President Boris Yeltsin and visiting Chinese leader Jiang Zemin pledged Wednesday to seek a "multipolar world" that would challenge the U.S. role as the sole superpower.
Yeltsin, who is partial to grandiose statements, said the meeting between the one-time rivals had "a tremendous, perhaps even historic importance, because we're determining the fate of the 21st century."Seeking to counter American clout and NATO's eastward expansion, Russia is looking for new allies in Asia, with China foremost among them.
Although Russia and China are far from creating a formal alliance, they are natural trading partners who share a lengthy border and have a common interest in limiting U.S. influence.
The two leaders signed a joint declaration stressing their shared goal of a "multipolar world" and their opposition to "Cold War mentality . . . and the policy of blocs," a clear reference to the United States and NATO.
"Some are pushing toward a world with one center," Yeltsin said after the signing. "We want the world to be multipolar, to have several focal points. These will form the basis for a new world order."
Yeltsin and Jiang also discussed border troop reductions and nuclear and military cooperation, and there was "an exchange of market reforms experience," the Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying.
Speaking later in the Russian parliament, Jiang insisted that no country should impose its social order or ideology upon others. Russia and China do not strive to form an alliance, and their rapprochement is not threatening others, he said.
"The time when a few large countries or groups of large countries could monopolize international affairs and determine the fate of other nations is gone forever," Jiang said.
Jiang's five-day visit underscored warming relations between Russia and China after decades of hostility. It was the two presidents' fifth summit since 1991 and a follow-up to Yeltsin's Chinese visit in 1996, which produced a breakthrough cooperation agreement.
Yeltsin, who has spent much of the past year recuperating from illness and heart surgery, ended a vacation at Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi to return to Moscow for the summit.
Dr. Michael DeBakey, the American heart surgeon who consulted on Yeltsin's quintuple bypass surgery in November, said Wednesday that Yeltsin's health was now excellent.