Ersatz Twin City Formation? The Case of Blagoveshchensk and Heihe (original) (raw)

Border studies posit that one of the key inherent traits of twin cities is an aspiration to proactively and deliberately dissolve the border and become one entity that fundamentally affects social, economic and political identity of two border communities. While a number of twin cities emerging between European countries and Russia try to follow said pattern, this is not the case in the Russian Far East. Recent claims of twin cities status made by Blagoveshchensk (Russia) and Heihe (China) do not follow the pattern that characterizes the formation of twin cities in Europe. Blago and Heihe have confined their twinning to the spheres of trade and tourism and excluded any changes to the administration of boundaries or national security. Such a narrow understanding stems from a number of significant obstacles to twin city development in the context of Russia and China. These obstacles include nationalism, competition to attain global economic influence, historical border disputes, imbalances in population size and trends, regional economic differences as well as close scrutiny by respective central governments. In spite of these limitations, the two cities regard twinning as a valuable marketing tool and have progressively adopted this brand. It also appears that pursuing the rhetoric of city-twinning allows the officials of the late socialist government of China and the post state socialism government of Russia to advance claims to opportunities in trade and tourism without really tackling the difficult questions of more meaningful cross-border interactions. To conclude, the case of Blago/Heihe is viewed in a broader theoretical and comparative perspective of city-twinning.