It’s been a busy few months for China — and sobering ones for the United States. Last month, the world’s rising superpower and second-largest economy held its biggest political gathering of the year, cementing leader Xi Jinping’s controversial third term and ushering in loyalists to key high-level positions.
Days later, Beijing announced it had brokered a deal that will see Persian Gulf rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran normalize relations, a shocking diplomatic coup in an area long dominated by the United States. Xi was reportedly personally involved in the negotiations. “This landmark agreement has the potential to transform the Middle East by realigning its major powers,” the journal Foreign Affairs declared, adding that the gambit is “weaving the region into China’s global ambitions. For Beijing, the announcement was a great leap forward in its rivalry with Washington.” But the biggest news came two weeks ago, when Xi flew to Moscow and met with Vladimir Putin, just days after the International Criminal Court in the Hague issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president on charges of war crimes in Russia’s year-old invasion of Ukraine.
“ ‘China has seen a space where it is hard for the West to really block off — heading into issues [that the Western powers] feel are too intractable or too toxic to touch and trying to demonstrate that there might be a different way to mediate or involve yourself in these problems.’ ”
— Kerry Brown, King’s College London
“There are changes coming that haven’t happened in 100 years,” Xi told Putin as the self-described “dear friends” concluded their talks. “When we are together, we are driving these …