Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have long showcased their bromance on the world stage.
Now, they’re embracing a powerful new friend: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Pictures of the three leaders laughing during an impromptu huddle today on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin signaled the beginning of a new chapter in regional diplomacy.
“Exchanging perspectives with President Putin and President Xi during the SCO Summit,” Modi posted on his official X account.
For Xi, the optics could hardly have been better. As US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and foreign-policy swings upend America’s global standing, China’s leader is seeking to elevate Beijing’s position on the world stage.
Making up with Modi is part of that push.
It’s just two years ago that Xi broke decades of precedent to skip a Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, dealing a public snub to Modi as tensions simmered between the world’s two most populous nations.
Now, with the US targeting Indian and Chinese exports with tariffs past 50%, the neighbors are putting aside their border dispute and eyeing ways to do more business.
And while Putin and Modi have long been partners — Russia is India’s primary defense supplier, after all — the three men together forging such a united front stands out.
That show of common purpose calls into question how effective Trump’s campaign to prise India away from Russian oil, and convince China to buy more from the US, is really going to be.
The answer may come only when Trump arrives in Beijing for his own taste of Xi’s diplomatic charm — the date for which still hasn’t been set.
For the time being, the emergence of a new Xi-Putin-Modi alliance is a worrying development for defenders of the US-led global order. — Jenni Marsh