The Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Central Asia this week with a message for a world increasingly unsettled by President Trump: China has friends and influence, and is prepared to help shape what comes next.
The scene unfolded at a security summit in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where Mr. Xi gathered with the leaders of Russia and Iran. He presented Beijing as a source of stability and a champion of an “orderly multipolar world” that would replace the current U.S.-dominated order.
If the Bishkek summit was designed to project solidarity, a meeting of the world’s most powerful countries in the mountains of Asheville, N.C., offered an image of fracture.
European officials attending that meeting of the Group of 20 nations’ finance ministers and central bankers expressed outrage this week that the Trump administration had invited Russia, despite its war against Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that Canada was too small to fight a trade war with the United States. And officials were already confronting the economic fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which disrupted the flow of oil and pushed global energy prices up and threatened to slow growth.
The simultaneous gatherings happening across the world reflected the broader contest over who will define the next phase of global order. China is using its solidarity with Russia and Iran, two countries at war with the West, to project its influence, giving Mr. Xi leverage as he prepared for a summit with Mr. Trump later this month. The United States, meanwhile, was straining the alliances and economic relationships that have underpinned decades of global leadership.
“China’s theory of the case for bending the international political order in its preferred direction is to amass support from the ‘global majority,’” said Ryan Hass, a former career diplomat and White House national security official now at the Brookings Institution.
“This is why Xi’s participation in these groupings is so important to Beijing,” he added. “It builds a narrative around China gaining momentum in building support for playing a more central role on the world stage.”
In Bishkek, at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Mr. Xi met with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan, but his talks with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia carried the most weight. Just days earlier, John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, had made a secret trip to Moscow to urge the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. Mr. Xi told Mr. Putin: “The foundation of China-Russia relations will become ever stronger.”
President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran also attended the summit, though it was not immediately clear if Mr. Xi held talks with him.
By comparison, the United States appears to be drifting away from its historical allies and weakening America’s ability to project strength globally. Mr. Trump has opened up a trade war with Canada and reduced war games with South Korea. Concerns are also growing that the United States is depleting its munitions in Iran and unable to meet its defense commitments around the world.
Lars Klingbeil, the German vice chancellor and finance minister, told reporters at the G20 that it was “troubling” that the Trump administration had invited Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov. Mr. Klingbeil said he scolded Mr. Siluanov during a session on Monday over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Many Europeans were also angered that the Treasury Department did not invite representatives from South Africa, a longtime G20 member and Africa’s largest economy.
An Opportunity for China
Beijing is happy to seize the opportunity that Mr. Trump is presenting by alienating Washington’s partners. Wu Xinbo, an American studies scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai who advises China’s Foreign Ministry, said that Beijing had two objectives: to build a consensus so that the United States could no longer dictate the agenda alone and to take a larger role in powering the world economy. (China also attended the G20 meeting.)
“Now that the American engine is losing steam — or even generating negative side effects — China, as an economic engine, must step up and play a greater role in driving and leading global growth,” he said.
The meeting in Bishkek was one stop in a broader diplomatic campaign by Mr. Xi to work both sides of the emerging divide in global politics. He has hosted many Western leaders — including those from Germany, Britain and Canada — this year. He will head to Cairo next and is also expected to attend a summit of BRICS nations, a group of emerging economies led by China and India, in New Delhi.
As much as Mr. Xi would like to cast such groupings as a unified counterbalance to the West, disagreements and tensions still abound. Beijing and New Delhi have traditionally been at odds in BRICS over how to rival the United States, with India reluctant to be too confrontational.
In another sign of a crack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India urged Mr. Putin during talks on the sidelines of the summit in Kyrgyzstan to end his war in Ukraine for the sake of “humanity.” Mr. Putin told Mr. Modi that Russia was “moving in this direction,” according to Russian state media.
The Bishkek summit also exposed the limits of the group’s solidarity. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not a military alliance. Beijing can offer diplomatic backing, but has been unwilling to commit forces to defend Russia or Iran.
To China, that is the point of the arrangement, argues Zhou Bo, a retired People’s Liberation Army senior colonel who is now at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“It is not based on alliance relationships, so it is not provocative,” he said. “That’s why people have no problem accepting it or engaging with it.”
As Washington retreats and the world becomes increasingly multipolar, countries will choose to join more pragmatic forums with less strings attached, Mr. Zhou said. “Naturally everyone is hedging their bets,” he said.
Building Leverage Before Trump Summit
China’s diplomatic show of strength also reflects Mr. Xi’s need to widen his options before he meets with Mr. Trump in Washington later this month.
Despite striking an economic truce with China, the Trump administration has continued to apply pressure by banning imports of Chinese robots and expanding sanctions on Chinese companies that import Iranian oil.
Trump officials have also moved to slow China’s advancement in artificial intelligence by threatening to restrict Chinese A.I. models that collect data from American ones. The Trump administration is preparing to warn dozens of countries not to participate in a Chinese A.I. initiative or risk being shut out of an American A.I. coalition called Pax Silica, according to a letter written by the State Department and seen by The New York Times. (It is unclear if the letters have been sent. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment).
China is facing potential trade restrictions from Europe, too. Lawmakers in Brussels are trying to slow the deluge of Chinese products like electric vehicles, solar panels and industrial chemicals flooding the European Union and accelerating the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
Then there are Mr. Xi’s domestic vulnerabilities. A more immediate one is a flood along the border with Nepal that has left thousands dead and missing and is raising questions about China’s preparedness. Another is the yearslong property crisis that has suppressed the Chinese economy, forcing Beijing to rely more on exports to power growth, even as that strategy has frayed relations with trading partners.
“China is facing headwinds, so is the United States,” said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington. “The right balance is between getting enough support and endorsement at the S.C.O. without poking Trump directly in the eye.”
Siyi Zhao contributed research from Beijing.
