Analysis on the Evolution of Strategies for High-Quality Coordinated Development of China–Russia Subnational Cooperation

Promoting high-quality regional economic development is an important connotation of maintaining China–Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination in the new era, and promoting high-quality coordinated development of local economic cooperation is an important prerequisite. Guided by the bounded rationality assumption, this study establishes a tripartite evolutionary game framework to explore the high-quality collaborative development of subnational cooperation between China and Russia, with the central government, local governments, and local enterprises as the core participating subjects. The results show that (1) the evolution and stability of the tripartite interaction depend on the initial participation intentions of China and Russia. Moderate central supervision and calibrated fiscal incentives effectively steer local governments and enterprises toward sustained, full-chain collaborative development; (2) the key to promote the high-quality coordinated development of China–Russia local cooperation is to base on the major national strategic needs of local governments and expand the internal driving force of “external circulation†and other long-term goals. The setting of a higher special fund for local cooperation with Russia can more effectively encourage local enterprises to participate in deepening local cooperation with Russia; (3) strict policy implementation by local governments and active enterprise participation represent the “Pareto-optimal†outcome for high-quality China–Russia local cooperation. Yet, enterprise “opportunity cost†serves as a key factor constraining their positive response and sustained involvement in deepened cooperation with Russia.