Event · treaty
The Custody Treaty
Russia becomes an autonomous province under China.
Read more in The Missing Century
2110s · The Inheritance: after Putin's death, China plays a slow game, backing strongmen loyal to it until they hold power. Then famine and a succession fight break Moscow. Russia's nuclear command, facing rival strongmen grabbing warheads and already dependent on Chinese grain and the Chinese-built permafrost grid, invites Chinese custody. The Custody Treaty of 2116 makes Russia an autonomous province under China: its elites keep their property, offices, language and church, and Belarus follows through the Union State. The future Settlement quietly prefers one custodian of the warheads to a dozen. The Ukrainian front becomes the bloc frontier · Russia's demographic decline; the unequal treaties of 1858 and 1860; Vladivostok's Chinese name, Haishenwai; the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, which consolidated the Soviet arsenal in Russian hands with Western backing
The Inheritance (2110s). Famine and a succession fight break Moscow. Russia's nuclear command invites Chinese custody rather than let regional strongmen seize warheads, and the Custody Treaty of 2116 makes Russia an autonomous province under China, with Belarus following. One custodian of the warheads suits everyone, as it did in 1994. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, tied to Moscow and in China's debt, come under Chinese protection.
2110s · Joined · Russia (west of the Urals), Belarus · Western Russia · Canon: Earth in 2497 · Belarus follows Russia into custody under The Custody Treaty and is governed with it