Development of Border Regions through the Prism of Russian Chinese Relations in the Context of the New Economic Order

Abstract

Against the background of harsh economic sanctions imposed by Western states, as well as increasing tensions in the military and political spheres in the world, there has been a noticeable decrease in the number of bilateral agreements between Russia and other states that display an unfriendly position, and the study of the processes of changing foreign economic relations is becoming increasingly relevant, both at the national level and especially in the regional border segment. It is where intergovernmental dialogue with neighboring countries faces stagnation that building new contacts and forming alternative channels of foreign trade becomes critically important. Despite the existence of some scientific works on this topic, the issue of developing Russia's border territories in the context of the emerging new economic order remains underexplored and requires a more in-depth analysis. The purpose of this work is to study the trends in the development of foreign trade relations between the border regions of Russia and China, and to make predictions based on the transformation of international relations, taking into account the openness of the economies of the two countries to active cooperation and the development of digitalization as a driver of this cooperation. The foreign trade turnover between Russia and China has a steady growth trend. China has been the top trading partner of Russia for the past few years, and Russia has been in the top 10 countries of Chinese trading partners since 2021. Every Russian region has established cooperation with China. Cooperation between the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation and the General Administration of Customs of the People's Republic of China is a stable factor in the development of trade relations.