Local business owners, even fruit vendors and roadside popcorn makers, greet foreigners in simple Russian, a skill they learned before the pandemic when Russian customers came in large numbers. Heihe, a city of some 1.5 million people, is largely bilingual, with shop names, street signs and menus written in Chinese and Russian. “It’s very obvious Russia is increasingly dependent on China, even though Russians may not like that,” said Jon Yuan Jiang, a China-Russia relations expert in Sydney. Bilateral trade grew almost 30% last year, according to Chinese customs figures, and Russia was China’s top oil supplier in the first two months of the year. Sanctioned by the United States and allies for its war on Ukraine, Russia has found an economic lifeline in neighboring China, with which it declared a “no limits” partnership weeks before the Ukraine invasion in February 2022. People cross the road outside a mall emblazoned with Russian and Chinese inscriptions in the city of Heihe in northern China last month. The Russian influence in Heihe, such as the Russian-style domes or spires that top Chinese-style apartment towers, schools, museums and even some government buildings, draws tourists from all over China. Trucks loaded with goods regularly crossed the Amur, known in China as the Heilong, along a new bridge linking Heihe to Blagoveschchensk, its sister city in Russia. The two countries’ close ties were on vivid display in this trading outpost when NBC News visited recently.
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