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Up the Amur, at Blagoveshchensk, officials are negotiating a deal under which Soviet hydroelectric power will be exchanged for Chinese goods and produce. In April 76 Chinese peasants, accompanied by interpreters, crossed the border at Suifenhe to spend six months demonstrating to Siberian farmers their techniques for planting, growing and harvesting. The Chinese were greeted with a brass band and welcoming banners when they arrived in Pogranichny. The Inner Mongolian town of Manzhouli is talking about a similar arrangement with Zabaikalsk, just over the strip of border that is still patrolled by Soviet guard dogs and marked by watchtowers and electrified fences. Says Manzhouli Mayor Xu Shaoan: "Our Soviet neighbors would like to learn to produce melons the way we do here."
There is another product in high demand but short supply on the Soviet side these days, thanks to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's antialcohol campaign. As a result, Chinese traders make room in their sample cases for bottles of mao-tai, a fiery 120-proof sorghum liquor -- not to sell but to lubricate negotiations with their Siberian hosts. Says Dimitri Krolov, a Soviet regional trade official who joined the train in Zabaikalsk: "Business is booming. We manufacture what they want, they grow what we want."
Chinese agriculture has benefited dramatically from ten years of Leader Deng Xiaoping's "modernization" program. Beijing has abolished the commune system in favor of individual and family farming, and has introduced incentives for high productivity as well as a limited but thriving free market for produce. By contrast, Soviet agriculture is still mostly collectivized, centrally planned and inefficient. It is one sector of Soviet life largely untouched by Gorbachev's perestroika (restructuring).
The priority on domestic economic reform in both countries is the principal reason for the improvement in Sino-Soviet relations. Both Deng and Gorbachev are looking for a peaceful international climate that will make it easier for them to divert resources to the industrial, agricultural and consumer sectors. The Chinese welcome Gorbachev's declared willingness to rely less on the threat or use of force in Soviet foreign policy. Says General Wang Zhenxi, deputy director of foreign-army studies of the Chinese Military Science Academy in Beijing: "Should Gorbachev's domestic reforms be successful, it would be helpful for world peace and stability." But, he quickly adds, "so far we've seen nothing to demonstrate that the Soviet Union has abandoned its strategic goal of hegemony."