CHINA’S DIPLOMATS are working hard. On August 31st more than 20 world leaders will join President Xi Jinping in the northern city of Tianjin for a two-day meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, a security forum. Among them will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin (a frequent visitor), India’s Narendra Modi (a rare one) and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, who seldom goes abroad. In recent days Donald Trump said he would visit China “probably during this year or shortly thereafter”. It would be the first such trip by an American president since 2017, when Mr Trump was last there. Great-power relations are in flux.
The Economist
