Global Roaming with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald It's Xi's World Now, and We're All Just Living In It
Sep 5, 2025
Einar Tangen, a Senior Fellow at the Taihe Institute and founder of Asia Narratives, and Bob Carr, former Australian Foreign Minister, dive into the shifting tides of global power with China at the helm. They discuss the implications of recent high-profile meetings among leaders like Xi and Modi, questioning whether this new alignment signals a permanent change. The dialogue probes into the historical impacts of WWII on China and evaluates its growing military presence, reshaping the landscape of international relations and Australia's strategic positioning.
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China Projecting Global Centrality
- The SCO summit and Beijing's Victory Day parade presented China as a central node of global power and pageantry.
- Leaders like Modi, Putin and Kim Jong-un attending signalled an image of an emergent alignment around Beijing.
India's Presence Complicates Simple Alignments
- India's attendance and Modi's visible rapport with Putin complicates assumptions about a simple anti-China bloc.
- When grouped, the SCO economies and resources materially challenge aspects of US-led global influence.
SCO's Material Weight Matters
- The SCO grouping covers large shares of population, GDP, oil and gas, raising its geopolitical weight.
- Collective economic and energy capacity can blunt unilateral US influence even if the US economy remains largest.
