A friend in need during hard times

Beijing is also moving away from dollar-denominated assets such as the US Treasury bonds and is expanding the scope of its investment targets including infrastructure and property projects abroad which are believed to yield better returns for its massive foreign reserves.

Dalian Wanda is far from the first Chinese investor to pay serious attention to the opportunities being presented by Moscow's urban development plan.

In May, China Railway Construction Corp Ltd, a major State-owned company, for instance, signed a memorandum of understanding with Moscow officials to participate in the building of a 15-kilometer underground line connecting Moscow and New Moscow, itself part of the city's overall $40 billion transportation expansion plan.

Other Chinese participants in the project include Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, Henderson Land Development Co Ltd and Hang Lung Group Ltd.

"We used to import railway equipment from Europe. But now I have ordered my staff to source all equipment from Asia, including China," said Deputy Mayor Khusnullin.

What makes China especially appealing to Moscow is the country's experience of fast urban expansion. By 2020, the Russian capital hopes to have completed the construction of 150 km of metro lines, according to Karima Nigmatulina, acting director of the Moscow General Planning Research and Project Institute.

"The only cities that can compare to that rate are Chinese cities. It is interesting to cooperate with counterparts who work at the same pace," she said.

Massive real estate demand and much-faster decision-making and construction processes compared to Western cities also make Moscow very attractive to Chinese investors, Nigmatulina said.

Xu Hongcai, an economist at the China Center for International Economic Cooperation, said he expects the falling rouble and depressed asset prices in Russia to continue to offer more investment opportunities for Chinese companies.

"It is certainly a good time to invest in Russia, where greater bargains and better deals are emerging all the time," he said, adding the caveat that Chinese companies looking to invest or work in the country should always push for settlement in the yuan to avoid the exchange rate risk.

Some experts are warning, however, that a major Russian economic recession is looming and confidence is waning, with many international investors now dumping the Russian currency.

Benjamin Barber, an American political theorist and researcher at the City University of New York, has doubts about the viability of longer-term prospects between China and Russia.

"Every time there is a crisis with the West, it pushes China and Russia closer. But it is very unlikely to work in the long term," he said.

"Global interdependence makes it harder for the Russia-China game to play," he said, adding that corruption, lack of transparency and an unstable financial market also make Russia a risky investment destination.

Xu Hongcai insists that Russia will inevitably change its single-structure economy currently based on energy exports, and will require closer cooperation with neighbors in the East including China.

"In the long run, it is strategically important for Russia to develop closer business ties with China and to diversify its economic structure, which will offer Moscow greater room to maneuver when crisis happens," Xu said.

"But China is not naive enough to think that Russia sees China as a 'hardcore' loyal business partner. Putin's recent visit to India has told us something else."