The Russia-Ukraine conflict, which broke out in February 2022, marked the latest episode of the use of warfare as a tool to accelerate change in the world order. But two other events disturbed Asia and the Middle East: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 and the Israel-Hamas conflict, which broke out in October 2023. People began to worry about potential interplay across three war zones. Such a prospect has become more prominent in recent months, and may be worthy of note by historians.

Recent high-level dialogue has set the stage for progress. Yet, the strategies employed by China and Europe show that a transformation of the international order is likely to be a prolonged process.

Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, wants to unite the global South and hopes to play a bigger role in the international community. Lacking inclusiveness, however, its strategies and tactics may run aground.

In their latest communiqué, NATO leaders declared that China presents “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.” The response from China’s mission to the European Union was clear: “We will not present a ‘systemic challenge’ to anyone, but if someone wants to pose a ‘systemic challenge’ to us, we will not remain indifferent.” Such a tit-for-tat rhetoric is unnecessary, and most of the world’s population probably does not want it to escalate. Yet escalation is becoming more likely every day.

Efforts to placate both the United States and the PRC are proving ever more challenging, as the recent Group of Seven and NATO summits have shown.

The notion of persuading countries in an expanded G7 to adhere to the U.S. line for containing China has far too much working against it. The schism between America and Europe is only widening under the unpredictable impulses of the current U.S. president.

Trump’s inclusion of guests of honor looks a lot like an attempt to encircle China. Worries about a “new cold war” between China and the U.S. are not unfounded, as progress is being whittled away.

The G7 Summit, which just concluded at the French seaside resort of Biarritz, showed that Europe and the United States diverge with and even increasingly confront each other on trade issues. Considering its fading influence, the continued value of the G7 has been thrown into doubt, even by European academia.

The Trump administration’s “America First” style of unilateralism has alienated even longtime European allies. The leaders of France, Germany, the EU Commission, and China have all pledged themselves to support multilateralism — in a sign of the times, Trump’s America is left out in the cold.

After the G7 and SCO summits last weekend, it is tempting to paint a simplistic picture of a Western world unraveling at the seams and an increasingly cohesive alternative order led by powers like China. While there is an element of truth in this narrative, it is important not to overlook the enduring motives for cooperation within the Western bloc and obstacles to cooperation between the SCO powers.