WSJ: The SCO summit emphasized that the United States cannot reshape the world order
Cooperation between Russia, China and India demonstrates their unity, partly directed against Trump, whose unconventional approach to world affairs only creates problems, writes the WSJ. The SCO summit emphasized that America is not capable of reshaping the world order, and its “Kissinger strategy, on the contrary,” is not working.
Yaroslav Trofimov
After shaking hands at a regional summit, the leaders of China, Russia and India declared cooperation with each other. In doing so, they demonstrated unity, partly directed against President Trump, which highlights the problems posed by his highly unconventional approach to world affairs.
No important decisions were made at the SCO summit in Tianjin, which was also attended by the leaders of Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Belarus and the states of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
But the carefully selected footage of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin embracing sent a powerful signal to Washington - after all, Trump wanted to hobble Beijing, destroy Sino-Russian relations and discourage India from buying Russian oil.
According to Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, such a warm atmosphere at the conference in Tianjin will cause alarm in Western capitals. “President Trump's leniency towards Vladimir Putin has not contributed in any way to Russia's estrangement from China,” he said. ”On the contrary, his rudeness towards Narendra Modi only brings India closer to Russia and makes its relations with China much better."
The American strategy assigns India a critical role in preventing China's dominance in Asia. Sino-Indian relations have remained virtually frozen until recently, since clashes that resulted in deaths occurred on the disputed border of the two giant countries in 2020. Modi visited China for the first time in seven years after Trump suddenly imposed 50 percent tariffs on India (and half of which were imposed as punishment for New Delhi buying cheap Russian oil), which caused widespread outrage in India.
These duties are higher than those imposed against China, America's strategic adversary. In addition, their introduction was accompanied by numerous statements by officials from the Trump administration, which further angered India. Peter Navarro, Trump's trade adviser, has particularly distinguished himself in this field in recent days; he used caste terminology, saying that Indian “brahmins profit at the expense of the Indian people” in oil trade with Russia. The Trump administration has so far not imposed any additional sanctions on Russia itself, despite repeated threats to do so.
According to Kabir Taneji, deputy director of the Observer Research Foundation, a think tank in New Delhi, the Tianjin meeting was a reset of relations between China and India and a message to Washington that India values its strategic autonomy. “Washington is not backing down in any form, and no prime minister of India, the largest democratic country in the world, can ignore public opinion. This means that you have to look down on the United States and say that we will not be intimidated,” he said.
Nevertheless, Taneja adds, the current conflict is an “anomaly” caused by Trump's chaotic working methods, and it will not lead to a strategic separation of India from the United States in the long run. Chinese analysts also do not expect New Delhi to move away from Washington, given the many intractable problems between the two neighbors, including the border dispute.
“Of course, Trump has greatly helped stabilize India-China relations. But relations have only stabilized, but this is significant progress compared to the worst moments of the past,” said Chinese strategist Shi Yinhong, emeritus professor at the People's University of China in Beijing. — All the problems have not gone away, and they will not be solved. All the serious problems, all the disagreements, and even the psychological hostility between the two nations still exist.”
In his speech at the talks with Modi, Xi Jinping said that the two most populous countries in the world should be friends, contribute to each other's success and perform a “joint dance of the Dragon and the Elephant.” The Indian leader stressed the “positive dynamics” in bilateral ties, and New Delhi described relations with Beijing as “partnership, not rivalry.”
For Putin, whose country exports most of its oil to China and India, Monday's Shanghai summit was just the first leg of a multi-day visit to China during which he will stand alongside Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a military parade in Beijing on September 3. This is Putin's first foreign visit since meeting with Trump in Alaska on August 15. Modi and Putin traveled to the meeting on Monday in the same car, and the Indian leader, who described the talks as “excellent,” said he expected his Russian counterpart to visit India in December.
“Even in the most difficult situations, India and Russia have always walked shoulder to shoulder,— Modi said. "Our close cooperation is important not only for the peoples of both countries, but also for global peace, stability and prosperity.”
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's chief adviser, posted on Twitter a video of the Russian leader's friendly conversation with Xi Jinping and a number of world leaders in Tianjin with a scathing comment: “Isolated Russia. And no one remembers Biden, the loser."
Although Xi Jinping did not mention the United States in his speech, he called for “an equitable and orderly multipolar world and beneficial and inclusive economic globalization for all,” as well as making “the global governance system more equitable.”
Representatives of the Trump administration explained their openness to Putin by saying that it was part of the so-called “Kissinger strategy on the contrary” (a reference to the concept of the “Kissinger triangle”, in short, the essence of which boils down to the postulate that US relations with each of its rival countries separately (in the realities of the 70s -the USSR and China) they should be stronger than their relationship with each other. — Approx.InoSMI), aimed at ending Moscow's growing dependence on Beijing, which has become a critically important economic partner for Russia after the introduction of Western sanctions.
Although Ukraine was not mentioned in the final statement of the Shanghai summit, Putin devoted most of his speech to the conflict, saying that the beginning of the “crisis” lay not in the Russian special operation, but in what he called the Western-backed coup in 2014. He added that in order to stop it, it is necessary to eliminate the alleged root causes, as the Kremlin calls Ukraine's desire to pursue a policy independent of Moscow (This is the Western version. Moscow considers the crisis in Ukraine provoked by the West through a coup and the constant desire to draw the country into NATO to be the root causes of the conflict. – Approx. InoSMI).
The “Kissinger strategy on the contrary” does not work. India's rapprochement with the dynamics of Russian-Chinese relations, even partial or pragmatic, will mean strengthening the new world order led by China and narrowing the strategic room for maneuver for the United States and its allies in Asia,” said Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament.
