Xi’s New World Order
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at expanding Chinese influence on the world stage, Belgium pledging to recognize Palestinian statehood, and alleged Russian interference with a European Commission flight.
A New, Multipolar World
Chinese President Xi Jinping presented his vision of a new world order this week: one where Beijing’s military and diplomatic might supersedes the U.S.-led status quo. From a two-day summit focused on bolstering East Asian investment to a military parade with high-profile guests, Beijing is hoping to signal the emergence of a new multipolar world shaped heavily by China and its allies.
On Sunday, more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries convened in the Chinese city of Tianjin for this year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting. Chinese state media called the gathering the “largest-ever SCO summit in history” and said it aims to chart “the blueprint for the bloc’s next decade of development.”
Several agreements were signed over the course of two days. Among those, China convinced its partner countries to support the creation of a new Chinese-led development bank, something that Beijing has sought since 2010. In addition, China proposed a Global Governance Initiative aimed at building what Xi called “a more just and equitable” multilateral governance system.
Xi met with several world leaders on the summit’s sidelines to discuss bilateral trade and development, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country has been subjected to high U.S. tariffs for continuing to purchase Russian oil despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
China’s ties with Russia have grown particularly close in recent months. On Tuesday, Xi concluded talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin by announcing that Beijing will begin offering 30-day visa-free access to Russian travelers starting later this month. Xi also inked a memorandum with Putin to build a new natural gas pipeline that will bring reserves from Russia’s West Siberia into northern China via eastern Mongolia. The two countries additionally agreed to have Russian state energy company Gazprom increase gas deliveries to China via existing routes.
And on Wednesday, Putin is expected to be one of several world leaders to attend Beijing’s largest-ever “Victory Day” parade. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is also expected to make a rare appearance at the military parade in what will be his first time attending a multilateral diplomatic event since taking power. Modi will not be attending.
Experts say that Xi intends to use the event—which will mark 80 years since the end of World War II—to double down on his efforts to promote Chinese leadership on the global stage. “We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics,” Xi said on Monday in a thinly veiled allusion to the United States.
Today’s Most Read
- So You Want to Work in International Affairs by Luke Coffey
- The Question of Israel’s Right to Exist Is a Red Herring by Ian S. Lustick
- The Coming Ecological Cold War by Nils Gilman
What We’re Following
Pledging Palestinian statehood. Belgium on Tuesday joined a growing list of Western nations that are preparing to recognize an independent Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month. However, Belgium said the designation will not go into effect until certain conditions are met.
“Aware of the trauma caused to the Israeli people by the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, by Hamas, the administrative formalization of this recognition by royal decree will take place once the last hostage has been released and Hamas no longer has any role in managing Palestine,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot posted on X. Nearly 50 hostages remain in Gaza, of whom only around 20 are believed to still be alive.
Australia, Canada, France, Malta, Portugal, and the United Kingdom have also pledged to recognize an independent Palestinian state at the upcoming U.N. summit. They will join more than 145 U.N. member states that already recognize Palestine, several of which made their designation last spring.
As part of Tuesday’s announcement, Belgium also issued sanctions on Israel, including banning products imported from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and designating two extremist Israeli ministers “persona non grata.” Although the ministers were not named, experts believe the designations are in regard to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have both advocated for Palestinian displacement and have been accused of inciting violence in the West Bank.
Suspected Russian interference. Bulgarian authorities believe that Russia was responsible for jamming the GPS of a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen while it was in the air on Sunday, European Commission deputy chief spokesperson Arianna Podestà said on Monday.
Von der Leyen was conducting a multiday tour of several Eastern European nations when her plane lost its GPS navigation while in the air over Bulgaria, forcing the pilots to rely on paper maps to land. Podestà said von der Leyen’s plane landed safely (but delayed) despite the alleged interference.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Financial Times, which first reported the news, that “your information is incorrect.”
However, experts say such jamming maneuvers are a regular part of Moscow’s sabotage campaign in its war against Ukraine. Intelligence officials have tracked similar attacks on undersea cables, European transportation infrastructure, and some Ukrainian drones and U.S.-made precision-guided weapons.
“This incident actually underlines the urgency of the mission” to secure greater defense support to counter Russia’s threats against Europe, Podestà said. And on Tuesday, NATO chief Mark Rutte told a press conference that the alliance is “stepping up” to deal with the threat. “I can assure you that we are working day and night to counter this, to prevent it, and to make sure that they will not do it again,” Rutte said.
Deadly natural disasters. The death toll of eastern Afghanistan’s devastating 6.0 magnitude earthquake, which struck on Sunday, has climbed to more than 1,400 people, local officials reported on Tuesday, with another 3,100 injured and some 8,000 homes destroyed. Nearly all of the deaths occurred in Kunar province, though neighboring Nangarhar province also recorded fatalities. Search-and-rescue operations are currently underway, but the extent of the destruction and the area’s remoteness are making such efforts challenging.
This is Afghanistan’s third major earthquake since the Taliban took power in 2021, and it comes as the country is already reeling from a weak economy, limited aid funding, and extensive internal displacement.
Meanwhile, a massive landslide in Sudan’s western Darfur region wiped out an entire village on Sunday. The incident killed as many as 1,000 people in the village of Tarasin, making it one of the country’s deadliest natural disasters in recent history. Only one person is believed to have survived, according to the Sudan Liberation Movement-Army, a rebel group controlling the area. “Our biggest problem is that nobody is coming to help,” Abdul Wahid al-Nur, the group’s leader, told the New York Times on Tuesday. “This is beyond our capability.”
Odds and Ends
One man’s toys are another man’s treasure. South Australian police say they discovered 250,000 Australian dollars’ worth of Legos, stuffed animals, squirt guns, and other playthings that had been stolen from department stores in Adelaide while they were conducting a raid at a private home on Saturday. The haul of roughly 2,500 items—which police say the alleged suspect planned to resell online—required extra officers to be called in to remove the goods. Officials say this was the state’s largest seizure in a retail theft operation in history, filling three truck loads.