{"id":77397,"date":"2026-05-19T10:14:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/19\/russia-china-border-increase-trade-ukraine-war"},"modified":"2026-05-19T10:14:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T01:14:31","slug":"from-sanctioned-cars-to-beauty-clinics-russian-rubles-have-flowed-into-chinas-border-towns-since-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=77397","title":{"rendered":"From sanctioned cars to beauty clinics, Russian rubles have flowed into China\u2019s border towns since Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Suifenhe, a small city in China\u2019s economically depressed rust belt, is a microcosm of an evolving Chinese-Russian trading relationship<\/p>\n<p>Suited and booted in a navy twinset tracksuit and colourful high-top trainers, Wang Runguo is hustling. Darting across the gleaming floors of his cavernous car showroom, the 45-year-old from one of China\u2019s poorest provinces is closing on yet another deal. It is all in a day\u2019s work for the man whose salary has more than doubled in the past year thanks to a well-timed pivot: from corn to cars; from China to Russia.<\/p>\n<p>This time last year Wang was working for an agricultural company that grew corn and soya beans for the domestic market. Now he is a manager at Xingyun International Automobile Export, a company founded in August 2025 to cater to the booming new car export industry in Suifenhe, a small city in China\u2019s north-east that borders Russia. \u201cRecently, China and Russia have been moving closer together,\u201d Wang says. \u201cAs we move closer, more and more cars are going there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/may\/19\/russia-china-border-increase-trade-ukraine-war\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Suifenhe, a small city in China\u2019s economically depressed rust belt, is a microcosm of an evolving Chinese-Russian trading relationshipSuited and booted in a navy twinset tracksuit and colourful high-top trainers, Wang Runguo is hustling. Darting across&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,415,221,558,557,419,818,42,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-donald-trump","category-europe","category-global-economy","category-international-trade","category-russia","category-vladimir-putin","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77398,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77397\/revisions\/77398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}