russia to escape.
For example, if a deal was made with Iran in 2005, when it was begging for it, Iranian oil and gas and Qatari oil and gas could have supplied Europe and sidelined Russia, weakening it and making a regime change possible, and checkmating China.
The choice was do you want to remain the only superpower, maintain dollar hegemony? Or do you want to destroy Iran because Israel wishes it so?
They made the wrong choice and its too late.
There will be zero benefit for the Iranians from the US, the US sanctions will still remain, all the negotiating was designed to remove UN sanctions and maintain international law. India, China, Russia, South Korea, Turkey were the biggest winners from the Iran Deal (Europeans too since they want that oil and the US has been telling them no).
India, Turkey, and South Korea were told by the US to abide by the sanctions regime which hurt their economies so they found a loophole to bypass the sanctions and traded with Iran in mutual currencies and gold to get the Iranian oil they needed. John Kerry admitted the motivation for the Iran Deal was to maintain the dollar otherwise this practice would spread and China/Russia are united on moving away from the dollar system. Xi Jinping also kept Iran alive and was the first leader in Tehran last year after sanctions were lifted. And Iran has been a ground zero experiment by China for de-dollarization.
I would say Russia is probably on more solid footing now, because they are already experienced and operating largely cutoff from the West. Their foreign banking restricted, foreign investment frozen, yet Putin was able to pull a great deal internally by his own want before the freeze came, this has put Russia on better footing economically because it can be more independent of other nations economically, and it still forecefully maintains its own economic zone. The Chinese while having great growth are economically on a house of cards and trying to shift, which makes them weaker from external threat economically in my opinion.
That said such a move could push China and Russia closer together as a counter to US hegemony even further than they already are and to quicken the pace.
Either way, Trump would be best to get out of any intrusion into China, they are better as an ally.
Trump has nothing to give Russia. The sanctions are the best thing to happen to Russia as they have already diversified the economy.
Pro western oligarchs which are allowed to own some media in Russia are hurt by sanctions and are upset. The average person on the street has faced some hardship, but they have been told that its due to sanctions so they are rallying behind the flag.
The Russian government does not want sanctions lifted for another few years, and they will drag their feet on their own counter sanctions because it keeps out price dumping of agricultural products from the EU.
