Commentary
The takeaway from a flurry of high-level meetings is that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is happy to work with any country willing to let Beijing rewrite the international order.
Since consolidating power last October, Xi has met with more than 25 heads of state. His recent negotiation of a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran has allowed him to launch a new soft power campaign portraying himself and the CCP as peacemakers. In his recent visit to Moscow, he offered Russian President Vladimir Putin his 12-point Ukraine peace plan, which Putin loved because it did not require him to pull the Russian army out of Ukraine. The next big meeting will be in May when Xi plans to meet with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan at the “first China-Central Asia summit.”…