In the space of five days, Xi Jinping hosted both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Beijing. Two summits, back to back, in the same capital, with the same host.

The American president arrived with corporate executives and left with a strategic stability framework. The Russian president arrived days later, signed new cooperation agreements, expanded energy coordination, and continued strengthening a partnership that Western sanctions were supposed to weaken decisively.

Europe was not in the room. Europe was not invited. This is not a diplomatic curiosity. This is a structural fact about where global power now resides and how it is being exercised.

Beijing as the Capital of Multipolar Diplomacy

Xi Jinping did not choose between Washington and Moscow. He engaged both. That is the point. China’s influence today comes not just from its economic size but from strategic centrality - from becoming the power that other major actors increasingly have to deal with.

Trump came to Beijing looking for relief on rare earths and trade stability. Putin came to reinforce the Sino-Russian partnership and show that Russia is still a serious player despite years of Western sanctions. Both got what they needed on Chinese terms.

This is what the multipolar world actually looks like. Not a clean handover from American to Chinese dominance, but a messy, competitive system where several power centres interact, compete, and negotiate at the same time.

China recognized this shift early and positioned itself accordingly. Russia, despite heavy Western pressure, adapted with surprising resilience. The United States is reluctantly learning to live with it. Europe has not.

The Isolation Strategy That Backfired

For four years, one of the European Union’s main strategic goals was the isolation of Russia. Multiple rounds of sanctions were supposed to cut Moscow off from Western finance, technology, energy markets, and diplomatic influence. The assumption was simple: enough pressure and Russia would eventually break. The reality now visible in Beijing tells a very different story.

Russia did not disappear. It simply turned east. Sino-Russian trade reached record levels. Energy exports were redirected to Asian markets. New corridors and partnerships developed across Eurasia, completely bypassing the old Western-dominated system.

Many countries in the Global South refused to join the Western isolation campaign. They continued dealing with Russia according to their own interests, not European ideology. The sanctions did hurt Russia. But they also hurt Europe - in higher energy prices, damaged industry, lost competitiveness, and massive fiscal costs.

Europe didn’t fully isolate Russia. In many ways, it accelerated the creation of an alternative Eurasian system from which it is increasingly excluded.

The Ideology Trap

Europe’s problems are not mainly about money or geography. They come from a strategic culture that refuses to separate interests from ideology. For decades, European elites believed that liberal values, institutions, and economic integration were not just preferences - but the inevitable direction of history. That worked for a while. It doesn’t work anymore.

China plays long-term strategic pragmatism. India cooperates with everyone at once. Turkey balances NATO with Russian energy deals. Even the United States has returned to raw national interest. These are not temporary deviations. This is how serious powers behave in a multipolar world.

Europe chose the luxury of ideological purity instead. And the cost is exactly what we see now: strategic irrelevance at the moment when the global order is being reshaped.

Brussels still talks about “strategic autonomy” while remaining heavily dependent on American security guarantees, foreign energy, and slow, bureaucratic decision-making. It treats Russia as a permanent ideological enemy rather than a geographically unavoidable neighbour. It frames China almost exclusively as a threat, despite China’s central role in global supply chains and industry. At the exact moment when the world is becoming more geopolitical, Europe is still stuck in a post-geopolitical mindset.

Geography and the Eurasian Question

There is a bitter irony in Europe’s position. Geographically, Europe sits at the western edge of the Eurasian landmass - perfectly placed to serve as a bridge between the Atlantic and the vast industrial and resource networks stretching to the Pacific. The potential is obvious. The infrastructure exists. The location is ideal.

Central Europe in particular, with Poland at its heart, has a strategic position that in a multipolar world should be a major asset - not a frontline buffer, but a real connector. Yet this advantage is being actively wasted. Europe has reduced access to nearby energy resources, weakened parts of its industrial base, and increased dependence on distant actors - all while loudly declaring its commitment to autonomy and resilience.

The argument that any serious cooperation with Russia automatically creates “dangerous dependence” looks increasingly hollow when you look at how other powers actually behave. All major players use economic leverage when it suits them - including the United States toward its own allies. Energy relationships work best when they are predictable and based on mutual interest. The real problem was never Russian power. It was Europe’s refusal to accept that power politics still rules the world.

What Beijing Actually Revealed

The meetings in Beijing were not an accident. They were the visible result of a shift that has been building for years. What they showed, clearly and uncomfortably, is that the emerging international order is being shaped by powers willing to deal with reality as it is - not as they wish it to be. In this order, Beijing has become a central diplomatic and economic hub. Washington is adapting, pragmatically and sometimes reluctantly. Moscow has survived the isolation campaign and deepened its most important strategic partnership.

Europe, meanwhile, risks becoming increasingly peripheral to the decisions that will shape the future. This was not imposed on Europe from outside. It emerged from a worldview that underestimated the persistence of geography, industrial power, energy interdependence, and raw geopolitical competition.

The Beijing summits made one thing unmistakable: The multipolar order is no longer a theory. It is already here. The only real question left is whether Europe can still adapt to it - or whether it will continue trying to navigate a changed world with assumptions that no longer match reality.

Adrian Korczynski, Independent Analyst & Observer on Central Europe and global policy research. Courtesy

https://journal-neo.su/2026/05/27/beijing-may-2026-the-multipolar-order-took-shape-without-europe/