In this uneasy comfort I sit and listen to the views of the Chinese foreign policy establishment. They are surprisingly divergent: less a consensus than a cacophony.

There are prominent nationalists and realists in Beijing who view the American strategy of hoping for a "responsible Chinese stakeholder" as wanting to pin them down. They publish works with titles such as "China is Unhappy" or "Why is China Unhappy?"; they want a China that builds up a blue-water navy and commits itself to eventually tipping the balance of Pacific power. These intellectuals take a poor view of Russia — as "second-class whites" — but crucial in securing a safe continental rear so they can focus on countering US pressure at sea. 

The realists that I met were disdainful of Russia: "If there is a conflict with the US the Chinese money will keep Russian airspace closed," said one prominent Russia specialist, born in Manchuria. "Russia and China are like a dog and a cat. Nice to be together sometimes but we cannot have a common life. Russians think they are superior. They hate us, especially now we have a bit of money." Memories that swathes of Siberia are former Chinese territory are not part of their nationalist narrative for now, but not forgotten either. At several meetings with experts with a realist inclination I raised the territorial issue, only to be curtly cut short — "We have long given that up, why do you mention that?" — or met with sudden, disconcerting switches into mandarin Chinese. Yet they still admire Russia for one thing: "They are the only country that could really hurt the American military."

 A competing foreign policy tendency is known as "Chinese great power politics". Viewing small states scornfully from the capital of 1.3 billion people, these thinkers want Beijing to focus diplomacy on the power poles — the US, Japan, Russia, India, Brazil and the European Union. They view international relations as a never-ending dance of great power manoeuvring. They want Beijing to invest heavily in avoiding a global anti-Chinese balancing coalition. Key to this is what the influential analyst and former diplomat Bobo Lo calls "an axis of convenience" with Moscow.