Blagoveshchensk, Russia - Lured by warming relations between the two countries, Li Lihua, a Chinese entrepreneur, has invested all of her money in this frigid Russian outpost on the border with her country. She has opened Chinese restaurants, purchased factories and started a $120 million housing project to build affordable apartments aimed at young, upwardly mobile Russians.
But Ms. Li says that capital for the housing development has dried up as the Russian economy sinks. She now worries that she will have to sell off other parts of her business to move forward on the project.
"The two countries are desperate to cooperate with each other," said Ms. Li, 48. "On the ground, the joint action is not that obvious."
But this remote corner of Asia - where Blagoveshchensk, Russia, sits on one side of the border and its sister city, Heihe, China, on the other - shows how the diplomatic handshakes haven't yet translated into closer cooperation.
Businesses on both sides of a border remain hamstrung by poor infrastructure, a shortage of financing and Russia's severe economic troubles. The challenges illustrate how far ties between the two former Communist rivals must progress to significantly decrease their dependence on the United States and Europe for investment, technology and exports.
"There are harsh factors that will put constraints on the relationship," says Alexander Gabuev, chairman of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "There is a deep culture of distrust that will be there for a long time."
The Chinese and Russians in these two border towns, though separated only by the narrow Amur River, were driven apart by political ambition and a cultural divide for much of their history. In 1900, after China's imperial troops shelled Blagoveshchensk, Russian officials forcibly expelled the Chinese from the town, causing thousands to drown in the Amur. During the Cold War, when a nasty ideological schism turned the Communist compatriots into bitter enemies, the border was sealed off with barbed wire and bunkers.
With the coming of economic reform and "opening up" in China, the frostiness began to thaw. Trade between Heihe and Blagoveshchensk reopened in 1986, and in 2000 a small special economic zone was formed along the border to encourage commerce. Shop fronts in Heihe display signs in both Chinese characters and Russian Cyrillic.
Still, the two cities remain worlds apart in many respects.
The only way across the Amur River is a pricey ferry ride in a cramped motorboat (except in the middle of winter, when vehicles can drive across the frozen waterway). That bottleneck greatly limits the volume of people and goods that can travel from town to town.
The communities barely intermingle. The ferry's operators don't allow Russians and Chinese to travel together in the same boat, alternating the two groups instead. Residents in Blagoveshchensk are more likely to speak a bit of English than Chinese.
The barriers to doing business with Russia have also remained stubbornly high.
Wang Xin, 31, started importing Russian chocolates, cookies and candies in 2008 and marketing them to Chinese shops and consumers over the Internet. Today, he sells around $150,000 worth of Russian goodies a month from his office in Heihe.
Yet bringing his products over the border is time-consuming and expensive. After a 10-day journey by truck from Moscow, Mr. Wang must wait three weeks for his chocolates to crawl over the river by boat and through each nation's customs procedures. Lofty duties and taxes imposed by both governments tack on extra costs - some 30 percent onto a package of cookies, for instance.
The gap between rhetoric and reality in China-Russia relations is significant.
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has for several years been turning to China as the one economic power with the cash, clout and consumers to help him wriggle from the West's grip. That shift became even more imperative after low oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis further strained the Russian economy.
President Xi Jinping of China has been a willing partner.
With economic growth likely to be the slowest in a quarter-century in 2015, Beijing sees Russia as a potential gold mine of raw materials, infrastructure projects and new customers for its sputtering factories.
The two sides have signed major agreements in energy and finance. Trade between them, at $95 billion in 2014, more than quadrupled in only 10 years.
Many entrepreneurs and officials in the two border towns believe their futures are inexorably linked.
The local government in Heihe is building a pedestrian walkway across the Amur. And next year, construction will commence on a $240 million bridge linking the towns, financed jointly by the two countries.
With improved economic ties, "we will be able to reach our goal of becoming more like a city in Northern Europe," says Guo Wengui, a former official in the Heihe government.
But China has not been the white knight Moscow expected.
With oil prices tumbling, China has been dragging its feet on advancing much-heralded agreements to buy natural gas from Russia. Last year, Chinese foreign direct investment into Russia more than doubled, but it still accounted for only 5.6 percent of the total.
The Russians "keep looking to Asia to say to the West 'we have other friends,' but it's not so easy," says Edward Chow, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In these border towns, the disparities are obvious.
Heihe is a showcase of China's new wealth, with manicured streets lined with modern office complexes and hotels overlooking the picturesque river, many topped by faux-European architecture lighted brightly at night. Blagoveshchensk, by contrast, is an older town dominated by Soviet-era buildings that gives the impression that its best days have already passed.
Last year, the Chinese shipped four times more goods to Russia through Heihe than they imported in return. As Russia's economy has sunk into a deep recession, it has also sapped the spending power of Blagoveshchensk's residents.
That has crippled business along the border.
The Big Heihe International Trade Town, a cavernous marketplace on an island in the Amur, was once teeming with Russian shoppers looking for bargains on everything from underwear to appliances from Chinese merchants. But these days, its narrow hallways are nearly empty.
Zhang Yingying, 40, says her sneaker shop once had 1,000 Russian customers each day. But now she's lucky to get 100, who often seek out the cheapest merchandise.
"I am worried I will have to find another business to do," she said.
The problems are widespread.
Five years ago, an entrepreneur, Liu Jingmin, 40, started pouring $4.6 million into a factory in Heihe to manufacture building insulation for Russian construction companies. While business was brisk at first, Mr. Liu hasn't exported a single crate this year.
"What we are doing now is waiting for the Russian market to become warmer," he said.
For Ms. Li, the situation is threatening her entire operation.
Born near Harbin, a major city in northeastern China, Ms. Li studied Russian at a local school and, looking to start her own business in the late 1990s, saw opportunity in Blagoveshchensk. The Russians in the city love Chinese food, she determined, so she opened her first restaurant there in 2000, and now has six.
Later, Ms. Li acquired an 80-year-old Russian company that produces a popular drink called kvass, made from fermented bread, and another Blagoveshchensk factory that fabricates bricks. In 2013, she undertook her biggest endeavor, purchasing a large plot of land in Blagoveshchensk with the plan to build apartments.
"In the past, the Russians' willingness to forge ties with Chinese was not that strong," Ms. Li says in her Blagoveshchensk office, decorated with photos of her posing with Russian movie stars. "But now they actively welcome investment from foreigners."
That openness has meant little, however, as Ms. Li struggles to complete her apartment buildings.
Russian banks, strained by sanctions, are no longer lending her money to continue construction, she says. Now she is searching for new investors to help finance the project - so far, with no success.
In describing the relationship between Russia and China, Ms. Li turns to an old proverb: "There are no permanent friends," she says, "only permanent interests."
But Ms. Li says that capital for the housing development has dried up as the Russian economy sinks. She now worries that she will have to sell off other parts of her business to move forward on the project.
"The two countries are desperate to cooperate with each other," said Ms. Li, 48. "On the ground, the joint action is not that obvious."
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At the highest levels, Beijing and Moscow haven't been friendlier in decades. Both sides are promising to expand trade and investment. As part of Russia's effort to "pivot" to Asia and reduce dependence on the West, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev is on a four-day official visit to China this week.
But this remote corner of Asia - where Blagoveshchensk, Russia, sits on one side of the border and its sister city, Heihe, China, on the other - shows how the diplomatic handshakes haven't yet translated into closer cooperation.
Businesses on both sides of a border remain hamstrung by poor infrastructure, a shortage of financing and Russia's severe economic troubles. The challenges illustrate how far ties between the two former Communist rivals must progress to significantly decrease their dependence on the United States and Europe for investment, technology and exports.
"There are harsh factors that will put constraints on the relationship," says Alexander Gabuev, chairman of the Russia in the Asia-Pacific Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "There is a deep culture of distrust that will be there for a long time."
The Chinese and Russians in these two border towns, though separated only by the narrow Amur River, were driven apart by political ambition and a cultural divide for much of their history. In 1900, after China's imperial troops shelled Blagoveshchensk, Russian officials forcibly expelled the Chinese from the town, causing thousands to drown in the Amur. During the Cold War, when a nasty ideological schism turned the Communist compatriots into bitter enemies, the border was sealed off with barbed wire and bunkers.
With the coming of economic reform and "opening up" in China, the frostiness began to thaw. Trade between Heihe and Blagoveshchensk reopened in 1986, and in 2000 a small special economic zone was formed along the border to encourage commerce. Shop fronts in Heihe display signs in both Chinese characters and Russian Cyrillic.
Still, the two cities remain worlds apart in many respects.
The only way across the Amur River is a pricey ferry ride in a cramped motorboat (except in the middle of winter, when vehicles can drive across the frozen waterway). That bottleneck greatly limits the volume of people and goods that can travel from town to town.
The communities barely intermingle. The ferry's operators don't allow Russians and Chinese to travel together in the same boat, alternating the two groups instead. Residents in Blagoveshchensk are more likely to speak a bit of English than Chinese.
The barriers to doing business with Russia have also remained stubbornly high.
Wang Xin, 31, started importing Russian chocolates, cookies and candies in 2008 and marketing them to Chinese shops and consumers over the Internet. Today, he sells around $150,000 worth of Russian goodies a month from his office in Heihe.
Yet bringing his products over the border is time-consuming and expensive. After a 10-day journey by truck from Moscow, Mr. Wang must wait three weeks for his chocolates to crawl over the river by boat and through each nation's customs procedures. Lofty duties and taxes imposed by both governments tack on extra costs - some 30 percent onto a package of cookies, for instance.
The gap between rhetoric and reality in China-Russia relations is significant.
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has for several years been turning to China as the one economic power with the cash, clout and consumers to help him wriggle from the West's grip. That shift became even more imperative after low oil prices and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis further strained the Russian economy.
President Xi Jinping of China has been a willing partner.
With economic growth likely to be the slowest in a quarter-century in 2015, Beijing sees Russia as a potential gold mine of raw materials, infrastructure projects and new customers for its sputtering factories.
The two sides have signed major agreements in energy and finance. Trade between them, at $95 billion in 2014, more than quadrupled in only 10 years.
Many entrepreneurs and officials in the two border towns believe their futures are inexorably linked.
The local government in Heihe is building a pedestrian walkway across the Amur. And next year, construction will commence on a $240 million bridge linking the towns, financed jointly by the two countries.
With improved economic ties, "we will be able to reach our goal of becoming more like a city in Northern Europe," says Guo Wengui, a former official in the Heihe government.
But China has not been the white knight Moscow expected.
With oil prices tumbling, China has been dragging its feet on advancing much-heralded agreements to buy natural gas from Russia. Last year, Chinese foreign direct investment into Russia more than doubled, but it still accounted for only 5.6 percent of the total.
The Russians "keep looking to Asia to say to the West 'we have other friends,' but it's not so easy," says Edward Chow, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
In these border towns, the disparities are obvious.
Heihe is a showcase of China's new wealth, with manicured streets lined with modern office complexes and hotels overlooking the picturesque river, many topped by faux-European architecture lighted brightly at night. Blagoveshchensk, by contrast, is an older town dominated by Soviet-era buildings that gives the impression that its best days have already passed.
Last year, the Chinese shipped four times more goods to Russia through Heihe than they imported in return. As Russia's economy has sunk into a deep recession, it has also sapped the spending power of Blagoveshchensk's residents.
That has crippled business along the border.
The Big Heihe International Trade Town, a cavernous marketplace on an island in the Amur, was once teeming with Russian shoppers looking for bargains on everything from underwear to appliances from Chinese merchants. But these days, its narrow hallways are nearly empty.
Zhang Yingying, 40, says her sneaker shop once had 1,000 Russian customers each day. But now she's lucky to get 100, who often seek out the cheapest merchandise.
"I am worried I will have to find another business to do," she said.
The problems are widespread.
Five years ago, an entrepreneur, Liu Jingmin, 40, started pouring $4.6 million into a factory in Heihe to manufacture building insulation for Russian construction companies. While business was brisk at first, Mr. Liu hasn't exported a single crate this year.
"What we are doing now is waiting for the Russian market to become warmer," he said.
For Ms. Li, the situation is threatening her entire operation.
Born near Harbin, a major city in northeastern China, Ms. Li studied Russian at a local school and, looking to start her own business in the late 1990s, saw opportunity in Blagoveshchensk. The Russians in the city love Chinese food, she determined, so she opened her first restaurant there in 2000, and now has six.
Later, Ms. Li acquired an 80-year-old Russian company that produces a popular drink called kvass, made from fermented bread, and another Blagoveshchensk factory that fabricates bricks. In 2013, she undertook her biggest endeavor, purchasing a large plot of land in Blagoveshchensk with the plan to build apartments.
"In the past, the Russians' willingness to forge ties with Chinese was not that strong," Ms. Li says in her Blagoveshchensk office, decorated with photos of her posing with Russian movie stars. "But now they actively welcome investment from foreigners."
That openness has meant little, however, as Ms. Li struggles to complete her apartment buildings.
Russian banks, strained by sanctions, are no longer lending her money to continue construction, she says. Now she is searching for new investors to help finance the project - so far, with no success.
In describing the relationship between Russia and China, Ms. Li turns to an old proverb: "There are no permanent friends," she says, "only permanent interests."