President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Jiang Zemin of China signed an alliance treaty in Moscow yesterday, a largely symbolic attempt to counterbalance the global dominance of the United States.
Although they stressed that the treaty was "not directed against any third country", it highlighted their unease at US primacy in international affairs. Further evidence of Mr Putin's desire to build a new world order emerged yesterday when he proposed that NATO should be abolished and replaced by a pan-European security body including Russia.
Days before he is due to meet President Bush at the G8 summit in Genoa, he argued that NATO's expansion eastwards prolonged the cold-war division of the continent, and proposed that it should be disbanded, as the Warsaw Pact had been.
"In the West, everyone says: `We don't want new divisions in Europe, we don't want new Berlin walls.' Good. We completely agree. But when NATO enlarges, division doesn't disappear, it simply moves towards our borders," he told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
"The divisions will continue until there is a single security area in Europe," he added.
The Sino-Russian treaty is the first since 1950, when Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong created a Soviet-Chinese alliance. Officials were at pains to point out that it did not presage a military alliance, but was focused on resolving border disputes and promoting trade, particularly in the sphere of oil, gas, energy, aircraft construction and new technologies.
Largely declaratory in content, reaffirming the relatively warm relations China and Russia have enjoyed for the past 10 years, the Good Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation was described by British diplomats in Moscow as bland.
But it comes at a time when both countries are increasingly concerned about Washington's missile-shield plans.
Signing the pact gave the two leaders an opportunity to reiterate their hostility to the project the day after the US successfully tested its ability to destroy an intercontinental ballistic missile in space.
After signing the pact, the two issued a joint declaration of their commitment to the 1972 anti-ballistic-missile pact, which would be infringed by the US plans.
Mr Putin questioned Washington's justification of the missile shield as protection against potential attacks by "rogue states".
"I don't see that there are compelling reasons to create an anti-missile defence system, because nobody is threatening the United States. The countries which are considered to be dangerous would need 20, 30 ,40 years to build up a credible offensive system."
Despite the rhetoric, China and Russia have much to lose by alienating the US. Trade between the two countries amounted to $8 billion last year, a fraction of China's $115 billion annual trade with the US.