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Robotic wolves rode on armoured vehicles. Alongside them stealth drones, unmanned submarines, and giant lasers for blinding pilots, accompanied by the lethal triad of air, sea and land-launched nuclear missiles made for a daunting array of Chinese military hardware on show this week in Beijing as it commemorated the 80th anniversary of end of the war with Japan. The parade was hosted by China’s president Xi Jinping and watched by guests including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un of North Korea and heads of state and dignitaries of 26 other countries.
It also drew a droll response from Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te, who didn’t attend the parade, who observed that his country doesn’t “commemorate peace with the barrel of a gun”.
This display of military might was part two of a week of mega-diplomacy on Xi’s part designed to demonstrate to the world that, under his leadership, China would not be “intimidated by bullies” and would “stand by the right side of history”. The Chinese president had come hot foot from hosting the 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on Sunday and Monday in the city of Tianjin, about 75 miles southeast of Beijing (or 16 minutes on one of China’s bullet trains).
The SCO summit brought together more than 20 leaders from Eurasia, including Xi, Putin and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. The gathering’s mission statement, as Xi put it, was to “take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics, and practise true multilateralism”. Which it’s not unreasonable to read as the ushering in of a new order built around the leadership of China.
What was of most consequence at the SCO summit, writes Stefan Wolff, was the show of unity by Xi, Putin and Modi. An alliance between their three countries would be a formidable partnership. But what unites most of the delegates at the SCO writes Wolff, an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham, is not so much their desire to participate in a new vision of a China-led world order, but an antipathy to the current US hegemony under the stewardship of Donald Trump.
This is particularly the case for Modi, who is chafing under America’s recent imposition of 50% tariffs on its exports to the US as punishment for buying Russian oil in defiance of US-imposed sanctions.
So it’s interesting that Modi did not take the 16-minute bullet train ride to watch the parade alongside the North Korean leader. Wolff believes this is also emblematic of the challenges faced by Xi in assembling his new world order. Some of China’s friends present an unpalatable choice for the others and might not sit harmoniously in alliance together.
Read more: What Xi Jinping hosting Modi and Putin reveals about China's plans for a new world order
It’s likely that the US tariffs were high on Modi’s mind as he posed for photographs with the Chinese and Russian leaders. Wolff believes that this has destroyed, almost in a stroke, decades of careful US diplomacy designed at bringing the world’s most populous democracy into partnership against China.
It feels almost incredible that, as has been much mooted, Trump’s decision to punish India so harshly hinged largely on a fit of pique. But the US president was reportedly incensed at Modi’s refusal to back his claim to have prevented a major conflict with Pakistan or to join that country in nominating him for a Nobel peace prize.
But India is now doubling down on its decision to defy the US and purchase cheap Russian oil. And the chances are the tariffs will hurt the US as much as they hurts India. And it certainly won’t harm Russia, writes Sambit Bhattacharyya. Bhattacharyya, an economist at the University of Sussex Business School, believes that India and Russia have a lot to offer each other in trade terms. Cheap oil for India, cheap textiles and other trade goods for Russian consumers.
More importantly, writes Bhattacharyya, the more Trump’s trade policy drives America’s partners away, the greater the risk to the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. There are already signs that many developing economies are trying out ways of doing business that don’t involve the dollar. The more the US pushes its trade partners away, the more this will happen and the greater the impact on US prosperity and security.
Read more: Why Trump's fight with India could have global repercussions
Reviling Russia
Meanwhile diplomatic efforts to bring Russia to peace talks with Ukraine continue. Kyiv’s European allies are currently discussing what a security guarantee might look like if a ceasefire can be agreed. There are three schools of thought. Some, like Britain, are willing to commit to putting “boots on the ground”. Others, like Italy, will absolutely not countenance the idea. But most, notably Germany, are undecided.
One of the main hurdles facing the west when it comes to committing to an agreement with Russia is an inherent and deep mistrust of the Russian leader. And it’s easy to see why that might be. Russia has already broken agreements made to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. By invading Ukraine, Russia also violated the Budapest memorandum signed in 1994 by which Ukraine agreed to get rid of its nuclear stockpile in return for an absolute guarantee by Russia, the US and the UK to respect its territorial sovereignty.
But this lack of trust is getting in the way of a ceasefire deal, writes Francesco Rigoli. Rigoli, a psychologist at City St Georges, University of London, believes that the more Putin is reviled by western leaders and media commentators, the most it feels morally wrong to treat with Russia. He points out that Russian politicians and media are putting out very much the same message about the west. This is not helping the chance for a peace deal any time soon.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, many Ukrainians who would have spoken Russian in public are unwilling to do so. Instead a lot of people are opting to use Surshyk, a hybrid tongue which uses bits of both languages and is quite common in central and southeastern Ukraine. Initially used widely in Soviet times by Ukrainians who wanted to move from the country to the cities to work in factories it was very much dominated by Russian, but in recent decades it has moved far closer to Ukrainian.
It’s a matter of debate as to whether Surzhyk – which was stigmatised in the past as a marker of rural backwardness (the name refers to a mix of poor quality grains) – is a language, or a dialect or even a form of slang. Linguistics expert Oleksandra Osypenko of Lancaster University tells the fascinating story of how Surzhyk has become a more socially acceptable way for native Russian speakers to communicate in a country at war with Russia.
Climate conflict
This week we launched a new series of articles which sets out to explore the connection between international conflicts and climate change. Competition for resources has sparked conflicts since prehistoric times. But we’re now seeing more regular and more drastic effects of global warming playing out in famine, drought and mass migration. It’s a terrible cycle as climate change causes conflict, which can render whole regions uninhabitable.
Curated by my colleague Sam Phelps, War on climate will explore the relationship between climate issues and global conflicts. To kick off the series, Duncan Depledge, a senior lecturer in geopolitics and security at Loughborough University writes about the three reasons the climate crisis must reshape how we think about war.
Read more: How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem
Meanwhile Sarah Njeri, an expert in humanitarian and development studies at SOAS, University of London, and Christina Greene, a research scientist in the Arizona Institute for Resilience, University of Arizona, look at the ever larger swaths of land around the world contaminated by landmines and other explosive ordnance as well as lethal chemicals which can render land useless for agriculture for decades.
Read more: How unexploded bombs cause environmental damage – and why climate change exacerbates the problem
You might also be interested in this week’s episode of our podcast, The Conversation Weekly, which look at how China uses second world war history in its bid to reshape the global order.
Read more: How China uses second world war history in its bid to reshape the global order – podcast
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