How could Russia and China on the mainland have different grammar and language systems?

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Russia and China

Russia and China map (source)

Because these two languages have different ancestors and come from different regions. The Russian language comes from the Balto-Slavic group which comes from the Indo-European family. Indeed, Indo-European languages grew in the northern region of the Pontus Steppe. 

However, the Balto-Slavic group grew up around Eastern Europe which is now Ukraine, Belarus and Russia Europe. The Russians only expanded into the east around the middle of the 17th century. 

However, the Balto-Slavic group grew up around Eastern Europe which is now Ukraine, Belarus and Russia Europe. Meanwhile, Chinese comes from a Sinitic group of Sino-Tibetan families from the eastern Region of The Tibetan High Plateau who migrated to the area around the Yellow River. 

It was there that the Sinitic (Ancient Chinese) language grew and slowly spread throughout China. In fact, one of the Chinese language has spread to Russia, namely Taz which is one of the varieties of Mandarin.

Location of Udmurtia (source)

Basically, two languages in an adjacent region do not have to have the exact same grammar and ancestors. In fact, Finnish and Swedish have different ancestors even though they are both Northern European countries. Udmurt is also derived from a different ancestor than Russian even though it is spread in Udmurtia, Russia. 

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Thus, Russian and Chinese have different grammars even within the same land because these two languages have different ancestors and there is no guarantee that the two languages scattered in overlapping regions must have the same grammar and ancestors.