From New York to Pittsburgh you could hear the crunching and grinding of geopolitical plates. The latest jamborees at the United Nations and the Group of 20 leave the new global landscape still very much a work in progress. Some of the contours, though, stand in sharper relief.
To my mind, four things stood out from this week's surfeit of summitry: China's, albeit reluctant, embrace of multilateralism; the rising challenge from the Middle East to western and, especially, US power; US President Barack Obama's effort to frame new rules for the global game; and Europe's place on the margins of influence.
Hu Jintao grabbed many of the headlines with a softening of his position on climate change. The Chinese president's pledge to cut the carbon-intensity of China's economic growth is no guarantee of a deal at December's global warming summit in Copenhagen. Mr Hu's initiative underscored, though, a big shift in China's approach to the world.