After Hormuz: How China Is Making Billions From the World’s Rush Toward Green Energy

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday evening for his first foreign trip of the year — a visit intended to demonstrate the strategic depth of the partnership between Moscow and Beijing. Yet the atmosphere surrounding the trip also revealed how dramatically the international landscape around Russia has changed.

The state visit of U.S. President Donald Trump to China concluded on Friday with a rare display of diplomatic warmth between Washington and Beijing. Yet beneath the carefully choreographed ceremony remained deep structural tensions capable of once again pushing the world’s two largest powers toward confrontation.

U.S. President Donald Trump Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping Xi Jinping sought on the first day of the American leader’s state visit to China to demonstrate readiness to stabilize relations between the world’s two largest economies. However, the talks exposed deep disagreements over Taiwan, Iran, global trade, and the architecture of international security.

When U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in China this week, the official agenda focused on trade, technology and the future of U.S.-China relations. But behind the diplomatic ceremonies and economic negotiations stood a far more dangerous question: whether China could help prevent a major crisis around Iran.