China’s rise alters Russia relations

MANZHOULI, China -- Russian traders who once filled the streets of this neon-lit border post have dwindled to a trickle, turning Manzhouli from boom town to ghost town.

The traders once poured out of buses each morning and jostled in underground shopping arcades, stuffing Chinese-made goods into bags to sell in their energy-rich homeland.

Now the sharp drop in oil prices and a global financial crisis have sent the Russia economy into a tailspin, and this once-buzzing outpost -- emblematic of the improvement in Sino-Russian relations -- is suffering a temporary setback.

"In the past, we'd sell one or two fur coats a day," Zhao Dongqiang said, surveying the rabbit and mink coats hanging on racks in his store. "Now we sell one or two a month."

The receding economic tide is part of a larger cycle in Sino-Russian relations, which have vacillated from friendship to acrimony and back to friendship over the past half-century. Now the two nations are at a high point, enjoying a strategic partnership that has brought them closer than at any time in decades. But that is being tested by Russia's resentment at China's growing economic and military strength.

Last month, the two nations signed a $25 billion energy-cooperation agreement, and on paper relations could hardly be better. Both speak of a vision to create a "multipolar world" to temper U.S. domination. They also share strategies to defend against Western charges of human-rights abuses at home.

It is an "authoritarian alliance" born of geographic necessity. China shares a longer border with Russia -- 2,700 miles -- than with any of its other 13 neighbors.

But the relationship isn't as sturdy as it might appear to be, experts said. And if economic troubles send relations into another downward spiral, that could benefit U.S. efforts to cultivate Chinese cooperation on Afghanistan and economic issues, plus Russian help in curbing Iran's nuclear program.

"The Russians feel uncomfortable about the speed of China's rise. The gap between Russia and China is growing ever faster," said Bobo Lo, author of a recent book on the Sino-Russian relationship, "Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics."