Western dysfunction is bolstering China

How they react — by submitting or building up the defenses needed to ensure independence — depends on finding a backer capable of deterring Chinese predations. The US no longer looks like a reliable bet.

- By Marc Champion

THE POST-GAME ANALYSIS of this week's gathering near Beijing of non-Western leaders is in. The spectacle of China's Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, and Russia's Vladimir Putin holding hands, hugging, and sharing rides was judged by some as marking a transformative shift in global alliances, and by others as theater.

But perhaps they miss the point. We should be judging Xi's show of strength by its ability to contrast with the chaos and weakness among his competitors in the US and Europe.

What emerged from Monday's Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit was, in concrete terms, thin gruel: A development fund without details or monetary commitments, to be put at the service of a military network that lacks either a collective defense clause or joint command structure. The more substantive message probably came a day later, as Xi oversaw a display of Chinese military power, flanked by Putin and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, two outlaws of the liberal, US-led order he seeks to destroy.