By Oleg Shchedrov

BEIJING, April 25 (Reuter) - The presidents of China and Russia on Thursday told the West, with whom both face growing strains, to mind its own business and not to seek domination of the post-Cold War world.

Russia's Boris Yeltsin, on the second day of a three-day visit to China, said he had won the backing he wanted from his Chinese host, President and Chinese Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, in his opposition to NATO's expansion toward Russia's borders.

Each pledged recognition of the other's right to resolve its own internal disputes without foreign interference.

``As far as NATO expansion is concerned, chairman Jiang Zemin resolutely joined Russia's view that NATO's expansion toward its borders is impermissible,'' Yeltsin told a news conference.

A Chinese official confirmed Jiang's backing.

NATO's plans to grant full membership to some Eastern European states that were once Moscow's allies within the Warsaw Pact, bringing the edges of the alliance further east towards Russia's borders, has sparked anxiety in the Kremlin.

``President Jiang Zemin expressed understanding and support for Russia's stand on the issue of NATO,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang told reporters.

``Expansion in the post-Cold War era...is no longer consistent with the times,'' he quoted Jiang as saying.

In a communique signed on Thursday, Yeltsin and Jiang blasted ``hegemonism, power politics and repeated imposition of pressures on other countries'' -- a clear reference to the West and the United States.

Yeltsin's victory in obtaining Chinese support against Western domination of the post-Cold War world came in the face of accusations by Russia's communists, who are keen to drive him from the Kremlin in June elections, that he is too pro-West.

Yeltsin rejects the charge.

China faces its own disputes with the West, in particular with Washington, over a range of issues including human rights, trade and Taiwan.

Beijing watched with alarm this month at the strengthening of the security relationshiop between the United States and Japan, and diplomats said it was eager to use the visit to remind Washington that it had powerful friends elsewhere.

``We are together in our commitment to cooperate in creating a new world order free from claims for monopoly in international affairs,'' Yeltsin told a news conference. Jiang stood beside him and nodded.

However, both leaders made it clear that they were not planning a closer alliance in confrontation with the West.

``We both agreed to develop cooperation between our two countries on the basis of five principles of peaceful co-existance,'' Jiang said, using China's codeword for a non-aligned stance.

``This would answer the basic interests of our people and contribute to regional and international stability,'' he said.

In their declaration, the two leaders pledged Chinese backing for Yeltsin's 16-month military campaign to quell rebel Chechnya, a crackdown that has triggered fierce international criticism -- along with Russian support for Chinese unity.

``The People's Republic of China supports the measures and actions adopted by the Russian Federation in safeguarding its national unity and holds that the question of Chechnya is a domestic affair of Russia,'' the declaration said.

Russia in return confirmed that China's troubled Himalayan region of Tibet and the island of Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province, were inseparable parts of China.