HEIHE, China: The warmth of the friendship between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin - who meet on Wednesday for the eighth time in two years - does little to counter the bitter economic winds blowing through their shared border.

In the Chinese city of Heihe, neon-lit high-rises line the banks of the Amur river facing Siberia’s Blagoveshchensk powered by electricity from hydroelectric plants over the border.

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