The sight of world leaders flocking to Beijing has become one of the major diplomatic images of the first half of 2026. The visits by U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, coming only days apart, gave this narrative a powerful ceremonial form, but Xi Jinping’s subsequent trip to North Korea exposed its limits: China’s centrality does not mean a fixed center to which others invariably come, nor a new world order that others simply accept.
Beijing may easily find common ground with the major powers while also accommodating smaller partners with their own priorities and alternative views. Modern China is best understood as one of the global system’s most important crossroads rather than its command center. More routes pass through Beijing, though their destinations are often determined by the actors themselves.
At the Center, but Not in Control
China’s current international posture is clearest in its relations with the United States and Russia. Beijing has become indispensable to their interactions, but still cannot single-handedly shape China-U.S. competition, the China-Russia partnership, or the dynamics of the triangle as a whole.
The May visits to Beijing by the U.S. and Russian leaders was almost inevitably interpreted as a sign that the classic geopolitical triangle had been turned upside down, with China taking the top spot and the United States losing its former role.
One of the most striking interpretations was offered by Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University. On the constantly shifting “global geostrategic chessboard,” he wrote, more and more paths lead to China. “Beijing’s geostrategic capital and leverage have never been higher,” he added. “China now holds more geostrategic cards than the U.S.”
However, the fluidity of this board matters more than the apparent centrality of a single figure. Having more cards does not mean setting the rules, and Beijing’s diplomatic capital does not demonstrate its ability to translate ceremonial centrality into a functioning political hierarchy or strict discipline.
It is tempting to believe that China is already in the “driver’s seat” of the relationships between the great powers. However, the current China-Russia-U.S. triangle is instead best likened to an arena of mutual restraint and continuous bargaining. Beijing increases its influence by distributing access, attention, and symbolic status among the great powers, whose strategic choices nonetheless remain their own.
The exchange between Trump and Xi at Zhongnanhai, the guarded political enclave of China’s party elite, offered evidence of this. The U.S. president asked his Chinese counterpart how often foreign leaders were received at Zhongnanhai, and the Chinese leader replied that such access was “extremely rare,” adding that Putin had already been a guest. This comment sent the message that Trump was granted privileged access, while reminding him that Washington was not the sole recipient of Beijing’s highest-level attention. The episode reflected Beijing’s effort to advance several major strategic relationships simultaneously, rather than any imperial-style vision of “barbarians at the gates.”
Some China hands risk mistaking Xi’s ceremonial trappings for the actual structure of global power. Historian John Delury explained that in the Chinese context, this flurry of visits may be perceived as “a return to the natural state of affairs where people come to you,” since historically “the emperor never left China.” However, Xi’s tendency to host leaders at home is not a sign of isolationism, but rather “a natural progression of China’s power.” Beijing can now present itself as a natural hub of diplomatic influence, and to the Chinese public, as a place where world leaders come of their own accord.
However, Delury’s next point set a limit on his metaphor. He argued that leaders do not travel to Beijing to let China dictate terms, but rather to “cultivate some good relations, announce some business deals, and maybe send a signal to a third party.”
The fact that both Trump and Putin engaged in tough bargaining in Beijing undermined claims of their supposed strategic subordination to China.
Beijing’s central role in foreign affairs protocol also has a strong domestic dimension. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Xi has traveled abroad less frequently. Amid preparations for the 21st Chinese Communist Party Congress in 2027 and personnel shakeups at the top of the military, it is politically convenient for him to focus on diplomacy at home. This allows greater control over the setting of big diplomatic visits, while demonstrating that foreign leaders are coming to Beijing of their own accord. China’s growing power is being translated into a carefully staged diplomatic display serving both external legitimacy and domestic consolidation.
Even Chinese experts close to the government described negotiations between Xi and Trump more cautiously than many outside commentators. A report from the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a state-run think tank, stated that Sino-American relations had reached “a new stage of strategic stalemate” rather than declaring a Chinese victory. It also noted the deep economic interdependence between the United States and China, which is “complementary, symbiotic, and mutually beneficial,” yet vulnerable to pressure or disruption from either side.
The practical aspects of the Chinese approach confirm this. CICIR’s report discussed “guardrails” and a shift from “emergency processing” to “regular risk management” on high-risk issues, including trade, technology, and the Taiwan Strait. This is not the language of a superpower that is confidently leading others. Instead, China is seeking to manage risks while remaining keenly aware that its influence is limited.
Russia and China: Asymmetry Without Subordination
The China-Russia side of the triangle also deserves more nuanced interpretation. Western scholars often reduce the relationship to Moscow’s dependence on Beijing, while some Russian experts tend to portray it as an almost fully formed anti-Western coalition. Both perspectives oversimplify the reality. It is true that the partnership is becoming economically asymmetrical – China is stronger in terms of market size, capital, industrial base, and bargaining power – but this imbalance does not make Russia a junior partner that dutifully follows Beijing’s strategic lead.
What matters most is the complementarity of their functions. China is economically dominant, but Russian cooperation enhances Beijing’s strategic stability. It provides China with a land-based energy and resource base, Eurasian depth, an Arctic presence, and diplomatic support in the United Nations, where it would likely refuse to join Western efforts to isolate China in the event of a severe crisis. The partnership cannot be assessed solely in terms of GDP, trade flows, or investments. Its strength lies in the extent to which their roles become indispensable to one another at times of prolonged Western pressure.
This logic will be particularly important in the event of a crisis involving Taiwan. Russia’s significance to China is unlikely to manifest in direct military support, but Moscow may refuse to join Western sanctions against China; uphold energy, raw materials, transport, and diplomatic channels; and keep the U.S. and its allies focused on the Eurasian theater. Russia would effectively grant China a strategic reserve of strength.
Mutual interest does not imply automatic alignment, however. The China-Russia partnership remains an arena of tough sovereign bargaining. The fraught history of the still-pending “Power of Siberia 2” pipeline shows that political proximity does not override commercial logic.
The fact that the gas contract was not finalized during Putin’s visit should not be taken as proof of either Moscow’s weakness or Beijing’s ability to dictate terms. Even with high trust between China and Russia, the outcome of the huge commercial deal depends on the usual criteria of price, timelines, routes, sanctions risks, and long-term returns.
Even some of the more hawkish Russian analysts, who are quick to predict the imminent formation of a military bloc with China, acknowledge that relations remain in a bargaining phase and note with evident regret that Chinese companies are cautiously weighing the risks of sanctions. Their complaint that China remains “the senior partner while minimizing its own obligations” undercuts the coalition thesis.
According to a more level-headed Russian analysis, China acts less as a hegemon ready to control the world than as a power strengthening its industrial capacity and its ability to weather a crisis. The study, which focused on China’s “New Great Wall,” described measures to establish a strategic rear area, reserves, civil defense, and resilient supply chains as preparations for sanctions, blockade, and major military-political crises. According to these scholars, China’s ambitions are taking on a more defensive and inward-looking dimension.
A Pivotal China in a Decentered World
Describing the current global architecture through the old China-Russia-U.S. framework is useful only as a starting point. It shows that all three powers have again become interrelated elements of a large-scale strategic game. However, the analysis breaks down when the shift in influence is mistaken for a simple transfer of the top position from Washington to Beijing.
Russia’s relations with the United States and the West are evolving according to their own logic. The confrontation between the two sides is linked to Ukraine, sanctions, European security, nuclear risks, the deterrence infrastructure, and internal dynamics in the United States and the EU. China may get some advantages from the confrontation, but it does not control its dynamics. Nor is Moscow merely a pawn in China’s plans. Russia has its own motives and its own conflicts with the West. It also has good reason to avoid absorption into China’s orbit.
This is why the idea of a formalized China-Russia coalition against the U.S. remains more of a wishful construct than a real scenario. Such a coalition is not in Beijing’s interest, because it would undermine its main advantage – the ability to speak simultaneously with Russia, the U.S., Europe, and the Global South. Moscow may not need it either: the more rigid the anti-Western coalition, the greater the risk that adaptation to Western pressure will leave Russia dependent on China. For both, the rational approach is not a bloc but a form of coordinated autonomy.
The modern system is broader than any tripartite geometry. India, the Gulf monarchies, Turkiye, Southeast Asia, and much of the Global South are not willing to pledge allegiance to any new center, even under the banner of multipolarity. Their strategy is to expand their room for maneuver, work with multiple centers, and avoid replacing one dependency with another. An exclusive China-Russia axis with ambitions of global domination might therefore rather narrow the room for maneuver for both Moscow and Beijing.
China’s apparent centrality is often described in hyperbolic terms. As one recent article declared, “a new diplomatic gravity is emerging – and its center is increasingly Beijing.” But even in this favorable interpretation, China is portrayed “not necessarily as a replacement for the United States, but as the central node connecting competing powers, economies, and regions: It is, in other words, more a hub where interests converge than a new center of global control.”
This perspective gives the diplomatic events surrounding Xi Jinping in the first half of 2026 their proper meaning. Far from hosting leaders bearing tribute, Xi was providing the site for sovereign maneuvering, a process whereby leaders seek partial agreements and manage differences in an increasingly fragmented international system.
Bangladeshi scholar Shahab Enam Khan has coined the phrase “performance of optionality” to capture the logic of Chinese diplomacy. Beijing has demonstrated that “it can do business with everyone precisely because it is aligned exclusively with none.” But as well as keeping multiple diplomatic channels open, China also deliberately demonstrates this openness. By making this multivector diplomacy visible, Beijing increases its bargaining power and reinforces its image as a pivotal diplomatic partner.
China’s power derives from making itself indispensable to others’ calculations, negotiations, and crisis management. That is a considerable achievement, giving Beijing exceptional reach. China has become a power that no major country or institution can ignore. But this does not translate to hegemony, and China’s centrality has not led to the emergence of a new “Celestial Empire.” The world has to reckon with China, but it does not yet revolve around it.
