Summit With Russia, India and Iran Shows China’s Growing Leverage Under Xi

A two-day summit of the 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kyrgyzstan highlights the limits of U.S.-led economic warfare and China’s expanding influence over Russia and Iran.

As the leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and other countries gathered in Central Asia for a two-day summit on Monday, one thing was clear from the outset: while President Donald Trump is seeking to reshape the world around Washington, Chinese President Xi Jinping has built a powerful orbit of his own.

Xi’s arrival in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, for a meeting of the 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, underscored China’s ability to sustain countries that are at odds with Washington, both during peacetime and amid war.

The summit comes as two wars have pushed the world into a period of intense geopolitical instability, weakening economic growth and driving up inflation. Those challenges were also being discussed at a simultaneous meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina.

But the meeting in Bishkek served as a showcase of the geopolitical leverage that the wars have given Xi.

No country has been more important than China in helping Russia and Iran sustain their economies and wartime efforts. Beijing has used its enormous economic and geopolitical influence as the world’s largest crude-oil importer and a major exporter of consumer goods to undermine efforts by the United States and its allies to economically isolate Moscow and Tehran.

Xi’s biggest rival, the United States, has been distracted by the war in Iran and has withdrawn some military forces from Asia and Europe.

Last month, Xi also brushed aside threats from Trump that Washington would impose an “economic D-Day” on countries providing Iran with an economic lifeline. Trump had previously issued similar warnings to countries purchasing Russian oil, but Washington did not follow through with comparable action against Beijing.

“After the past year, Trump has a fundamental credibility problem with Xi,” said Julian Gewirtz, who served as the senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council during the Biden administration.

“Both his threats and his assurances appear to Beijing, as another world leader put it, to be written in pencil,” he said.

Xi Seeks to Present China as Leader of the Non-Western World

In Bishkek, Xi’s priority is to strengthen his image as a leader of non-Western nations and push back against what Beijing describes as U.S. hegemony.

At the same time, Chinese officials are likely to remain cautious about how much public support Xi offers Iran.

Xi cannot afford to unnecessarily provoke Trump less than a month before his scheduled trip to Washington, where he is expected to seek an extension of a fragile economic truce between the United States and China.

Before traveling to the United States, Xi is scheduled to visit Egypt and India.

Analysts say the series of visits ahead of his meeting with Trump is intended to portray Xi as a powerful statesman with broad diplomatic options at a time when Trump has strained relations with many U.S. allies.

“Xi appears to see an opportunity to show that China has friends and options around the world at precisely the moment Washington is alienating many of its allies,” Gewirtz said.

The Limits of U.S.-Led Economic Warfare

The Bishkek summit is also a reminder of the limitations of U.S.-led economic warfare.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, both heavily dependent on China, arrived in the Kyrgyz capital on Monday as they seek to withstand Western efforts to isolate them and continue pursuing their wartime objectives.

Beijing has largely obliged, providing economic lifelines to both Moscow and Tehran and using its economic influence in ways that frustrate Washington.

But there are limits to Xi’s power.

Although the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is partly a security grouping, China has been unwilling to deploy its military to defend members such as Iran, which joined the organization in 2023, or Russia.

Instead, Beijing has formally called for dialogue and an end to the conflicts.

Analysts say Xi does not want China to become entangled in foreign wars. Beijing views foreign military interventions as one of the reasons U.S. power has declined over the decades.

China, however, remains willing to expand trade and provide technologies that can be used on the battlefield.

China-Russia Relations Increasingly Favor Beijing

Xi met Putin for bilateral talks in Bishkek on Monday and praised what he described as increasingly promising relations between China and Russia.

Putin, in turn, highlighted the success of visa-free travel between the two countries and said he was prepared to make the arrangement permanent.

The Russian leader also pointed to the first scheduled voyage of a Chinese container ship through the Northern Sea Route in mid-August, suggesting that broader cooperation between the two countries could develop in the Arctic.

Whether Xi holds a separate meeting with Iran’s president outside the SCO summit will be closely watched. Such a meeting could indicate how far Beijing is prepared to go in supporting Tehran ahead of Xi’s planned visit to Washington.

SCO Expands as a Counterweight to the West

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization initially consisted of China, Russia and four Central Asian countries.

India and Pakistan joined in 2017, while Belarus and Iran were added more recently.

The organization has consequently developed into an increasingly important counterweight to Western-led political and security groupings.

Several leaders attending the Bishkek summit have helped Putin sustain Russia’s war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year. Some have also helped Iran withstand a months-long U.S. military campaign.

Iran’s Support for Russia

Shortly after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drones and helped Moscow establish domestic production facilities for the weapons.

Central Asian countries have since become important import and payment routes for Russia as Moscow seeks to circumvent Western restrictions.

Iran has also increasingly turned toward Central Asia as an alternative import route amid the U.S. blockade.

India, Kazakhstan and Belarus have recently played roles in supplying gasoline to Russia after Ukrainian long-range attacks severely damaged Russian oil refineries.

India became one of the largest buyers of Russian oil following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Although Indian imports declined after pressure from Trump and new U.S. sanctions on Russian oil companies, the war against Iran disrupted global oil markets and encouraged Indian suppliers to resume purchases from Russia.

China remains the world’s largest importer of both Russian and Iranian crude.

China’s Influence Over Russia Is Growing

Xi’s relationship with Putin is increasingly tilted in Beijing’s favor.

Western sanctions imposed over Russia’s war in Ukraine have allowed China to accumulate discounted Russian oil, helping cushion the impact of a potential blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Even the location of this week’s summit illustrates China’s growing influence over Russia.

Kyrgyzstan, once a Soviet republic firmly within Moscow’s sphere of influence, has increasingly developed closer ties with Beijing. At the same time, the five Central Asian states have strengthened their cooperation in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

During a meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov on Monday, Xi said relations between Beijing and Bishkek had “made a leap forward” and that cooperation was “flourishing across all areas.”

The Bishkek Summit and China’s Broader Strategy

The leaders also attended a lavish opening ceremony for the World Nomad Games in Bishkek on Monday evening.

The event, hosted by Japarov at a newly built stadium, featured dancers and singers in traditional costumes, while horseback riders moved across the stage surrounded by bursts of fire.

But behind the spectacle was a larger geopolitical message.

China is increasingly positioning itself as a central power linking Russia, Iran, Central Asia and other non-Western states.

When Xi travels to the United States, Trump is likely to seek China’s cooperation on both Iran and North Korea. Whether Beijing will comply remains uncertain, Gewirtz said.

“Trump has painted himself into a corner,” he said.

“The administration is struggling to square two seemingly irreconcilable goals: tightening pressure on Iran and maintaining its truce with China.”

The Bishkek summit demonstrates how the wars involving Russia and Iran have created new opportunities for China to expand its economic and diplomatic influence.

Beijing is not seeking to directly fight on behalf of Moscow or Tehran. Instead, China is using trade, energy, technology, economic support and diplomatic engagement to strengthen its position while limiting the effectiveness of Western sanctions.

The result is an increasingly multipolar geopolitical landscape in which U.S. economic pressure has less ability to isolate Russia and Iran—and China has greater room to shape the international system around its own interests.

Source: The Newyork Times