Aside from establishing strong bilateral ties in terms of politics, trade, and economics, allies China and Russia are now seeking measures to further expand its blooming relationship, this time in the area of business education.
An article from Business Because points out Russia's initiative to move past beyond the usual fronts of collaboration like politics and its underlying aspects, as it is now looking to build a business school empire together with its continent neighbor, China.
The aim of both countries is to become on par with Western schools in terms of providing business education.
According to George Iliev, head of developed markets at the Association of MBAs (AMBA), the timing is just but perfect for Moscow and Beijing to carve its own path.
"Russia is now increasingly concentrated on China and the post-Soviet space," Iliev was quoted as saying by the business journal. "I see growing collaboration between schools there and schools in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Now, pretty much every school has some sort of partnership in China-in Hong Kong, Beijing, or Shanghai-and that's to the detriment of the US."
Iliev, however, clarified that much of the Russian business schools do have ties with schools other than in Asia. In France and Germany, for example, Russian academes are holding joint MBA programs.
"...but America is off limits," he said. In this part of the globe, Russian b-schools are close to being shunned upon, Iliev added.
But the case is entirely different from China.
Chinese universities such as the Chinese University of Hongkong and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology are already running several graduate business programs such as from Saint Petersburg University.
Russian business scholars are also getting an education from different Chinese universities through student exchange programs.
The Institute of Business Studies (IBS-Moscow), in particular, is now in "intensive negotiations" with Chinese institutes like Shanghai Jiao Tong University and its School of Economics and Management to commence joint-venture MBA programs.
Meanwhile, Russia is also receiving a huge flock of Chinese business students coming towards its portals of learning.
Citing data from the website's previous report, it is found out that the number of international students in Russia is expected to blow up from 200,000 in the past years to almost half a million before 2025.
One of the most sought-after business institutions is Russia's Ural Federal University - the Graduate School of Economics and Management (GSEM). This school alone receives close to 5,000 international students coming from China and the nearby region.
These figures would likely to increase further should the China-Russia b-school collaboration begins to pick up some steam.
