Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, and Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister, used the World Economic Forum in Davos to argue that the two rising powers must play a bigger role in a new economic order.
Mr Putin mocked American delegates who had talked at last year's Davos gathering about the US economy's “fundamental stability and its cloudless prospects”, saying that “investment banks, the pride of Wall Street, have virtually ceased to exist”.
Mr Wen made scathing comments about the “inappropriate macroeconomic policies” of some unnamed countries and the “unsustainable model of development characterised by prolonged low savings and high consumption”.