While Joe Biden was on a sentimental journey to Ireland, Xi Jinping was busy in Beijing. Following a high-profile visit by President Emmanuel Macron of France, the Chinese leader played host to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil.
The messaging to emerge from the Lula-Xi summit was congenial to China and disturbing to the US. Brazil’s leader said that his country wanted to work with China to “balance world politics” and accused America of “incentivising” the war in Ukraine. He also backed a longstanding Chinese goal of undermining the US dollar’s role in the world financial system, remarking: “Every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar.”
China has also made recent headway with its Middle East diplomacy. This month, the foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia met in Beijing, after China brokered a deal to restore diplomatic relations between the two powers.