Dr. Sarah Paine on Dwarkesh Patel: How Russia Bled Manchuria

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

October 31, 2025

Duration

1h 31m

Channel

Dwarkesh Podcast

Watch on YouTube

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📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Russia—and specifically Stalin—completely derailed China’s rise, slowing them down for over a century. This lecture was particularly interesting to me because, in my opinion, the Chinese Civil War is 1 of the top 3 most important events of the 20th century. And to understand why it transpired as it did, you need to understand Stalin’s role in the whole thing. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒

• Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-russo-chinese
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sarah-paine-how-russia-sabotaged-chinas-rise/id1516093381?i=1000734455820
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Iz0Fi2wxLDpSEyfHft01E?si=quCUygx8Txq5r8VC1xZUJg

𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒

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To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – How Russia took advantage of China's weakness 00:23:46 – Reversal of the balance of power 00:34:39 – Russian imperialism 00:46:10 – China’s and Russia's existential problems 01:05:42 – Q&A: Sino-Soviet split 01:23:29 – Stalin's lessons from WW2

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Sarah Paine

  guest

• Dwarkesh Patel

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Dwarkesh Podcast, featuring Sarah Paine and Dwarkesh Patel, Dr. Sarah Paine on Dwarkesh Patel: How Russia Bled Manchuria explores how Russia Repeatedly Crippled China’s Rise To Protect Its Empire Sarah Paine traces 150+ years of Russo-Chinese relations to argue that Russia has consistently worked to prevent China from becoming a great power neighbor. From unequal treaties and railroad wars to Stalin’s manipulation of Chinese factions and the Korean War, she frames Russian behavior through "continental empire" rules: avoid two-front wars and avoid powerful neighbors. She then explains how China eventually reversed the power balance, how ideology masked raw imperial interests, and why today’s apparent China–Russia “bromance” is structurally fragile. Paine concludes by warning that Western strategy should focus on maintaining alliances and economic strength while letting Moscow and Beijing’s conflicting interests constrain each other.

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