No, Russia or USSR was never able to do that for 2 reasons:
1. She failed to create an export orientation economy;
2. She never wants to fit herself into the western dominate trading system;
Wrong, the size didn't stop British conquering India in 18 century and the size didn't stop Japanese invading China in 1930s.
And China has been gaining immense economic benefit from the west too. There is no such a deal that only one side win while another is losing. That is also the reason why West can't treat China as Russia. Cutting Chinese from this system means they will lose a lot.
You can easily track the sale of Russia oil tank while it is almost impossible to track those bonds and fx reservers since most of them is hiding in the computer network. Even the whole western world can forget the immense economic benefit given by China every year, how can they stop Chinese using these money to buy from other countries.
Until today, there are hundreds of millions of workers/farmers/traders within western world are living upon the trade with China;
Almost every multinational is making huge profit from its investment in China;
Most of developing country is counting on Chinese purchase to pay back their debts owing to western banks;
No, it is 10 times harder to block China as what they did to Russia.
1. Interesting ideas. I agree that China is winning and that is exactly why West is so fearful of Russia's rearmament, as it sees a viable challenge emerging from the East.
2. However export oriented economy is not necessarily a strength. It can be a big weakness in the times of serious economic contraction. This labour force cannot be easily used in the domestic economy.
3. The people depending on Chinese trade will not matter in the decisions of the Anglo-American empire.
4. Tracking US bond sales is as easy as tracking Russian oil tanker in the information based economy.
5. I agree that China has gained a lot from the West, and possibly continues to gain in terms of knowledge and technology.
6. You still do not get one point - they want to ASSIMILATE RUSSIA. Read the propaganda carefully. They no longer talk about destroying Russia. China is not so fortunate. Your culture and systems are incompatible with West.
7. China is becoming an EXISTENTIAL threat to USA which even USSR never was.
8. They broke up USSR to remove USSR threat. Their modus-operandi is same - replace bigger States with smaller States to remove threat. They may want to do the same with China.
9. What they did to Russia should be replaced with what they did to USSR. Russia is actually more successful than USSR on many levels. It enjoys much better lifestyle. There are no crippling shortages of consumer goods.