Chinese President Xi Jinping gives a speech on Monday during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tianjin, China.SUO TAKEKUMA/Reuters
As U.S. President Donald Trump’s global trade war continues to disrupt international relations, Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday called for the creation of a “more just and equitable global governance system.”
Mr. Xi was speaking at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, in Tianjin. Founded in 2001, the China-led SCO was initially confined to Russia and four countries in Central Asia, but under Mr. Xi has expanded to include India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus, as well as more than a dozen observer states and “dialogue partners.”
Along with his signature Belt and Road Initiative and the expansion of BRICS, the SCO has been a key plank in Mr. Xi’s ongoing efforts to upend the post-World War II, Western-led global order, a plan that has been supercharged by Mr. Trump’s alienation of many of Washington’s traditional partners, even as the U.S. has sought to isolate China with the threat of crippling tariffs.
No country exemplifies this shift more than India. The U.S. has aggressively courted New Delhi under successive administrations, while Sino-Indian relations were bruised by multiple border clashes and trade disputes.
India benefitted from a “friendshoring” drive which began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when Western brands sought a backup to manufacturing in China, and was bolstered by the threat of U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
While some Western countries – notably Canada – have been wary of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aggressive right-wing Hindu nationalism, he was initially embraced by Mr. Trump, who hosted his “great friend” at a raucous “Howdy Modi” celebration in Texas during his first term.
That friendship has unravelled since Mr. Trump’s return to office however, as the two men reportedly soured on each other due to Mr. Trump’s claims to have “solved” the longstanding India-Pakistan conflict, and Mr. Modi’s refusal to stop buying cheap Russian oil. Last month, the U.S. slapped some of its most stringent tariffs on Indian goods, though enforcement of these measures has been thrown into doubt by a recent court verdict.
Beijing has not wasted the opening, sending top diplomat Wang Yi to India to smooth over the border issue and create an opening for a meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi in Tianjin, the Indian leader’s first visit to China in seven years.
“The world today is swept by once-in-a-century transformations,” Mr. Xi said Sunday as he welcomed Mr. Modi. “The international situation is both fluid and chaotic.”
Mr. Modi – who also attended the SCO summit on Monday – said that “given the uncertainties in the world economy, it is vital for India and China to strengthen cooperation.”
Mr. Modi says New Delhi is committed to improving ties with China in a key meeting with Mr. Xi on Sunday.
Reuters
At Monday’s meeting, Mr. Xi called on SCO members to leverage their “mega-scale market” to boost trade and investment, and promised to boost Chinese aid and lending. As the “world’s largest regional organization,” the SCO’s “international influence and appeal are increasing,” Mr. Xi added.
“We must uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core and support the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core,” he said, urging members to avoid “Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation, and bullying.”
As well as Mr. Modi, Mr. Xi held bilateral meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who said he briefed his Chinese counterpart on the outcome of his recent summit with Mr. Trump in Alaska.
“We highly appreciate the efforts and proposals from China and India aimed at facilitating the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,” Mr. Putin said Monday. “The understandings reached at the recent Russia–U.S. meeting in Alaska, I hope, also contribute toward this goal.”
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He praised the SCO as having revived “genuine multilateralism” and laying the “political and socio-economic groundwork for the formation of a new system of stability and security in Eurasia.”
“This security system, unlike Euro-centric and Euro-Atlantic models, would genuinely consider the interests of a broad range of countries, be truly balanced, and would not allow one country to ensure its own security at the expense of others,” Mr. Putin said.
The Russian leader is staying in China until Wednesday, when he will attend a large military parade in Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. He and Mr. Xi will be joined at that event by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and 24 other foreign leaders in another show of Chinese diplomatic clout.
With a report from Reuters