Dressed in a navy tracksuit and colorful high-top sneakers, Wang Runguo is moving at full speed. Sprinting across the shiny floor of his vast car showroom, the 45-year-old from one of China's poorest provinces is closing another deal. It's all part of a day's work for the man whose salary has more than doubled in the past year thanks to a timely pivot: from corn to cars; from China to Russia, writes "The Guardian".
In the year 2025, Wang works for an agricultural company that grows corn and soybeans for the domestic market. He is now a manager at Xingyun International Automobile Export, a company founded in August 2025 to serve the booming new-car export industry in Suifenhe, a small city in northeastern China on the border with Russia. "Recently, China and Russia have been getting closer. As we get closer, more and more cars are going there," Wang points out.
The manager at Suifenhe Hengchi International Trade, one of the city's largest car dealerships, puts it more bluntly: "The Russo-Ukrainian war was a good opportunity for our business." With Vladimir Putin visiting China, Moscow hopes that Beijing will continue to see the benefits of cozy relations. And on China’s border with Russia, where the United States is a distant concept but where Russians spend their money, local businessmen are unfazed by Western sanctions.
China rejects Western sanctions, saying they do not comply with international law. Earlier this month, the Chinese embassy in Britain lodged “strong objections” with London over sanctions imposed on Chinese companies accused of supplying drones and military goods to Russia. A Chinese government spokesman said that normal exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Russian enterprises should not be hindered by sanctions.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, weeks after Xi Jinping and Putin declared a “borderless” partnership, ties between the two countries have deepened. Bilateral trade has soared to record levels, angering Western leaders who accuse Beijing of providing an economic lifeline to Moscow while it engages in a war of aggression.
Beijing has bought more than 316.5 billion euros worth of Russian fossil fuels since the start of the full-scale incursion, according to data compiled by the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research, far exceeding purchases by any other country. And Chinese companies are rushing to fill the gaps in the Russian market left by the withdrawal of Western businesses. Last year, exports to Russia from Heilongjiang, the province where Suifenhe is located, increased by 22%.
"The dependence is mutual but asymmetric," said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. China now buys nearly 30% of Russian exports, while only about 3% of Chinese exports flow in the opposite direction, he notes.
But in certain industries, Russia plays a much larger role in China’s economic fortunes. One such sector is automobiles, a sector that in China is struggling with oversupply and a lack of domestic demand. Vehicles are one of Suifenhe’s main exports.
Between 2021 and 2024, the share of Chinese brands in the Russian car market increased from 7% to nearly 60%, according to the China Passenger Car Association. In 2024, China sold more than 1 million vehicles to Russia, making it the largest destination for Chinese vehicles, although it has since fallen to second place behind Mexico.
The additional volumes come from exports of Chinese-made cars with foreign brands. Despite sanctions against Russia, tens of thousands of cars from brands like BMW, Honda and Volkswagen continue to be sold in Russia every year through Chinese dealers.
Wang’s used BMW sold for 120,000 yuan ($17,600). That’s cheap compared to prices in Russia, says the buyer, a Russian businessman. And it’s too expensive for Chinese consumers, Wang says. It’s a win-win.
As much as China keeps the Russian economy afloat, the Russian ruble also keeps many parts of China, where the economy is heavily dependent on exports and where local consumers are unwilling or unable to part with their money, he says.
Gao Bin, the head of Suifenhe Hengchi International Trade, notes that the company started exporting cars to Russia three years ago. The first car they shipped across the border was a black Toyota Camry. "After the war started, there was demand in Russia," he says. Last year, he sold more than 7,000 cars in Russia, compared with just a few dozen on the domestic market. Domestic sales have virtually ground to a halt.
Suifenhe, a city of just 60,000 people in China's economically depressed rust belt, is a microcosm of this relationship. Signs are everywhere in Cyrillic, and prices are advertised in rubles as often as in yuan. But most shops are closed. From some hilltops you can peer into deserted Russian villages (binoculars help), although a multi-story observation tower designed to attract tourists has been abandoned and unfinished for years.
As the first place in China to allow the use of rubles as legal tender, Suifenhe has long been home to a large community of Russian businessmen and visitors, helped by the introduction of visa-free travel for Russian tourists in September. It is just a two-hour train ride from Vladivostok. And according to local businessmen, Russians are the only ones spending.
Ning Qiang, who runs a beauty salon that caters exclusively to Russians, says the number of customers has increased by about 50% since the visa-free policy was introduced. By 5 p.m., he had seen three clients. "When relations between China and Russia are good, life is better for ordinary people," he says. "Locals in Suifenhe don't buy much."
According to Chinese state media, Heilongjiang has seen a more than 60% increase in visitors from Russia in the first six months of the visa-free policy. Gabuyev says the difficulty of getting European visas is pushing more Russians to travel east. "And they mostly come back really impressed and ready to come back again. That's a net positive for the Chinese," he adds.
One of the Russians spending their money in China instead of Russia is Maria Publikhuk, a 36-year-old woman from Vladivostok who lives in Suifenhe with her eight-year-old daughter. Publikhuk moved to Suifenhe last year so her daughter could learn Chinese. The two spend their mornings at a local elementary school, surrounded by the chatter of Chinese children. Evenings are spent singing and dancing in Suifenhe’s central square, which echoes with competing soundtracks from loudspeakers scattered throughout the square. “English is the first most useful language in the world,” says Publichook. “And the second is Chinese.”
But for anyone whose livelihood depends on yuan, not rubles, times are tough. The manager of a local logistics center that handles cross-border and domestic cargo says this has been his worst year since he started the business six years ago. The war in the Middle East has raised fuel prices for his trucks and orders have dwindled. “Even during the pandemic, it wasn’t like this,” says Wang, who declined to give his first name. “This year, in every industry… demand in China is down. People just don't have money in their pockets."
National statistics tell a similar story. Despite the US-China trade war, which pushed US tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% last year, Chinese goods continue to be exported abroad at an astonishing rate. Last year, China's trade surplus reached a record $1.2 trillion. In the first three months of 2026, exports increased by almost 15% compared with the same period last year, while domestic retail sales in March rose by just 1.7% compared with 12 months earlier.
US President Donald Trump left Beijing last week after a two-day summit filled with pomp and pageantry and promises of "fantastic trade deals". But no public announcements about the tariffs have been made. China's Ministry of Commerce said the two countries would set up a trade council to discuss "tariff reduction," but gave no further details.
China's long-term goal is to make its economy less dependent on exports. In March, Premier Li Keqiang said China must stick to the strategic foundation of expanding domestic demand.
Structural problems such as an aging population, a depressed real estate sector and a lack of consumer confidence after the pandemic make this transition difficult. Exporting goods, whose prices are kept low in part by reduced energy supplies to China from Russia, is much easier.
Despite the economic downturn, Beijing still holds the cards in the China-Russia relationship. China has international trade options that Russia does not. Bloomberg recently reported that 90% of the technology sanctioned by Russia comes from China. And with Trump in the White House, Xi is under less pressure than ever about his relationship with Putin. The war in Ukraine was barely mentioned at the U.S.-China summit last week. "Trump's request to Xi Jinping to contribute to peace efforts in Ukraine is not a very serious push," Gabuev said. "Not that Xi Jinping feels responsible for this."
In Suifenhe, even the most ardent Russophiles see Russia as a country in decline, despite their own city's struggling economy.
On the outskirts of town, in a crumbling, sparsely populated village, a house built in the style of a Russian wooden cottage, painted bright blue and yellow, stands out from the gray. Its occupant is Song Lu, a 67-year-old retired artist whose family has lived in Suifenhe for generations. An enthusiast of Russian arts and crafts, he makes models of traditional Russian wooden carriages in his spare time and has even built a blue tube sauna in his front yard. "It may be hard for Russians to admit it, but in reality, China has already become the big brother," he says.