China’s President Xi Jinping convened his Russian and North Korean counterparts together for the first time on Tuesday, a show of solidarity with countries shunned by the West over their role in Europe’s worst war in 80 years.

Vladimir Putin hailed “unprecedentedly high relations” with China and thanked his “dear friend” Xi for the warm welcome during talks at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, while Kim Jong Un’s armoured special train snaked towards the Chinese capital.

With Iran’s leader also due to attend China’s massive military parade on Wednesday, Xi’s diplomatic clout with a group of authoritarian regimes dubbed the ‘Axis of Upheaval’ by some western analysts, comes at a time US President Donald Trump’s isolationist policies strain Washington’s alliances. 3

Beyond the pomp

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