At the base of the giant matryoshka, five stories high, “restaurant” is spelt out in Cyrillic script: PECTOPAH. However, the face on the Russian doll is evidently Asian and the welcome to diners scrolls across a screen in Chinese characters.
Perched on the 4,300km border with Russia, the Chinese city of Manzhouli has acquired the flavor of its northern neighbor. Gilded domes gleam and buildings are adorned with white icing flourishes. Shoppers pay for fur coats in rubles and dine on borscht and salmon.
Natasha Masalova traveled for two-and-a-half days to get here from Siberia, “but it is pretty much like Russia — it looks much the same,” she said.
The difference is the range and price of goods. She and her friend are halfway through a three-day trip, but have already blown their money on treats for themselves and children’s clothes to sell back home.
Sino-Russian ties have turned this small Inner Mongolian landport into a prosperous trade hub. Now it hopes to benefit from the broader push for closer bilateral ties. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) signed 38 energy, trade and finance agreements in talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday in Moscow last week, including a 150 billion yuan (US$24.5 billion) currency swap, and met with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian crisis has given fresh impetus to efforts to forge a closer relationship, as Russia faces sanctions from the West, while China seeks to boost the economy of its northeastern provinces and assert itself internationally. The question is whether shared economic interests and political convenience can be transformed into a deeper strategic relationship.
In May, the two countries signed a 30-year natural gas agreement worth an estimated US$400 billion, after a decade of negotiations.
Linda Jakobson, visiting professor at Sydney University’s US studies center, said: “I think the deal moving forward was a sign that the countries have decided they need each other. In the short term, I think we will see more of this kind of closer cooperation.”
However, in the long term, Jakobson and other analysts point to challenges such as historical mistrust and differing priorities.
“I think it’s still very superficial, this rapprochement,” she said.
Russians in the country’s far east travel for days to take advantage of the cheaper consumer goods across the border in Manzhouli.
Last month, the nations agreed to jointly develop Russia’s Zarubino port, 18km from the Chinese border.
Even vegetable exports are getting a boost after Russia imposed a one-year ban on agricultural products from much of the West in retaliation for sanctions.
Bilateral trade reached US$89 billion last year, according to the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) flagship newspaper, which added that the nations’ aim was for it to reach US$100 billion by next year and US$200 billion by 2020. It was up by 3.3 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year.
CROSS-BORDER COMMERCE
Russia exported 10 million cubic meters of timber through Manzhouli last year, typifying China’s hunger for natural resources. Russia, in turn, has bought crops, textiles and other manufactured goods.
Shoppers in Manzhouli tally their purchases: One woman had acquired this winter’s wardrobe for her family, two pairs of shoes each for her four sons, plus a washing machine, television and other domestic appliances.
The city wants to attract still more visitors. There are plans to run new rail services from China’s southern manufacturing areas to Poland via Manzhouli, and a 3 billion yuan free-trade zone is being built. Reports say it would allow Russians to enter without a visa and stay for up to a month.
Last year, 265,000 people crossed into China here — a 14 percent rise on last year.
Yet Manzhouli shopkeepers complain of a marked drop in customers this year, blaming the state of the Russian economy. Meanwhile, the slowdown in China’s property market could dent timber purchases. Hopes have been dashed before: Bilateral trade grew at about 30 percent a year between 1999 and 2008, when it peaked at almost US$57 billion before slumping in the financial crisis. And for all the political noises, Chinese banks and investors have so far been reluctant to hand over money as Russia anticipated.
While Russians come to Manzhouli to shop, most Chinese tourists come for a glimpse of their neighbor. Sometimes they cross; more often they simply gaze at it through the imposing State Gate at the border and stop for photographs at Russian Doll Square, dotted with more than 200 of the figures.
Zhang Wuzhou is on a visit from Beijing, but knows the city well. He used to travel through it when he lived in Moscow in the early 1990s, as bilateral ties were revived.
“There have been good times and bad times,” the pensioner said, who at 74 is old enough to remember when the former Soviet Union helped China rebuild its shattered economy and the Sino-Soviet split which followed in 1960.
“Now, because of the Ukraine crisis and the Western countries’ sanctions, Russia is getting closer and closer to China ... It is the best time for Sino-Russian ties,” he said.
HISTORIC DISTRUST
Li Jiacheng (李家成), a lecturer at Liaoning University’s school of international studies, said each takes what they need from the relationship.
“Russia looks to the East and tries to, with the help of China, break through the sanctions of the West, while China needs to use Russia’s help to counterbalance the US’ strategic rebalance [to the Asia-Pacific region],” Li Jiacheng said.
China has attacked sanctions against Russia and the nations often vote the same way in the UN Security Council — or one will abstain to avoid overtly opposing the other.
Even so, deep concerns endure.
“Most of them come from the shadow of the past,” Li said. “There are plenty of unpleasant episodes between China and Russia in history.”
Russia was among the foreign powers that carved up China in the latter half of the 19th century, for instance.
“Besides, two neighboring countries, both great powers, will almost certainly secretly worry about the other’s strength and influence,” Li said.
Russia’s far east covers about a third of the country’s territory, but it has only 6 million inhabitants, while China’s three neighboring provinces have 110 million residents.
Li Xing (李興), a Russian studies expert at Beijing Normal University, believes no great powers can have complete mutual trust. That does not indicate a fundamental problem, he said.
“It is normal to have different interests in a bilateral relationship,” Li Xing said.
Jakobson thinks the issues run deeper: While both are authoritarian, their values are not the same. And while China may not like Japan or the US, it respects their achievements.
“So many Chinese analysts, if I prod them, will respond: ‘What have we got to learn from Russia?’” she said.
Additional research by Luna Lin
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