Constraining Unipolarity } 545
of unipolarity to trample on their interests. They joined together to counter
perceived US moves that injured their mutual interests.^38
The intensification of the Sino-Russian entente was reinforced by the
movement of the ex-communist East European countries toward NATO.
Soviet forces began withdrawing from the former Soviet bloc countries in
1992, while Washington devised new arrangements for drawing those newly
democratic countries into military partnership with NATO. The result of
US planning was the proposal at an October 1993 NATO defense minis-
ters’ summit of a “Partnership for Peace” between NATO and the new East
European states as a bridge to full NATO membership. Romania was the first
East European country to join the Partnership for Peace, in January 1994. Ten
more East European countries joined during the first three months of 1994.
Russia responded to the transfer of its former East European security zone
to NATO by seeking stronger Chinese support. Over the next several years,
opposition to “the eastward expansion of NATO” was a significant theme
of Chinese propaganda. It was curious to see China’s media concerning it-
self with East European moves to join NATO, but China’s objections made
sense when seen in terms of Russo-Chinese partnership. Both Beijing and
Moscow were being pressed by the United States: Moscow over East Europe,
and Beijing by sanctions, MFN linkage, upgrading the US-Japan alliance,
and Taiwan. The Russo-Chinese entente increasingly became a partnership
in countering the US pressure.
Early in 1994, as NATO’s Partnership for Peace was moving forward, Yeltsin
sent a letter to Jiang Zemin proposing a “constructive partnership.” Li Peng,
then premier and also head of the Foreign Affairs Leadership Small Group,
was very receptive to the proposal. The result was a visit by Jiang Zemin to
Moscow in September. Jiang, like Li Peng, was Soviet-trained. The joint com-
muniqué resulting from the Jiang-Yeltsin meeting provided that neither side
would target their nuclear weapons against the other or be the first to use
nuclear weapons against the other. These two pledges constituted a symbolic
affirmation of convergent Chinese and Russian interests.
Another summit meeting of Jiang and Yeltsin occurred in April 1996 in the
immediate aftermath of the US-PRC military confrontation in the Taiwan
Strait. The joint communiqué resulting from this summit ratcheted up the
Sino-Soviet relation to a “strategic cooperative partnership.” The commu-
niqué also pledged each signatory to support the other on territorial issues.
The communiqué stated that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Chinese
territory” and coupled this with a declaration of Chinese “support” for
“measures and actions” adopted by the Russian government on the ques-
tion of Chechnya. In effect, Beijing and Moscow were promising to support
each other’s use of military force to deal with these issues, regardless of what
Washington or Europe might say. An overview of the new Russo-Chinese
partnership in a January 1997 internal publication of the journal of the Peace