> We present a formulation of the two algorithms that shows that they are in fact duals of each other. .... Using this framework, we show that all high-performance collectors (for example, deferred reference counting and generational collection) are in fact hybrids of tracing and reference counting.
...
> For every operation performed by the tracing collector, there is a corresponding "anti-operation" performed by the reference counting collector.
...
> We have shown that tracing and reference counting garbage collection, which were previously thought to be very different, in fact share the exact same structure and can be viewed as duals of each other.
Regarding C++ smart pointers, if you manually call them like in std::shared_ptr<>(), no.
If the runtime calls it for you like on C++/CX or compiler blessed types like _com_ptr_t, then surely.
But that only goes for reference types. For value types you're correct that both languages use mostly static memory management.
I guess in that sense you'd have to consider Rust as a gc'd language as well: the only difference really is that you have more fine-grained control over which mode of reference counting is being used for a given object.