Xi Jinping is now the world leader he wanted to be, but it has come at a cost

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The arrival Tuesday of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing will mark a watershed moment for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, one that he has pursued since taking power in 2012—and bet his country’s future to achieve.Welcoming Moscow’s ruler just days after President Trump’s motorcade swept out of the Chinese capital represents, for Xi, a vindication of 14 years of relentless economic competition with the U.S. and his strategic embrace of the Kremlin through the Ukraine war.

No Chinese leader before him has staged back-to-back state visits in the same month from a sitting American president and a sitting Russian president.With the dueling visits, “Xi is sending the message that ‘I’ve established parity with Trump. I made no concessions to Trump, and I’m still maintaining my basic foreign policy, which is supportive of Russia, Iran and North Korea,’” said Stephen Hadley, national-security adviser to former President George W.

Bush.It is a victory on the world stage that has come at a cost at home. The economic policies that Xi has accelerated gave China leverage over the U.S.

but also left it with too many factories and triggered a U.S. backlash that is cutting into American demands for Chinese goods.

His support for Russia has alienated another big market in Europe, where fewer countries are inclined to play the part of friend.The number of industries where China dominates more than half of global exports nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024, from 192 to 315—a measure of the strategy that increasingly produces more than the rest of the world is willing to absorb, according to a new study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Rhodium Group.At the same time, Beijing set its lowest annual