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Fireworks and flags of both countries. This is how the bridge that will connect Russian and Chinese territory was opened this Friday, which is a sign of the closeness of the two countries during Russia’s great international isolation.
As Reuters explains, a bridge that will have both a symbolic effect, showing that relations between the two countries are deepening, and a practical one, facilitating trade relations between the two countries at a time when Russia is increasingly isolated and punished by international sanctions. – connects the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk and the Chinese city of Heihe, crossing the Amur River.
The bridge is therefore only about a kilometer long and cost 19 billion rubles (325 million euros), according to the Russian state agency RIA.
At the opening, according to Reuters, trucks left both ends of the bridge and made a short crossing, adorned with Russian and Chinese flags.
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And the Kremlin’s representative in the region, Yuri Trutnev, said: “In today’s divided world, this bridge between Russia and China has a special symbolic meaning.”
Thus, this is another confirmation that, after some initial doubts, China is choosing the side of Russia. And this after the two countries had already announced shortly before the war that they would commit themselves to a bilateral partnership “without limits.”
At the end of April, another step was taken in this direction, at least at the level, again, of symbolism: then Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, Time quotes, that the two countries were “committed” to building a “new model of international relations” .
He argued that the conclusion to be drawn from the “success” of relations between China and Russia is that it happened because both countries had thrown off the logic of Cold War-era political and military alliances.
Signs of Chinese support for Russia have given Xi Jinping’s country several warnings and threats from the United States, but they do not appear to have forced China to back down.
