“A Giant Tree” for Northeast China: Russia in Modern Development Strategies of the Chinese Region

The article is based on official Chinese materials and devoted to the northern vector of the modern China openness policy, which is implemented through the foreign economic activity of its northeastern territories – the provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The author analyzes the officially announced strategic guidelines and development priorities of these territories, and the tools used for their implementation. Special attention is paid to free economic zones. The article studies their tasks and activities in these provinces, the construction the “openness infrastructure” to the North and along the borders, as well as some results of their foreign economic activity in the post-COVID period. A conclusion is made that the Communist party and government of China have not removed from their agenda the goal of “achieving new breakthroughs in the comprehensive revival of the region”, and one of the tools for this is to advance the level of its openness. Beijing continues to promote the concepts of the construction of “northern corridor” to enter the Eurasian space, as well as the attracting the natural resources, transport, logistics and intellectual potential of the Pacific Russia not only to support the revival of the North-East of China but to give the convenient root for Chinese goods from the industrial East to Eurasian markets.