Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin talk to each other during their meeting in Beijing, Feb. 4. (Alexei Druzhinin, Associated Press/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

On Feb. 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing. They agreed to a treaty of alliance between their two states that seeks to establish a new world order in which the United States is to be marginalized.

Some may remember the infamous precedent for such an alliance between two autocratic states — the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939, under which the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany agreed to divide up Poland and in the process triggered World War II in Europe.

In the new Russian/Chinese collaboration, Russia agrees to China's right to conquer Taiwan and China agrees to Russia's right to have its proposals adopted "to create long-term legally binding security guarantees in Europe."

To be fair, the Putin/Xi pact does expressly state that Russia and China support human rights, democracy, international law and the United Nations.

But the agreement nefariously creates standards that sabotage human rights, democracy, international law and the United Nations.

The agreement superimposes over those institutions the right of a state to impose discipline on those it rules. So international law and the United Nations may not question how a state builds out its own form of "democracy" or what "rights" it decides to give its people.

In a "Joint statement of the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China on the international relations entering a new era and the global sustainable development," the pact affirms that:

"There is no one-size-fits-all template to guide countries in establishing democracy. A nation can choose such forms and methods of implementing democracy that would best suit its particular state. ... It is only up to the people of the country to decide whether their State is a democratic one."

Thus, the statement continues, Russia and China "oppose ... interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of protecting democracy and human rights, and any attempts to incite divisions and confrontation in the world. [They] call on the international community to respect cultural and civilizational diversity. ..."

In a stinging criticism of the U.S., the statement also affirms that "Certain States' attempts to impose their own 'democratic standards' on other countries, to monopolize the right to assess the level of compliance with democratic criteria, to draw dividing lines based on the grounds of ideology, including by establishing exclusive blocs and alliances of convenience ... pose serious threats to global and regional peace and ... the stability of the world order."

Where, you might ask, does a state get its right to establish a moral order all to itself? Putin and Xi answer: History and ethnic identity give rise to rights superior to individual claims of personal rights. It is the old, toxic German concept of the "Volk."

The statement asserts: "Russia and China as world powers with rich cultural and historical heritage have long-standing traditions of democracy, which rely on thousand years of experience of development, broad popular support and consideration of the needs and interests of citizens. Russia and China guarantee their people the right to take part through various means and in various forms in the administration of the State and public life in accordance with the law. The people of both countries are certain of the way they have chosen and respect the democratic systems and traditions of other States."

Putin published an article in July of last year of such importance that it is on his personal website as president of Russia. Titled "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians," it states:

"Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians are all descendants of Ancient Rus, which was the largest state in Europe. Slavic and other tribes across the vast territory … were bound together by one language ... economic ties, the rule of the princes of the Rurik dynasty, and — after the baptism of Rus — the Orthodox faith."

Putin's reference to the moral authority of the Russian Orthodox Church is to be taken most seriously. He has restored the old dualism of the Moscow czars where the czar and the church shared authority over the Rus. Putin has given support to, and received support from, the patriarchate in Moscow.

For China, Xi Jinping's national ethic is also theological. He is recovering and modernizing the imperial system launched by the Qin dynasty in 221 B.C. What Xi and his advisers are really doing is de-Westernizing China to put forward once again late Bronze-Age Chinese conceits.

According to that ancient view, the origin of Chinese state supremacy is heaven, which gives all power to one son-of-heaven, who in turn may impose unquestioned order on the all-under-heaven, which is nothing less than our whole worldwide human family.

In their new pact, the Russians give a blessing to this Chinese aspiration for influencing the all-under-heaven: "The Russian side notes the significance of the concept of constructing a 'community of common destiny for mankind' proposed by the Chinese side ..."

The Putin-Xi pact envisions a world where the U.S. has been sidelined: "The sides ... reaffirm that the new inter-State relations between Russia and China are superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era." And they "express concern over the advancement of U.S. plans to develop global missile defense ... and other strategic objectives."

As former President George H.W. Bush once quipped: "We are in deep doo-doo."

In fact, I fear that one era in human history is ending and a new one is being born. What is ending is what we have called "the Enlightenment" which started in the 18th century in Europe and built cultures and political systems based on "reason," replacing tribal gods and intolerant religion. From enlightened reason Western thought derived human rights, free speech, democracy and, of course, modern science, which gave us the technological basis for our civilization. But in our time the Enlightenment impulse seems to have run out of gas and is dying away.

Perhaps correctly intuiting the changing course of history, Putin and Xi propose a post-Enlightenment world order based on the dictatorship of the collective, an update of Benito Mussolini's concept of the "fascist" community where individuals are bound together as in the old Roman "fasces" — the symbol of an unbreakable group authority.

In the U.S. today the corresponding censorious, authoritarian, post-Enlightenment darkness metastasizing among us is expressed in wokeness, intersectionality and critical race theory.

Stephen B. Young, of St. Paul, is global executive director of the Caux Round Table, an organization dedicated to promoting ethical capitalism.