LONDON -- When Chinese President Hu Jintao was in Moscow in early July, he sought to strengthen the "strategic partnership" between China and Russia that his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed in Moscow four years ago.
The July 2001 "friendship treaty" was something of an empty box, offering little more that a call for a "just and rational new (multipolar) international order" and a complaint against U.S. plans and missile-defense systems. Hu and Putin have now tried to fill the 2001 empty box by signing three communiques and issuing a joint statement on "A New 21st Century World Order."
The three communiques and joint statement cover a lot of ground. One communique includes the usual pledge to strengthen trade and investment links, joint exploration for oil and gas -- including pipeline construction -- and calls for introducing a new vigor into "bilateral relations in politics, economy, science and culture."