Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took Russian President Vladimir Putin's hand and brought him to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The three powerful leaders of the three major countries first smiled shyly among themselves, then held hands and raised their hands in the air as a symbol of their cooperation. While all this was happening at the Shanghai Cooperation Summit, US President Donald Trump was sharing a poster on his social media site, "Truth Social," that read "America is sexy," depicting himself dancing amidst flames! The 25th Summit of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and attended by President Erdoğan yesterday in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, transformed into a summit where China presented itself as an "alternative new world leader," joining forces with two other major powers, Russia and India, and challenging the US, which had escalated trade wars with Trump's additional tariffs.

Yes, we've seen it today: China, known for its closed society and communist regime-specific prohibitions, has implicitly called on the US, which has long presented itself on the world stage as a "basket of democracy and freedom," to "abandon its tyranny!" At a time when US President Donald Trump's "America First" policy and trade wars are turning the world upside down, Xi Jinping has stood up, criticized "bullying practices," and presented his country as the new leader of the world's governance!

"The house rules of a few countries should not be imposed on others," Xi told more than 20 world leaders gathered for a two-day summit to highlight China's global leadership and its close and enduring partnership with Russia, at a time when China, along with its neighbor Russia, are attempting to rebalance global power to their advantage, at the expense of the US and its allies. The Chinese leader promised SCO member countries 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in grants this year and an additional 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in loans to a SCO banking consortium over the next three years.

In his opening speech, Xi announced a brand new "Global Governance Initiative" to his guests. "I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system," he said, pledging to increase the representation and voices of developing countries. Referring to the wall Donald Trump built between Mexico and the US without naming names, Xi said, "We should continue to tear down walls, not erect them; we should seek integration, not separation." Without directly mentioning the US, Xi also pledged to oppose "hegemonism," "Cold War mentality," and "bullying practices."

While Donald Trump has alarmed even his own allies with his global trade war, his withdrawal from international organizations like the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Trade Organization, his complete cutoff of aid to foreign countries, and his threats on social media (as he did to Canada and Denmark), Beijing has seized the opportunity to promote its own worldview as an "alternative."

Speaking at the summit, Russian President Putin raised his voice, saying that the SCO was laying the groundwork for a "new security system" in Eurasia! Putin positioned this new security organization as "an alternative to Western-led alliances" (like NATO), which he had long opposed. Putin stated that the new system would "replace outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models and would not allow some states to seek their own security at the expense of others."

Indian Prime Minister Modi, who reportedly faced significant pressure from Trump in the US to "declare that he is the one who ended the war with Pakistan" due to his Nobel Peace Prize ambitions, has also chosen to side with China and Russia. The new world order is being reshaped, and within this new order, the lines are being drawn more clearly, more rigidly, and more rigidly than before. China's vision, however, is expanding beyond simply being a global economic giant: China is now striving to become a global leader in every sense, including security and cooperation.