Xi has held at least five high-profile tete-a-tetes, despite the lack of any formal gathering in China’s capital this week. Excluding weeks the country hosted major summits, it’s the quickest tempo since July 2024.
The roster has ranged from a US NATO ally – Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez-to a West Asia representative-Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed. The meetings were followed by a visit from the leader of neighboring Vietnam-To Lam, the nation’s president and Communist Party chief.
Xi has been positioning his nation as a source of stability and bulwark of respect for international rules, against the backdrop of President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Iran ‘back to the Stone Ages.’
“World leaders are heading to Beijing because they increasingly see China as a hedge against an unpredictable United States,” said Neil Thomas, fellow on Chinese Politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis. “Many want Beijing to play a larger role as a defender of stability, diplomacy, and an open global economy.”
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Trump, by contrast, has spent the week deepening his isolation on the global stage, by openly lambasting one-time close allies including Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the UK’s Keir Starmer. He also launched a broadside against Pope Leo XIV, calling the popular and highly visible spiritual leader “terrible for foreign policy.”
Italy’s foreign minister this week visited Beijing, where officials pledged to deepen ties with Rome.
Trump has increasingly-and unsuccessfully-turned to threats to pressure allies into working with the US military to open up the Strait of Hormuz and restore flows of energy from the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world.
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