At this stage, the United States' containment of China is mainly reflected in the competition for influence, rather than a direct confrontation similar to that of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. This kind of competition is not gunpowder, and sometimes it is described as benign, but in fact, it is also an invisible bloody rain, sword and sword.

The United States has lost to China in the Asia-Pacific region, but the United States is not reconciled and continues to fall into this area, and they will never want to give up in other regions where the United States has absolute superiority, or make a mistake similar to China's experience in East Asia and finally turning the United States out.

In South America, for example, the United States has focused on squeezing China out of the region, both politically and economically, and the blow to Peru is obviously to ensure that there is a fulcrum in Latin America that can be leveraged by China, thus forming a situation in which the two sides of the Pacific Ocean echo each other.

In Europe, the United States is doing its best to prevent China's influence from deepening in an all-round way, because China already has "friendly countries" such as the three Eastern European countries, and their socialist nature has not changed, so the United States must ensure that these three European countries are still isolated, so as to prevent them from becoming China's tentacles and accomplices in influencing Europe. The main group of US allies is concentrated in Europe, and NATO is also an important military basis for the United States to lead the world, and expanding NATO's power and continuously enhancing NATO's actual combat capability is an important means for the United States to deal with China.

On the one hand, the United States did not want to provoke Russia too much, but took it slowly step by step, and finally forced it to Russia's door, which led to Russia's backlash. Although Russia in Europe is still a large country with a population of nearly 100 million and an area of several hundred square kilometers, Russia is now extremely weak due to factors such as civil war and Chinese robbery, and even if it is developed again, it will never be a huge threat to the United States like the Soviet Union in the past. The main imaginary enemy of the United States in the new era is its former ally, the Chinese.

Without Russia as a scruple, and even Russia itself has become the object of wooing, the United States has become more active and aggressive on the issue of NATO's eastward expansion. The first countries that the United States hopes to pull into NATO are Poland, Hungary, and the three Baltic states.

The United States, on the other hand, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania, basically did not report much of an idea, and these three countries are all considered red countries, and they are ideologically different from those within NATO. Even Bulgaria, which has been caught in the middle, has completed its own democratization, but its presence is relatively thin, and it is unlikely to join NATO casually, taking into account the feelings of Romania and Yugoslavia next to it.

Some strategic analysts have called the three pro-China Eastern European countries "holes in the Balkans," which means that the United States and NATO are a strategic problem that is difficult to reparate and quite fatal. The Balkans have always been a strategic location in the heart of Europe, and Europeans have always liked to say that when the Balkans are peaceful, Europe will be peaceful, and when the Balkans are chaotic, Europe will be chaotic, and this is indeed the case.

From a pessimistic and extreme point of view, once a conflict breaks out between China and the United States, and the three Eastern European countries are on China's side, then NATO countries will be in big trouble, and if they send troops from the Balkans, they can drive straight into the European plains, and warships that set sail from Yugoslavia will also challenge the sea power in the Mediterranean. The Balkans are uneven, and most of Western Europe is under the front of the army, which is definitely not something that NATO countries want to see.

Therefore, NATO hopes that it can use the brainwashing concepts of democracy and freedom to peacefully evolve these countries and completely overthrow the rule of the CP, so that they can achieve democratization, which is also harmless, so that NATO will not have to worry about it and can better cope with the challenge from China.

In the easternmost part of Eastern Europe, Russia, which had just settled down, was also undergoing tremendous changes. With China's support and affirmation, Putin was successfully elected president of Russia and began the post-war reconstruction and recovery of Russia. Although Russia after the civil war is not a scorched earth, coupled with China's almost shameless plunder, Russia's broken ship will not be able to lift a few nails.

Relying on China's large-scale material support to Russia, Russia has slowly passed the most difficult period, Putin is very determined to reorganize the country, he used all available resources and support to help a large number of Russian enterprises resume production, and began to follow the principles of the market economy in an orderly manner, provide goods to the public, and restore order in the market.

On the other hand, Russia's situation has improved slightly after the 21st century, and even around 2014, it has once again stiffened with the United States and Western countries. But in reality, Russia was able to get back on its feet solely on the basis of her resource-rich homeland. And Russia's resources are actually stored mainly in Siberia and the Far East, and now that these two regions have become independent from Russia, it will be difficult for Russia to become rich even if it wants to sit on the rich minerals.

However, this is not a particularly bad thing for Russia. There is a term in international economics called "resource trap", which is not particularly familiar in this era, and its main meaning is that a resource-rich country is often able to make large profits by selling its resources, thus ignoring other healthier ways to grow its economy through technological progress and industrial innovation.

Without Siberia and the Far East, Russia has lost the ability to sit in the mines and count money, after Putin came to power, there is tremendous pressure, economic problems are not so easy to solve, Russia has a population of nearly 100 million, so it is really quite difficult for them to work and support their families.

Although China has provided Putin with a series of support and programs, Putin does not fully trust the Chinese, after all, Russia has become what it is today, and they have made a lot of efforts. Moreover, Putin also knows that once Russia follows the route designed by China completely, then Russia is likely to become a link in China's huge economic chain, like the Central Asian countries and North Asia, and will be economically inseparable, and thus eventually become an inseparable part of China, even if it is still nominally a different country.

Putin, who has nationalist feelings, absolutely does not want to see the former powerful Russian nation become a vassal of the Chinese nation, so he can only resist the pressure and continue to move forward with Russia, looking for any way to survive and improve himself.

In fact, the measures adopted by Putin are highly similar to the methods of China's rapid rise on the other side, and the Russian economic department has promulgated a series of very preferential measures to attract foreign investment, especially foreign investment from Western European countries, to set up factories and develop in Russia.

After a war and a plunder, Russia's economy is on the verge of collapse, and people urgently need to find jobs, so the salary level of Russians is much lower than before the war, although it is not as low as China, but because of the depreciation of the ruble, it has a lot of attraction for many European countries. Moreover, Russia and Europe also have the advantage of geographical proximity, and Europeans also feel that Russia's industrial level is still good.

On the other hand, with the help of the Chinese, Putin restored the production capacity of a number of state-owned enterprises, and the Chinese robbed Russia's industrial equipment, most of which were of some value, and those that were relatively old and had a very inconsistent shape still left a batch for Russia. Although these things are not very valuable, the Russians still rely on them to re-set up factories, especially some automobile factories and even aviation factories, Russian companies have lost the ability to independently manufacture a whole set of products, and they provide subcontract production and parts processing for large Western companies, only one part of the production line, which is also less risky and has quick results.

On the other hand, Putin has taken the risk of liberalizing most of the government's regulatory policies, intending to use liberalism to guide Russia's economic construction and pure market to regulate Russia's economic development. In fact, a pure free market economy is not optimal, but Putin is not capable of achieving that careful calculation, and is even more unwilling to directly use the program plan provided by the Chinese. So let the market regulate itself, and selectively operate and cooperate with the West and China, so that Russia can quickly recover its economic level.

Through the regulation of the free market, Russia can quickly form a number of advantageous industries and stabilize its economic situation, although Russia will not be able to restore its complete industrial system again, but this is a way to make Russia strong again and quickly recover.

This policy of economic balancing also extends to Russian politics. Chinese troops have been withdrawn from Russia to Siberia or Kazakhstan, and by the end of the year, the last unit of Chinese troops will be withdrawn from Russia, and the knife hanging over Putin's head will finally disappear.

China still has some influence in Russia, but it will never be as domineering as it was when it brought Putin to power. And Putin, who has a strategic vision, can also see that the competition between China and the West will inevitably become more and more obvious with the increase of time, and Russia cannot choose sides, but can curry favor with both sides, so as to regain its status as a great power with the help of the strength of the two countries.

Such a strategy is somewhat similar to China's strategy of swaying between the United States and the Soviet Union, and it is quite appropriate for Putin to use it again. Putin could not predict whether a war would break out between China and the United States, but Putin knew that Russia could not participate in either side of the war, which would be devastating to an already weak Russia. Therefore, Russia's strategy is to resolutely act as a neutral.