The main body of the Chinese section of the first cross-river railway bridge connecting China and Russia was completed in July 2026, marking a significant milestone in bilateral infrastructure cooperation. The bridge across the Heilongjiang River — known as the Amur River in Russia — connects the city of Tongjiang in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province with Nizhneleninskoye in Russia. The main bridge spans 2,215 meters, with 1,886 meters of that standing in China.
Construction began in February 2014, and the bridge has a designed annual throughput capacity of 21 million tons. The project is expected to add another major transportation corridor between China and Russia and help Heilongjiang Province take advantage of the Belt and Road Initiative to boost local economy and trade. According to local business owners, after the railway bridge is put into operation, imports can be conducted year-round, and transportation costs are expected to be reduced by 100 yuan per cubic meter of timber.
Song Kui, President of the Contemporary China–Russia Regional Economy Research Institute in Heilongjiang, said the new route will boost bilateral logistics, providing a further impetus for economic cooperation between the two countries. In the first half of 2026, Heilongjiang saw trade with Russia go up 48.2 percent year-on-year to 53.4 billion yuan (approximately 7.7 billion US dollars). China has also become the largest trading partner and source of foreign investment for the Russian Far East.
The Tongjiang railway bridge is one of the most important infrastructure projects promoting the implementation of the “Mongolian economic corridor planning.” It is expected to increase the flow of people, capital, technology and information between the two countries, benefiting both economies. Russia and China have also agreed to build a second railway line at the Zabaikalsk–Manchuria border crossing and are planning a fifth rail corridor to join existing border crossings at Manzhouli, Suifenhe, Tongjiang and Hunchun.
