Together at the Heavenly Crossing
TIANJIN IS AS MUCH A PEARL OF THE ORIENT as it is of the Occident. It straddles the Bohai gulf as an entrepôt to Beijing which is about an hour away on a high-speed train. Its maritime credentials speak loudly to visitors. Big cargo ships cruise into the picturesque marina of the Tianjin port laden with goods from the West. The cityscape is dotted with towering official buildings done in a faux-Brutalist style, a muscular ode to the audacity of aspiration that is commu- nist China. But these hulking buildings take care not to trespass on the elegant neoclassical, art deco and art nouveau buildings. These jewels, more at home in Prague than in Tianjin, are the care- fully preserved architectural vestiges of Tianjin's colonial past. Its connect to the Occident was when it provided concessions to six different European colonisers. But Tianjin wears its history lightly. Its story loops back six centuries.
In 1402, a Ming dynast called Zhu Di, later enthroned as the mighty Yongle, crossed the Haihe river into the south of China.The crossing helped to unify the empire, and the emperor established himself in a new capital called Beijing. Yongle's momentous cam- paign was launched from a garrison that was eventually given the name Tianjin, or "Heavenly Crossing".
Today, six centuries later, Tianjin is living up to its hallowed reputation.
The comely port city has unexpectedly emerged as a metaphorical "crossing",
albeit in reverse, transporting the non-West to the hitherto West-dominated
high table of global diplomacy. The 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) brought leaders, ministers, and aides to this city. But the
real story unfolded not in plenary sessions but on the sidelines.
And the story was based on one moment in time. But one so consequential that it instantly became the No 1 trend on Baidu, China's own version of X, even displacing carefully curated state-promoted hashtags high on nationalist messaging. We wouldn't have known of this chatter of spontaneity on Baidu had aghast Chinese journalists been better at disguising their shock. We, a motley group of journalists from India, craned our necks to peer over the shoulders of our Chinese counterparts hunched over their mobiles. The picture showed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping in a huddle exchanging notes and broad smiles. This is particularly remarkable. The Chinese president is notoriously poker-faced in public. And so it is a big deal when he wears an expression—more so in th ecompany of the prime minister of India, a country that until very recently China was actively trying to militarily outwit. Indeed, Beijing provided Islamabad real-time actionable intelligence on Indian military as- sets during Operation Sindoor.
Gossip ran wild in the aisles of Tianjin's media centre. Some whispered that the three leaders were cracking jokes at the ex- pense of US President Donald Trump. A not totally implausible speculation. After all, it is Trump's misconceived tariff demagogu- ery that has catalysed this backslapping.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. These are optics, after all. Ephemeral. Digital dust. Prone to being scattered in the first blast of an ill wind. All three leaders have been here before. Past instances of perfectly choreographed bonhomie have dissipated in the blink of an eye because of clashing and competing interests.
China sees itself as the lodestar of the East. Under Xi it believes it is destined to inherit the Earth, which is why it has transmogri- fied into an expansionist power and frequently transgresses the territorial borders of its neighbours. One such misadventure was undertaken in eastern Ladakh on the contested border with India five years ago. That provocation proved to be the undoing of what was then shaping up as a promising stab at normalising ties with New Delhi.
India too has great-power ambitions. As a fast-rising economy and a potent military force, it naturally doesn't want to cede space to China. It zealously guards its own sphere of influence in South Asia where it punches above its weight to limit Beijing's reach.
Russia, though in strategic lockstep with China, doesn't want to be reduced to the status of a junior partner. Putin, the Kremlin's reigning czar, seeks to restore Russia to the continental imperial glory it enjoyed under his hero Peter the Great. While interests are not permanent, seizing opportunities when they present themselves can create conditions for lasting accommodation.
History has shown that Moscow, Beijing, and Delhi need not view their rise as a zero-sum contest. Barely three centuries ago, the three together contributed over 50 per cent of global GDP. Yet they found plenty of space to grow without being drawn into direct conflict.
Today, once again, the world is at their feet. The once-formida- ble West's ability to project influence is shrinking. The consensus forged in the aftermath of World War II, solidified through an alphabet soup of military pacts and Bretton Woods institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank,was built on the economic dominance and security umbrella of the US and its allies. For decades it functioned as the 'steel frame' of international relations. But for well-discussed reasons it has lost credibility.
As the West diminishes, it is ceding space. Who is ideally placed to fill the void? The SCO may not be there yet. Its founding vision, though audacious, is riven by too many contradictions. Its members are on different political and economic trajectories. It will take a while for SCO members to evolve into a coalition of the willing.
This is where BRICS becomes significant. Un- like SCO, BRICS is smaller, more coherent, and increasingly more consequential. It is no accident that Trump repeatedly singles it out. Among its members, three stand out: time-tested Moscow, New Delhi, and Beijing.
Together, with a bit of statesmanship and political imagination they can truly make the Heavenly Crossing.
As a red sun dropped below the horizon, Tain- jin shimmered in the neon afterglow of its LED-lit buildings. Each screen projecting images from the day's offerings at the city's 'great hall of the people', the stage for the SCO summit. Glancing up at them one couldn't help but wonder if the city had offered the world a glimpse of what might be possible. Three great powers, once more at the same ford, testing the waters of a shared future. Will they? Or was this a political equivalent of a prettily packaged 'Rickroll'?