China tries to use Trump turmoil to unite leaders against U.S.-led order [View all]

Source: Washington Post

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has welcomed a large group of foreign dignitaries to China for meetings that he hopes will unite regional powers in their shared grievances with the U.S.-led global order and the policies of President Donald Trump.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and India’s Narendra Modi are among 20 foreign leaders attending the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which began Sunday in this port city 90 miles southeast of Beijing.

The forum is a key part of China’s campaign to be seen as a reliable partner and a counterweight to U.S. unpredictability in an increasingly multipolar world. Modi’s attendance in particular — his first visit to the country in seven years — is a milestone in Beijing’s attempt to mend ties with an influential U.S. partner that has been alienated by Trump’s tariffs.

For now, the 26-country grouping is primarily “united in a sense of aggrievement with the U.S. rather than a sense of common purpose,” said Carla Freeman, director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. “These are big countries with their own agendas.”

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