Makeeva, S.B. History of the implementation of China’s policy on the development of interregional “sister city” cooperation with Russia. Bulletin of Tomsk State University. 2023. No. 487. Pp. 108–117.

Òåêñò ñòàòüè/âûïóñêà íà ñàéòå æóðíàëà URL: http://journals.tsu.ru/vestnik/&journal_page=archive&id=2323 (äàòà îáðàùåíèÿ 02.10.2023)

Abstract

From 1973 to the present, China's policy of establishing a system of inter-regional and inter-municipal “sister-city” cooperation with various countries has gradually involved more than 400 Chinese cities, all provinces, autonomous regions of the PRC, excluding Taiwan Province and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The Chinese policy for the development of inter-regional “sister-city” cooperation is consistent with the goals and objectives of the socio-economic regional development of the main large regions of the PRC: the North-Eastern, Eastern, Western and Central regions. At the beginning of the 21st century, China's spatial development was consistent with the goals of modernizing and transforming the socio-economic situation of Chinese macro-regions in accordance with the strategy of coordinated regional development. The policy to maintain inter-regional “sister-city” cooperation with the countries of the world took into account the potential, current state and problems of the regional infrastructure of each Chinese sister city and sister region, and, accordingly, the selection of a match in a foreign country was strictly regulated. The main direction of interaction between sister cities and sister regions of China and Russia in the 1990s was humanitarian and trade and economic cooperation. In the 2000s Chinese policy for the development of interregional “sister-city” cooperation with Russia was aimed at involving cities and provinces of the Central region of the PRC in the system of Chinese-Russian interaction, and the main direction of cooperation was trade and economic relations, as well as the expansion of cultural and educational ties. In the 2010s Chinese cities in the Eastern region showed particular activity in the development of “twin” cooperation, in addition to trade and economic ties, unprecedented tourism interaction expanded. Assessing the role of sister cities and sister regions in the development of Sino-Russian interregional cooperation in the period from 1988 (the year of the establishment of the first twinning ties) to the present, the author notes that, over the entire period, 122 agreements on the establishment of twinning ties were signed, among them 31 agreements between sister regions; and 91 agreements between sister cities. The system of Chinese-Russian inter-regional sister city cooperation built over the past decades has played an important role in deepening mutual understanding, expanding friendly ties and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Russia.