Donald Trump’s imperial tendencies see the US president wield tariffs and sanctions in the expectation that America will receive tributes. Yet his latest move – punishing India with 50% tariffs for Russian oil purchases once encouraged by the US – has produced not submission but spectacle. It has sent India’s Narendra Modi to China for the first time in seven years as Xi Jinping hosted more than 20 leaders for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin. And it is in Tianjin, not Washington, where it looks as if the hinge of history is moving.
The SCO is easy to dismiss: the bloc is a bundle of contradictions. India and Pakistan remain adversaries. China and India still stare across a garrisoned Himalayan frontier, though relations have thawed since last October’s border breakthrough. Russia and China vie for influence in Central Asia. Unlike Nato, the SCO has no binding defence commitments. For much of its life, it has looked like a paper tiger, sending out communiques that were all roar and no bite.
