A united front against the United States
With its status as the world’s leading power threatened by China’s steady rise, the United States elected a president who promised to restore the old order: Make America Great Again. But, in a cruel twist of fate, the measures taken by the new US administration are in fact helping to accelerate its relative decline. Instead of striving to maintain its global influence by keeping other countries dependent on it and consolidating the old order that favoured it, Washington is now methodically turning the rest of the world against it, including both historical allies and traditional rivals. Larry Summers, former United States Secretary of the Treasury, summed up the current paradox on Bloomberg Television as follows: “The classic maxim of foreign policy is to unite your friends and divide your adversaries. We have pursued policies that have managed to unite our adversaries and divide our friends.”
A prime example of this process was seen in China during the 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), held from 31 August to 1 September 2025 in Tianjin. The 27 participating countries, particularly the 10 full member states – which, in addition to China, include India, Russia, Iran and Pakistan, accounting for 3.5 billion people, or a quarter of global GDP – presented a united front against recent trade attacks by the US. Despite – or perhaps because of – the exorbitant tariffs that most of these countries now face, the Organisation consistently takes the opposite stance to that of the United States. Its main talking points were thus the adoption of a clear ten-year cooperation strategy (instead of constant U-turns); the creation of a development bank to finance new sustainable infrastructure (as opposed to undermining the infrastructure plan promoted by Joe Biden); cooperation between countries in the areas of energy transition (in contrast to US backsliding on wind and solar power or the Paris Agreement); social cohesion measures (instead of calling social welfare systems into question); strong support for higher education (instead of university budget cuts affecting the most prestigious US universities); defence of the WTO, implicitly for the benefit of SCO members, primarily the Chinese, who are major exporters (instead of trampling on international trade rules); advocacy for stronger global governance (instead of challenging certain UN agencies), etc. Even the promotion of medical cooperation serves to accentuate the Organisation’s contrast with the US administration’s controversial health policies.
Presenting itself as a counterweight to the US destabilisation offensive, should we be surprised if China leads global actions this year and if its currency rises against the dollar? As of 4 September, the MSCI China index has risen 29% (in US dollars) since the start of the year, compared with 11.5% for the S&P 500, and the yuan has risen by more than 2%. If capital is attracted by growth and visibility, isn’t it logical, in a way, that it is now flowing more towards the East than the West, which is in the midst of political turmoil? Indeed, the Chinese president’s quoting of Laozi rings true – “uphold the Great Principle, and the world will follow”.