This is a big deal for Russia, given the sanctions on its oil trade as a result of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Overall, Putin\u2019s trip reinforced what has becoming ever clearer over the past few years. That China\u2019s vision of a new order is not tripartite and does not involve Putin\u2019s Russia as equal partner. Whether it\u2019s a duet with the US is another matter. Even if it is now, it won\u2019t be for long, Wolff concludes.<\/p>\n
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\n Marcin Kaczmarski, an expert in Russia-China relations at the University of Glasgow, explains the asymmetry in the partnership<\/a> between the two countries. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that Xi has far more capacity to help Russia than Putin has to offer China.<\/p>\n \n As Putin was arriving, details of some of the \u201cfantastic trade deals\u201d Trump had struck during his own visit to China were emerging. China has committed to buying 200 Boeing jets as well as billions of dollars of soybeans and other agricultural products. <\/p>\n Interestingly, while China said that reducing tariffs would be part of the plans, the US has said nothing about this. And while the US readout after the visit mentioned that China would address shortages of the rare earth minerals it controls, Beijing\u2019s report, in turn, reportedly failed to mention this.<\/p>\n So while the US president\u2019s trip was \u201ccordial\u201d it was also \u201cunderwhelming\u201d. The fact remains, writes Maria Ryan<\/a>, an expert in US foreign policy at the University of Nottingham, that the US and China are now the two global superpowers and their interests are bound to diverge. So visits such as Trump\u2019s to Beijing last week \u2013 and Xi\u2019s forthcoming trip to the US in the autumn \u2013 are all about managing their rivalry and controlling the areas where the two might come into conflict. <\/p>\n Ryan concludes that despite the cordiality, this meeting will have done nothing to diminish the long-term rivalry between Washington and Beijing, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.<\/p>\n \n Based on his reported comments, Xi Jinping is clearly alive to that rivalry and took pains to remind the US president, with a pointed, if friendly, historical reference to what he called the \u201cThucydides trap\u201d. Trump will no doubt have remembered the Greek historian from a reference made by Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, in February. <\/p>\n But, confusingly for those of us who are not scholars of the classics, while Carney was referring to Thucydides\u2019s aphorism that \u201cthe strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must\u201d, Xi was taking as his example the Peloponnesian War between the military might of Sparta and the rising power of Athens, which lasted 30 years and effectively destroyed both city states. <\/p>\n Neville Morley, a professor in classics at the University of Exeter, puts Xi\u2019s warning into its modern context<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n Americans are increasingly turning against the war in Iran and the president that launched it, if Donald Trump\u2019s poor domestic approval ratings are any guide. But the US president\u2019s foreign policy adventures have been worrying many US allies for a lot longer, according to polling expert Paul Whiteley<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whiteley reports on a survey taken by Pew Research about a year ago which found that people in 24 mostly European countries, but also countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, have little confidence that the US president will do the right thing and see him as \u201cdangerous\u201d. <\/p>\n As Whiteley observes, there\u2019s a fair correlation between proximity and lack of confidence in the US president and, increasingly, America itself. The US will need to work hard to regain the trust it has lost over the past 16 months, he believes.<\/p>\n \n Meanwhile in the Middle East the ceasefire between the US and Israel and Iran limps on, despite claims and counter claims of violations and threats by the US president to end it. Meanwhile in Russia, both sides reportedly breached unilateral ceasefires proposed around the May 9 commemoration of the defeat of Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n In Lebanon, Israel is reported to have repeatedly breached the ceasefire, choosing to blame Hezbollah \u2013 which is insists is not a party to the truce. And in Gaza it feels as if no day passes without reports of deaths, despite a ceasefire being in place there since October last year. <\/p>\n Laura Wise, an expert in conflict resolution at the University of Edinburgh explains why lasting ceasefires are so elusive<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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\n Putin and Xi: Russian president\u2019s China trip shows for the second time in a week how rapidly the world order is changing<\/a>
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\n Xi and Putin tout \u2018new type\u2019 of world order in Beijing \u2013 but is their alliance really that strong?<\/a>
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\n Trump\u2019s \u2018cordial\u2019 Beijing trip has not changed superpower rivalry<\/a>
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\nTrap for unwary presidents<\/h2>\n
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\n Xi warned Trump against the \u2018Thucydides Trap\u2019 \u2013 here\u2019s what ancient Greece can tell us about US-China relations<\/a>
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\nHow Trump\u2019s America looks to the outside world<\/h2>\n
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\n How the world sees Donald Trump: surveys show other countries see US president as \u2018unreliable\u2019 and \u2018dangerous\u2019<\/a>
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\nWhy do so many ceasefires fail?<\/h2>\n
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