The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China grabbed the world’s attention this weekend. Much of the commentary was centered on the presence of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited China for the first time in seven years. Photographs from Tianjin showed Modi with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

This prompted two lines of narrative. The first was that Modi, stung by President Donald Trump’s imposition of steep tariffs on India exports to the U.S., was pivoting toward China: Trump had pushed an American friend into the arms of America’s enemy. The second was that Modi’s arrival in Tianjin signaled the emergence of a new global alliance—led by China, supported by Russia and India—against the U.S.

My view: Both of these conclusions are too has

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