Truck driver Wang Min and his fellow workers drove for more than 30 hours to deliver loads of fresh vegetables from China's major vegetable production base of Shouguang, Shandong Province, to Suifenhe that sits at the China-Russia border in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

The nighttime temperature had dropped to below zero degrees Celsius in Suifenhe when Wang prepared to wrap the fresh products with thick quilts to prevent them from freezing on the road.

The world has clearly benefited from China's progress, because China has laid many foundations that will evolve into more opportunities over the coming decades, a Russian expert has said.

"China has fundamentally changed the world's economic and political landscape in the past 40, particularly 20 years," Alexei Maslov, head of the Oriental Studies Department of the Russian Higher School of Economics Research University, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"Putin is reaffirming its ties to China" and the two countries are without doubt getting closer, said the expert.

 The extension of the China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation reflects closer bilateral ties, a scholar has said.

The joint statement on the extension of the treaty, issued during Monday's talks between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin via video link, reflects the deepening of China-Russia relationship, Andre Liebich, honorary professor of international history and politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, said in an interview with Xinhua.

-- From March 30 to April 2, a delegation comprising Vladimir Norov, secretary-general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and more than 30 diplomats from some 21 countries, visited Xinjiang.

-- They talked with locals from various sectors of society, visited local schools and enterprises, and debunked rumors about Xinjiang, a region whose image is frequently distorted by some Western politicians, organizations and media.