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Mikhail Khodorkovsky, resides in a Siberian prison having been jailed for tax evasion and fraud. Khodorkovsky was the owner of the huge oil conglomerate Yukos, and was a political rival of Vladimir Putin. In this week’s edition of The Economist (subs req), Khodorkovsky has warned of the emerging world order and the “Sinification” of the vast expanse of South East Russia (Federal Siberia).

China will at last clearly stake its claim to the role and status of a global superpower, the military and economic protector of the eastern hemisphere. The signs of China’s transformation will include its response to new missile launches by North Korea—already China is giving clear signals that the key to a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue lies in Beijing, and no place else. The rest of the world will have to accept China’s terms for settling the matter and thereby recognise China as not just a regional superpower, but a global one too.

The new world order will mean not only a global status for China, but also the formation of a new non-aligned movement, with Delhi, Tehran and a number of Latin American capitals as its emerging centres. This movement will be amorphous and disjointed, but the mere fact of its existence will ensure that the world can neither remain unipolar nor become bipolar on the Yalta model. A potential American attack on Iran will accelerate the formation of this new world order, because it will force China to declare its strategic ambitions sooner, as well as catalysing the formation of yet more new centres of active anti-American sentiment worldwide.

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Russia finds itself in a particularly difficult situation. It has essentially abandoned the industrial economy, but has not achieved a post-industrial one. It has abandoned many of the things that have made it unique historically, but has not sufficiently fitted into the America-centred world either. It is feeling remarkably strong pressure from China, which is interested in the sparsely populated vastness of Siberia, so rich in natural resources. A rapid Sinification of the Asian part of Russia is already taking place, and represents the main strategic threat to the country’s security. Even today, the logistical interaction and human contact between the areas to the east of Lake Baikal and the countries of Asia, especially China, are comparable with or even exceed such ties with Moscow, while Sinification is seen as something inevitable.

I agree with some of what Khodorkovsky writes, but I don’t agree that the Latin American countries, Iran, and India will drastically redefine the geopolitical reality. India will become an economic powerhouse, and may provide a bulwark against Chinese ambition - this explains the recent warming of American/Indian relations, but America still has the cultural and political climate for creativity, and the business acumen needed to maximise productivity.

China also has to deal with its chronic democratic deficit. If China’s middle-classes continue to grow, as undoubtedly they will, then their demands for political representation will only get louder. Many communist modernisers do not expect the current model to survive beyond Hu Jinto’s tenure. There will be a great deal of internal political change within China before it makes the rest of the world shudder.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have travelled to Siberia and know the region and people well. They are aware of the millions of Chinese just beyond their southern boarder. They have lived through the Sino-Russian stand-off of 1960-70, and know the deep mistrust that still exists. When I was in Novosibirsk earlier this year, an uncle asked about the current situation in China, and he seemed resigned to Chinese expansionism.

China does indeed greedily eye the vast spaces and ample resources of Siberia, and no doubt, some of the more ambitious hawks in Beijing believe its capture inevitable. However, the reality of Russia’s still vast nuclear deterrent will surely dissuade any direct Chinese aggression.