Wang Yi

Wang Yi is running diplomacy on more fronts than any single week should allow. On July 24 he stood at the SCO foreign ministers' meeting in Cholpon-Ata and laid out a four-point plan for the bloc: Shanghai Spirit solidarity, four security centers, Belt and Road cooperation, and a UN-aligned global governance zone, backed by seven cooperation platforms including AI. On the sidelines he pressed Iranian FM Araghchi to resume the Strait of Hormuz memorandum, telling him "the door to negotiations, once opened, should not be closed," and signed consultation plans with Belarus, discussed a trans-Central Asian railway with Uzbekistan, and talked energy and counterterrorism with Tajikistan.

The SCO appearance capped a dense Manila swing for the ASEAN meetings (July 18-24). There Wang Yi pushed hard for a South China Sea Code of Conduct, urging regional states to resist "external interference" and seize a "critical window" to finalize the pact. He warned Manila it would face "bitter consequences of its own making" if it kept provoking Beijing with external backing, as coast guard clashes at Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal intensified through the week. He met Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss strategic stability and prepare for President Trump's planned September Beijing visit, a face-to-face that followed a July 2 phone call where Wang urged both sides to "remove disruptions" and handle Taiwan with "utmost caution." Japan's FM Motegi claimed a meeting with Wang in Manila too, but China's foreign ministry denied any was planned and sent lower-ranking officials in his place to the ASEAN Plus Three, EAS and ARF sessions.

Beyond Asia, Wang has been selling China as broker everywhere. He endorsed the Islamabad Memorandum on the Strait of Hormuz, pressed Saudi Arabia and Iran to keep talking, and met a UAE official in New Delhi to coordinate a ceasefire and new Gulf security architecture. A Nordic tour through Denmark, Sweden and Finland in early July sought to reset European ties, framing the EU as "partners rather than rivals" and pushing back against unilateral trade pressure. He hosted Kazakhstan's FM in Beijing, endorsed a Canada-China EV import deal projected to lift Canadian exports, and signaled willingness to mediate the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute. The pattern is consistent: open doors where partners cooperate, draw hard lines where they resist, and position Beijing at the center of every settlement.