In Thursday's much anticipated bilateral meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan, the two leaders agreed that the end of a unipolar world where the US dominates is at hand. Putin called it "ugly" and pointed to the rejection of American hegemony by the "vast majority" of countries in his introductory remarks.

The geopolitical flashpoints of Ukraine and Taiwan were high on the discussion list, with the Russian leader telling Xi the West's "attempts to create a unipolar world have recently taken on an absolutely ugly shape and are absolutely unacceptable to the vast majority of nations on the planet," according to a state media translation. However, many Western pundits are now seizing upon a cryptic reference to China's Xi raising "concerns" over the Ukraine situation.