In the first five months of 2026, President Xi Jinping has hosted an extraordinary ‘spectrum’ of global leaders: Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom, Petteri Orpo of Finland, Micheál Martin of Ireland, Mark Carney of Canada, Lee Jae-myung of South Korea and Friedrich Merz of Germany.

By comparison, US President Donald Trump has hosted leaders mostly from allied nations –Friedrich Merz, Georgia Meloni, Micheal Martin, Sanae Takaichi, King Willem-Alexander, and King Charles III, plus ‘Non-NATO Allies’ including Benjamin Netanyahu, Javier Milei and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from neighbouring Brazil.

President Xi Jinping with Keir Starmer of the UK (left), Friedrich Merz of Germany (centre), and Pedro Sanchez of Spain (right)

No doubt, Washington remains powerful, perhaps unrivalled militarily. But diplomacy, symbolism, and geopolitical gravity are increasingly telling a different story. Beijing seems to have become the new capital where rivals, allies, sceptics, and hedgers all feel compelled to appear.

Especially, when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both arrive in Beijing within days of each other, something larger than routine diplomacy seems to be unfolding fast. This is not merely China’s diplomatic moment. It may well be the unfolding of a ‘New Era’ of Xi Jinping’s geopolitical age or edge over America.

The new diplomatic capital

For most of the post-Cold War era, the choreography of the global power has revolved mostly around the Washington Consensus. Leaders from around the world travel to the White House seeking legitimacy, security guarantees or economic resilience.

The United States is not merely seen as a superpower; it is still the political operating system of globalisation. But that monopoly of the United States may be eroding fast.

President Xi Jinping with Mark Carney of Canada (left), Lee Jae Myung (centre), and Petteri Orpo of Finland (right)

Beijing increasingly resembles what Washington once was: the unavoidable stop in global diplomacy. Europe’s leaders arrive here seeking market access and economic stabilisation.

Putin comes to Beijing seeking strategic depth, sanctions relief and visibility. Donald Trump comes to Beijing seeking tariff bargains, supply-chain recalibration and geopolitical management of his Iran quagmire.

The Global South seeks to engage China ever more deeply for investment, infrastructure and alternatives to Western conditionality.

This growing and increasingly visible convergence matters ever more because the international order is no longer measured solely by a nation’s military power. It is today measured by who convenes, who mediates, who finances and who appears most reliable to the extent of becoming indispensable.

Reiterating American exceptionalism for the nth time, US President Bill Clinton had declared the United States to be “the indispensable nation” in his second presidential inaugural in 1997, reiterated by Secretary of State Madeline Albright, stating, “If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation.”

This assumption implied that the United States was the only option for nations to choose from. Today, many middle powers are openly asking this question: how does one maintain relations with Washington while ensuring access to Beijing?

Some of these middle powers are aspiring to take charge. Remember the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos this January. In what was seen as a game-changer exhortation, Carney told the middle powers: “If you are not on the high table, you are likely to be on the menu of that high table.”

Such questions alone signal a profound redistribution of global influence where China is fast emerging as the game changer.

When ‘optics’ becomes ‘strategy’

The recent back-to-back visits of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to Beijing were surely the diplomatic theatre of the highest order.

For Xi Jinping, the symbolism was almost irresistible: the leader of superpower America, and the leader of a former superpower who is most isolated by the West, both converging on Beijing within days, surely says something that calls for scrutiny.

The Guard of Honour - to President Donald Trump (left) and President Vladimir Putin (right)

While one came to Beijing seeking negotiations, the other sought strategic reassurance – both betraying expectations from President Xi Jinping. China was not even officially recognised as an independent nation by the United States till early 1970s.

In Cold War terms, this new centrality of China would have been unimaginable. But Xi Jinping’s China is no longer presenting itself merely as a rising power. The time of Deng Xiaoping’s ‘hide your strengths and bide your time’ is long gone. Today, China increasingly projects itself as the central player in an emerging multipolar world.

The timing of these visits was equally revealing. Trump’s visit, coming in the backdrop of his fast-eroding leadership at home and abroad, was focused heavily on resolving tensions around tariffs, technology restrictions and restoring economic predictability after years of his escalating decoupling rhetoric.

Putin’s visit, likewise, in the midst of his being entangled in Ukraine for four plus years, was evidently about his dependence on China, including for building Arctic coordination and their shared resistance to Western hegemony.

The visiting US delegation lines up behind President Trump during the dialogue in Beijing (left), and the Russian and Chinese presidents lead the talks (right)

This unfolding contrast itself serves Beijing’s interests. These visits of Trump and Putin this month show how China can simultaneously negotiate with Washington while consolidating strategic alignment with Moscow.

Few capitals possess that degree of diplomatic heft and flexibility. This is precisely why Beijing now appears less like a challenger operating outside the system and more like a state attempting to reorganise the system itself.

Xi’s personalisation of power

Indeed, the deeper story of China’s growing centrality in global summit diplomacy is not simply one of China’s rise. It is as much in Xi Jinping’s transformation of Chinese diplomacy.

For decades after Deng Xiaoping, China's successive leaders — Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao — had continued to practice relatively cautious and collective leadership. Diplomacy then was mostly bureaucratic, understated and risk-averse.

The last decade of President Xi Jinping’s reign has overturned that model completely. Foreign policy has, over the last decade, become deeply personalised around the authority, ideology and political image of Xi Jinping.

The 'Beast' carrying the US President drives past the PLA soldiers (left), and the grand decor of the meeting room (right)

As well-known Sinologist and former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, says, Xi has pushed Chinese politics to the Leninist left, economy to the Marxist left, and foreign policy to the nationalist right. It has been codified in his centennial goals with specific timelines.

The transformation, therefore, reflects more than Communist Party centralisation. Also, it draws its mandate from enduring elements of China’s strategic culture where political authority, hierarchy and statecraft remain closely intertwined.

Under “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” foreign policy has become inseparable from the narrative of Xi’s national rejuvenation and China Dream formulations. These are not separated from but are deeply grounded in China’s ‘century of humiliation’ narrative.

Xi’s diplomacy is no longer merely about transforming great power relations; it is about restoring China’s historical centrality as the Middle Kingdom in the international system. Like Chairman Mao, Xi’s China believes in having the moral authority to guide the building of the ‘Tianxia system,’ which entails a hierarchical world order with China at its very centre.

But unlike Mao’s China of yore, Xi’s China today feels empowered to carry forward this mission to its logical end, starting with undoing the wrongs done to China in the past.

A plaque in Chengde Resort marking the Convention of Peking as a 'national humiliation' for China (left), and Mao Zedong proclaiming the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949 (right); photos courtesy - Wikimedia Commons

From that perspective, the prominence accorded to summit diplomacy in Beijing mirrors a longstanding Chinese conception of political order where legitimacy radiates outward from the centre.

Some scholars interpret this through echoes of the ancient tianxia worldview — the idea that a multipolar political order emerges around a civilisational core rather than among formally equal powers.

Xi’s diplomacy is therefore simultaneously modern and historical: technologically sophisticated yet deeply embedded in ideas of centralised authority, strategic patience and psychological shaping of the external environment.

The carefully choreographed imagery also matters. The long red carpets and the glittering Great Hall of the People, elaborate state banquets, and personal meetings at Zhongnanhai. Then their repeated invocations of “multipolarity” and a “community of shared future for mankind” are not just diplomacy but strategic signalling of China seeking to take charge.

In this, Xi Jinping is seen increasingly positioning himself not merely as China’s leader, but as the organiser of an alternative geopolitical conversation.

The Great Hall of the People (left) and Xinhuamen, the "Gate of New China" or the formal entrance to the Zhongnanhai compound (right); photos courtesy - Wikimedia Commons

All roads lead to Beijing!

It is also important to underline that this gravitational pull of China is by no means accidental; it is structural and has been long in the making. It is a consequence of the last four decades of China’s opening up and reforms.

As a result, China is today the largest trading partner for over 120 countries and Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative claims investments across 150 nations. China has assiduously built a powerful manufacturing ecosystem that remains indispensable despite the Western rhetoric of derisking and onshoring.

Even as the West diversifies supply chains, they continue to depend heavily on Chinese industrial capacity, batteries, electronics, rare earths and other critical minerals processing power. China’s use of its export restrictions on its rare earth was a fitting rebuttal to Trump’s tariff tantrums, making him malleable, even terming it as his honour to have Xi as his friend.

While China is working hard to have mastery over advanced chipmaking, its monopoly over rare earth processing and refining is likely to continue for a long time to come, making the United States vulnerable to Beijing’s whims.

Always wanting a step forward: President Donald Trump walks ahead of (left), and alongside (right) President Xi Jinping, during the visit to the Zhongnanhai compound

While President Trump announced walking out of 66 international treaties and organisations this January, China’s diplomatic style has revealed an increasing appeal for states fatigued by ideological polarisation between China and the United States.

China never asks these nations any questions about their democracy or human rights records. Instead, discourses from China emphasise sovereignty, infrastructure, trade and regime stability.

For many governments across Asia, Africa and parts of Latin America, China’s pragmatism and transactional predictability appear rather attractive and agreeable. Yet most of these nations have continued to be conscious of their proximity to China, not going well with the United States.

But now, President Trump’s visit to China this month saw Xi openly invoking the ‘Thucydides Trap’ – propensity for conflict when a rising power challenges the reigning power – during their summit interactions, which was China’s formal proclamation on the United States being the declining power and potentially a second fiddle.

The irony is striking. Washington still possesses superior alliances, unmatched military reach and the world’s reserve currency and so on. Yet Beijing increasingly dominates the politics of access and connectivity. Countries may trust the United States more, but they are increasingly relying on China.

Limits of the ‘Beijing Moment’

This triumphalism, of course, is not without its limits, and China has its share of pitfalls.

Rising China faces profound structural challenges: its slowing economic growth, leadership purges, demographic decline, debt burdens, technological restrictions and rising strategic suspicion among neighbours, including India, Japan and some European nations, can halt China’s ascendence.

It is also true that most world leaders visiting Beijing are not aligning with China; they are hedging against uncertainty, mostly unleashed by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Trump’s visit to Beijing itself underscored these persistent uncertainties over rare earths, semiconductors, tariffs, and so on. European nations also continue debating “de-risking” though with little success. Several Asian states have simultaneously deepened security ties with the United States even while expanding trade with China.

No doubt, Beijing’s influence continues to grow. So are anxieties about its ambitions and ambiguities. Also, the real significance of 2026 so far perhaps lies elsewhere. It lies in the recognition that the world is no longer organised around a single unquestioned centre of power.

President Donald Trump walks back to Air Force One on the culmination of his visit to China (left), and President Vladimir Putin is being received at the Beijing airport by the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right)

Instead of global diplomacy shifting base from Washington to Beijing, it perhaps increasingly resembles competitive court politics. Leaders moving constantly between Washington, Beijing, Brussels, Moscow and New Delhi are seeking leverage, flexibility and strategic autonomy for themselves.

Yet among these world capitals, Beijing is nonetheless one which is increasingly inching closer to the centre of global diplomatic choreography. And President Xi Jinping’s body language and invocations allude to how he rather well understands this drift and its implications, all apparently from his vantage point.

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