IN a development of far reaching importance, Russia and China have signed a treaty called "The Good-Neighbourly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation." The document was initialled by the Russian president Vladimir Putin and the visiting Chinese president Jiang Zemin in Moscow. According to Russian and Chinese commentators, the new treaty reflects the national priorities of both their countries. Both sides stressed that the treaty is not aimed against a third party. The treaty will be of twenty years duration.

The signing of the treaty underlined the unease and the anger in both countries with Washington’s policies, especially with the Bush administration’s plans to accelerate its NMD (national missile defence) programme. The Russian and the Chinese leaderships want to create a multipolar environment in world politics to offset American primacy in world affairs. The new Sino-Russian pact reflects a new type of relation between the two countries, based on the principles of non-confrontation and non-alignment.

Today, Moscow and Beijing share the same views on issues ranging from the ABM treaty to NATO enlargement. Beijing is fully behind Moscow on the Chechen issue while Moscow has fully supported China’s position on Taiwan. It was reiterated in the new treaty, in which Russia admits that "there is only one China in the world. The People’s Republic of China’s government is the only legitimate government, representing all China, while Taiwan is its inalienable part."

The signing of the new friendship treaty between the two countries was not a sudden development. Moscow has been keen for quite some time to conclude such a treaty. After Putin took over the presidency, the negotiations to formalise the treaty started in right earnest. During the Chinese president, Jiang Zemin’s visit to Moscow in 1999, both sides decided to speed up the process. When Putin was in Beijing in July last year, both sides reached an official agreement to get the draft of the treaty ready in time for the summit this year.

Both Moscow and Beijing have emphasised that the new Sino-Russian treaty is not a successor to the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship that was signed when the socialist bloc was on the ascendant. The USSR was then led by Joseph Stalin and China by Mao Zedong. The 1950 treaty had resulted in a formidable Sino-Soviet alliance in the cold war days and had lasted till the late sixties. The armed clashes that took place in 1968 on the Amur river between Chinese and Russian forces, effectively spelt the end of the old treaty which was meant to last till 1979.

The new treaty, both governments have pointed, does not have a military component. In the present treaty, both agreed to resolve issues in accordance with the UN charter and the norms of international law. They pledged not to use nuclear weapons against each other or target strategic missiles at each other. The document categorically states that Russia and China will unhesitatingly contact each other in case a situation arises that can, in the opinion of either party, threatens peace or affects their security interests.

It is not a coincidence that the treaty was signed when the Bush administration announced plans to implement the NMD programme. The Sino-Russian treaty was in fact signed two days after the Americans claimed that they had successfully done an anti-missile test by destroying an in-coming intercontinental missile in space. Both Russia and China have been insisting that the Star Wars II, that the Bush administration seems intent to start, will undermine the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty and will accelerate a new nuclear arms race.

This view has been generally echoed in the international community. Surprisingly, India is one of the few countries that welcomed the Bush administration’s NMD plans. After signing the treaty, the Russian and Chinese sides stressed "the basic importance of the ABM treaty, which is a cornerstone of strategic stability and the basis for reducing offensive weapons and speaks out for maintaining the treaty in its current form."

Moscow and Beijing remain united in their view that the scrapping of the 1972 ABM treaty would lead to the spiraling of not only conventional nuclear weapons but also of nuclear missile weapons. The Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, speaking about the strategic dimensions of the treaty, said that increased cooperation between Moscow and Beijing would improve global stability.

President Putin, while addressing a press conference in the Kremlin on July 18, said that if the ABM treaty breaks down, Russia will have the legal right to instal clusters of nuclear warheads on its ICBMs. "This will be the cheapest reply which no one will be able to counter in the next fifty, perhaps hundred years," said Putin. The ICBMs were meant to be scrapped under the provisions of the START-II treaty.

But China comparatively few ICBMs and will be left with no alternative but to step up its nuclear missile programme. This could lead to a chain reaction in the region. The US state department has recently circulated a document among its embassies which bluntly states that plans to test elements of the national missile defence system "will conflict with the requirement of the 1972 treaty within the next few months, not years."