China’s Belt and Road forum taking place against background of a sharply divided world

It was Vladimir Putin’s first major international appearance since his invasion of Ukraine last year, and he came to Beijing with a large delegation including his foreign minister, two deputy prime ministers and the head of the central bank. But as he walked onstage at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday morning, a small group of European officials, including the French and Italian ambassadors to China and former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, walked out.

They filed back in again after the Russian president finished speaking but the discreet protest illustrated the fact that Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road forum was taking place against the background of a sharply divided world.

In his opening address, Mr Xi held up the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which has seen China invest €1 trillion in infrastructure and connectivity projects, as a model of international co-operation. “Such co-operation seeks to deliver a good life not only to people of just one country, but to people in other countries as well. It promotes connectivity, mutual benefit, common development, co-operation and win-win outcomes. Ideological confrontation, geopolitical rivalry and bloc politics are not a choice for us. What we stand against are unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and decoupling and supply chain disruption.”

Mr Xi did not name the United States or its allies, and some of the other leaders who attended the forum, most of them from the Global South, stressed that their co-operation through the BRI did not require them to choose sides in a geopolitical contest. But Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed said the initiative was helping Africa to realise its capacity and find its voice. “We cannot be idle observers in forums that affect common wellbeing,” he said.

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Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo was the only leader to refer publicly to the downsides of the BRI which has left some countries, including his own, owing China tens of billions of dollars. He said projects should be designed so they employed more local labour and they “must not complicate their fiscal conditions”.

The Taliban’s commerce minister Haji Nooruddin Azizi told reporters that he was in Beijing because China was currently the only major power that was interested in Afghanistan. “China has more interest right now in developing Afghanistan at this moment, so we are more engaged with China. The Chinese have more interest in economic affairs, that’s why we’re here.”

Hungary’s Viktor Orban, the only EU leader to attend the forum, kept a low profile and was not among the speakers at the opening ceremony. He drew criticism from European politicians and commentators after he held a bilateral meeting with Mr Putin in Beijing on Tuesday.

The Russian president had three hours of talks with his Chinese counterpart, during which they discussed the war in Ukraine and the situation in Gaza as well as bilateral issues. “All these external factors are common threats. They strengthen Russian-Chinese interaction,” Mr Putin said afterwards.

He described the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza as a terrible event, and called for negotiations to end the conflict. “Hundreds of dead and hundreds of wounded are of course a catastrophe. I really hope this will be a signal that we need to end this conflict as soon as possible. In any case we need to focus on the possibility of starting some contacts and negotiations.”

Mr Putin has spoken to Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu in recent days. He said he received the impression that none of them wished to see the conflict escalate.

“In my opinion the main players – some by definition do not want to, some are afraid of something – but I have the impression that there are practically no players ready to develop the conflict and turn it into a large-scale war,” he said.

In his speech to the forum United Nations secretary general António Guterres called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow time for Hamas to free the Israeli hostages and for Israel to allow humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinian people there.