Suited and booted in a navy twinset tracksuit and colorful high-top trainers, Wang Runguo is hustling. Darting across the gleaming floors of his cavernous car showroom, the 45-year-old from one of China’s poorest provinces is closing on yet another deal. It is all in a day’s work for the man whose salary has more than doubled in the past year thanks to a well-timed pivot: from corn to cars; from China to Russia.

This time last year Wang was working for an agricultural company that grew corn and soya beans for the domestic market. Now he is a manager at Xingyun International Automobile Export, a company founded in August 2025 to cater to the booming new car export industry in Suifenhe, a small city in China’s north-east that borders Russia. “Recently, China and Russia have been moving closer together,” Wang says. “As we move closer, more and more cars are going there.”

A manager at Suifenhe Hengchi International Trade, one of the city’s biggest car dealerships, puts it more bluntly: “The Russia-Ukraine war … has been a good opportunity for our business.”

As Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, visits China on Tuesday, Moscow may be hoping that Beijing continues to see the benefits of a cosy relationship.