Xi Jinping has it all. From Donald Trump’s perspective, the Chinese leader is basking in sycophantic bonhomie from fellow global authoritarians while enjoying a parade of tanks and stealth bombers, massive missiles, lasers and mass marches of beautifully drilled infantry.
Xi’s international prestige is at an all-time high. And Trump gave it to him.
Xi could have been addressing his thoughts directly to the White House when he said, at Monday’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, that the world was going through “turbulent change” and what is needed is an orderly “multipolar world”.
China, he believes, is the candidate to lead that multipolar world as first among equals, while Trump has swung a wrecking ball against the foundations of international law which underpin global security.
In the first months of his second term, the US president has attacked his own allies. He has echoed Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions by voicing threats against Canada and Denmark. He has also abandoned climate change and global democracy as strategic policies worth pushing.
In short, Trump has undermined the West. And that makes Xi not only look good but makes him more powerful.
America is, along with Israel, abandoning democracy at home and ignoring international law abroad. Both attacked Iran without United Nations support. Both are involved in the relentless bombing of Gaza. Both are supportive of increasingly loopy ideas for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland.
In his vision for the future, Xi told the SCO conference: “We should expand the scope of co-operation, make the most of each country’s unique strengths, and shoulder together the shared responsibility of promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity.”
China is the biggest importer of Russian oil – Xi’s country funds Putin’s war along with the European Union which still imports vast amounts of gas. Xi’s government supplies the Kremlin with the technology it needs for rockets and bombs, drones and communications.
But, unlike the US, China hasn’t got directly involved in any recent military conflicts. It didn’t invade Iraq illegally. It didn’t fight a futile war in Afghanistan. And it doesn’t carry out extra judicial killings around the world in the name of pre-empting future attacks.
China plays a long game. It has hoovered up access to the world’s rare earth elements – producing 70 per cent, refining 90 per cent and holding 40 per cent of what we need to run the planet.
Unlike Trump, Xi is serious and statesmanlike. He’s cynical and unprincipled in the application of authoritarian capitalism – not unstable and economically illiterate. Xi understands, for example, that every cent of US imposed import duties (tariffs) comes from America while Trump sincerely believes tariffs bring in foreign money.
Russia and China are the West’s long-term threats or rivals. Russia has invaded Europe and Putin has said he wants more than just Ukraine. Xi is a direct threat to Taiwan.
China’s power is more economic – a slow and strategic spending of $30 billion on ports projects on every continent except Antarctica and wrapping 140 nations into its road energy and digital infrastructure. It is second only to the US in terms of economic size.
But nine of the 25 biggest economies are in the European Union – include the UK and Switzerland and that makes 11 European states. Add Canada, Japan and Taiwan and pro-Western nations clearly bestride the globe.
However, Trump appears more comfortable in the company of men like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Putin and Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister. The latter leads the world’s biggest democracy but, like Trump, leans hard into populism with authoritarian tendencies.
Trump would not want to have shared the spotlight with Xi. But China is hosting the kind of gathering that Trump most wants to have. And Xi is emerging as the grown up leader of a new global power bloc that binds his nation closer to Russia, India, and North Korea. Other Asian nations are sidling into his jet stream because the West as led by Trump is rudderless and downright weird.
The spectacle of Trump’s cabinet grovelling to the US president in three hour sessions are reminiscent of the worst scenes of dictatorial theatre of the Soviet era and of China’s Cultural Revolution.
Europe can survive Trump and just as prestige has drained from Washington to Beijing so it can be diverted to the Continent. America’s loss does not have to be just China’s gain.
After all, Trump’s love of parades began not after being upstaged by Putin but being flattered by Macron and seeing France show off its colours along the Champs Elysees.
