China's growing assertiveness has become a concern for its partners, too

Russia doesn't feel threatened itself, because right now China can ill-afford to alienate a neighbour that's an important military and resource power in its own right

In the regular drumbeat of arrests of alleged Chinese spies, one case last month stood out.

It did not involve the US or another rival of China, but Russia, whose security services  accused a prominent arctic scientist of selling classified data on technologies for detecting submarines.

Meanwhile a court in Kazakhstan in October convicted the Central Asia nation’s preeminent China specialist of espionage, a move widely interpreted at the time as a warning against increased meddling by the superpower next door.

Both men maintain their innocence and if China is spying on Russia, Moscow is surely doing the same. Even