The long-awaited international renunciation of the dollar has begun. On November 23 in St. Petersburg, visiting Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced alternatives to the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. They will no longer rely on the dollar in bilateral trade. Instead, the two Asian giants will now use each another's currencies for cross-border commerce.
Nor is the change in exchange currencies the only sign of the growing Sino-Russian friendship. The St. Petersburg summit produced 12 different agreements ranging from intellectual property protection to energy production. China has agreed to purchase two advanced nuclear reactors from Russia, while Russia is working to negotiate a price for sale of more natural gas to the Chinese.
While no one should begrudge the Chinese and Russians their mutual admiration society, the unspoken subtext of such announcements is the determination to diminish the influence of the United States in global affairs. . (Source: Charles Scaliger, New American, Nov 25, 2010).