The New World Trading Order

For decades, the Chinese town of Manzhouli, perched on the desolate border with Russia, was frozen in a remote corner of the Cold War. As an ideological schism between the two Communist giants escalated into a full-blown conflict — bloody clashes erupted along their 4,300-km border in 1969 — the poor residents of Manzhouli had little contact with their Russian neighbors huddled in the Siberian cold only a few steps away. A mere trickle of state-sponsored trade passed through the heavily fortified border, leaving Manzhouli's citizens dependent on a local coal mine for jobs.