As tanks growled across Red Square and fighter jets streaked overhead, Russia's rift with the West was strikingly apparent. An array of anti-Western leaders lined up with President Vladimir Putin to watch 15000 troops march below the walls of the Kremlin to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War 2.The Russian president's guests at the weekend underlined the split with the wartime allies, including Britain, France and the US, whose leaders boycotted the event in protest at Moscow's intervention in the Ukraine.Instead, the stands in front of Lenin's tomb were filled with a motley group including leaders from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Raul Castro, of Cuba, Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, Nicolas Maduro, of Venezuela and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, of Egypt.Guest of honour was Xi Jinping, president of China, in a sign of flourishing Sino-Russian ties in the face of EU and US sanctions on Moscow.Barack Obama, the US president, and David Cameron, the British prime minister, both snubbed the event. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also skipped the festivities.In his speech, Putin did not touch on the boycott and made no mention of the war in Ukraine, where pro-Moscow rebels are fighting troops of the country's pro-Western government.Xi, Putin and the others looked like any modern world leaders: pragmatic men-in-suits, smiling, temporary possessors of power rather than dictators-for-life.Back in 1949, when Mao Tse-tung visited Moscow to celebrate Joseph Stalin's 70th birthday, it was a paean to old-school communism. Mao wore his Mao suit and Stalin military uniform. Both looked grumpy.But the two events, six decades apart, have a clear parallel. Once again, the Russia-China axis is the main threat to the West's vision of peaceful and prosperous international relations.The lineup of leaders alongside Putin and Xi was a walking representation of a new anti-American alliance, formed bit by bit since the invasion of Iraq showed the ease with which Washington could destroy hostile leaders far away.What is starkly apparent is that Russia and China are now openly stating their intention to stand together to lead such an alliance.Mao's falling-out with Stalin's successors led to the US-China rapprochement after Richard Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972. That detente helped defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War.Twenty years ago, when presidents Bill Clinton, of the US, and Jiang Zemin, of China, stood alongside Boris Yeltsin at the 1995 Moscow Victory Day parade the power relations were evident.A self-confident US knew that Russia was no longer a threat, and China was dependent for economic growth on US spending power and investment.But at the weekend in Moscow there was no US and there was no doubt whose smile was most confident.Xi finds himself in a diplomatic sweet spot. It is Putin who gets the flak for standing up to Nato in Ukraine, for supporting the Assad regime in Syria, for threatening to sell air-defence systems to Iran.But it is China who is the ultimate winner, as the US's attention is diverted from Beijing's expansion across the South China Sea. China is openly developing a naval strategy aimed at challenging US dominance of the western Pacific.Xi is happy to be seen to play second fiddle on the podium. With China's star rising he has no doubt as to where the balance of power will lie in years to come...