The Beijing summit did not produce a major agreement between the great powers on the region, but it firmly established that Middle Eastern crises are now deeply tied to the great-power dialogue.
During the Cold War, the United States occupied the apex of this triangular dynamic, pitting China and the USSR against each other. Today, it is Beijing that occupies that apex.
A summit that would normally send a reassuring message ... faces total uncertainty thanks to the weakness of the United States. The only person to blame for this is Trump.
With his reliance on naked power and rejection of all constraints on his authority, Trump represents the opposite of everything that made the U.S. great.
If boat trips from a few hundred years ago are not a claim of ownership, then why should this just apply for Denmark in Greenland, and not also for the European colonizers in North America?