After US President Donald Trump flew out of Beijing following a glamorous, rare state visit, the first in a decade by a US president, China proved to be a modern-day mecca for crisis diplomacy as Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in.
A MERE week after US President Donald Trump flew out of Beijing following a glamorous rare state visit, the first in a decade by a US president, China proved to be a modern-day mecca for crisis diplomacy as Russian President Vladimir Putin stepped in.
The contrast in both mood and expectation was palpable in every corner of the universe. Whereas Trump was in China to reset fragile bilateral relations, Putin sat down with his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, to cement all-weather ties that have grown to symbolise an antithesis to the US-led Western hegemony.
It has thus been a fortnight of high-level diplomacy by arguably the world’s three most powerful leaders. However, that Beijing was the meeting point marked a significant shift in global power relations. If anything, it confirmed, if there was any doubt, the meteoric rise of China in international affairs.
The world’s second-biggest economy continues to host a flurry of world leaders seeking a special and private audience with the Chinese president. The world is indeed turning to China to solve intractable global challenges that traditional multilateral institutions are sadly no longer able to resolve.
