The spectacle of Russia and China befriending each other, as expressed in yesterday's signature of a "strategic partnership" agreement by President Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin in Beijing, is a real departure in international relations. For nearly forty years these two major states have been at loggerheads which gave the United States the opportunity to play them off against one another. This meeting raises the possibility of a new configuration which could affect many other balances of power around the world.
Yesterday's agreement is certainly alive to this potential, although both governments were careful to state that it is not a new alliance. Russia declares its support of the one China policy in respect of Taiwan and Tibet. China recognises that Chechnya is part of the Russian Federation and says that Nato enlargement towards its eastern borders is "impermissible".
Observers recalled a remark last November by the Russian defence minister, General Pavel Grachev, that "if Nato looks east, then we will also look east and find allies with whom we can solve security problems". In Shanghai, Russia and China are to sign agreements with Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan, three neighbouring and previously contentious states, pledging peaceful relations.
In a pointed but indirect reference to the United States, yesterday's statement deplores the fact that "hegemonism, power politics and repeated imposition of pressure on other countries have continued to occur. Bloc politics has taken up new manifestations". On the face of it, both Russia and China have more in common following this agreement than either has with the US. In the fullness of time it could presage a deepening of Sino Russian relations. But for the foreseeable future and assuming a basic continuity of policy orientations in Moscow and Beijing - both states will continue to need close, if not cordial, relations with the US more than with each other. Trade, investment and access to international funding require it just as much as strategic interests.
It is not difficult to understand why the Chinese model of development - perestroika without glasnost - should appeal in Russia, even to a president who has to campaign for re election, unlike his Chinese counterparts awaiting Deng Xiaoping's definitive departure from the political stage. This visit is very much a part of Mr Yeltsin's campaign. If his communist opponent was to defeat him, the appeal of Chinese authoritarianism might be even stronger, its achievement in holding a vast state together even more alluring after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Nationalism is a major ingredient in the political armoury of communists in both countries.
China and Russia therefore have much in common in the post Cold War world. But it would be a mistake to push the analogies too far. Their respective economic, social and political structures are very dissimilar. The role of agriculture - a crucial basis of economic development - has been altogether different. It has given the Chinese communists a leeway for accumulation and reform that were never available in the Soviet Union. This visit by Mr Yeltsin has decidedly broken the mould of Sino Russian relations. Much good for their peoples can come from closer cooperation after the hostility and suspicion of the last four decades.