To persuade Kim to give up his nuclear arsenal, the U.S. president appears ready to guarantee Little Rocket Man’s survival. Part of the game: trying to wean Kim away from China.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks at an expanded meeting of the seventh Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, in Pyongyang on Friday. North Korea on Wednesday threatened to suspend the summit with the US if Washington continues to demand a unilateral abandonment of its nuclear arsenal.

China’s air force has landed bombers on islands and reefs in the South China Sea as part of a training exercise in the disputed region, it said in a statement.

Several bombers of various types – including the long-range, nuclear strike-capable H-6K – carried out landing and take off drills at an unidentified island airfield after carrying out simulated strike training on targets at sea, the Chinese airforce said.

“A division of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) recently organised multiple bombers such as the H-6K to conduct take-off and landing training on islands and reefs in the South China Sea in order to improve our ability to ‘reach all territory, conduct strikes at any time and strike in all directions’,” it said.

Beijing had offered to reduce the US trade deficit by "at least $200 billion" - on Friday the U.S. and China wrapped up the second day of trade talks, and while Beijing made a vague, unenforceable commitment to buy more U.S. goods and services, it resisted Trump's core demand that it cut by more than half the $375BN bilateral trade deficit.

According to the WSJ, while the Chinese were wary of committing to specific purchases - even though Kudlow also said China would buy more farm products, energy and financial services - they continue to look for a way to ease trade tensions between the two nations even if it means with token promises and gestures.

China’s Foreign Ministry announced Thursday that it retains sole right of refusal over all gas and oil exploration and mining in the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang told reporters at a news briefing that "We urge relevant parties to earnestly respect China's sovereign and jurisdictional rights and not do anything that could impact bilateral relations or this region's peace and stability."

The "relevant parties" in this case are other countries that also claim parts of the South China Sea, particularly islands in close proximity to gas and oil reserves. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have competing claims in the sea.

Russian economic observer Maxim Rubchenko reveals the kinds of aces President Xi has up his sleeve to allow him to trump President Trump on trade.

A high-level delegation of Chinese negotiators arrived in Washington on Tuesday for five days of trade talks, reciprocating a US delegation's visit to Beijing at the beginning of May.

Ahead of the negotiations, Deputy Minister of Commerce Liu Xuesong vowed that China would "repulse" Washington's protectionist measures, which he said "caused serious damage to Chinese interests, as well as American manufacturing and American consumers."

The Russian economy is proving to be resilient and showing a strong recovery from the initial shock of the latest round of US sanctions targeting the business sector.

The ruble-traded MOEX reached 2,358 points this week, which is very close to an all-time high of 2,376.96 seen in February. The dollar-traded RTS index is still over 10 percent down from the February highs, but has also been recovering.

Analysts are pointing at the good signs in the Russian economy and growing price in crude oil. “The victorious march in the market goes on. In my opinion, this happens because of the influx of new investors in shares following the good situation in commodities and stable macroeconomic indicators,” said Freedom Finance analyst Georgy Vashchenko in a note. “If the trend does not break, MOEX can reach record high 2,400 points.

PRESIDENT Donald Trump said the US has been "ripped off" by China for many years as officials from the two countries prepare to hold talks in Washington tomorrow over trade ties and future deals.

Taiwan says it is accelerating production of nearly a dozen stealthy Tuo Chiang-class missile corvettes, the first of which will be focused on air-defense missions. The announcement is another part of the island’s attempts to keep pace with China’s People’s Liberation Army's development of increasingly advanced capabilities in the air and at sea and provide a credible defense during a crisis in the region.

The White House has declined to comment on a planned Indonesian real estate project which will bring together Trump Organization branding and hundreds of millions of dollars of Chinese government money.

“MNC Lido City” is the name of the massive, billion-dollar “integrated lifestyle resort” that will be built on the outskirts of Jakarta. Among other things, the resort will include hotels, residences, and a golf course that will all be under the Trump Organization brand.

A bill recently reintroduced on Capitol Hill seeks to increase US defense spending by $1.5 billion per year over the next five years to support Taiwan’s defense posture toward China.

The bill "enshrines a generational policy framework to demonstrate US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region," according to US Senator Cory Gardner's (R-CO) press office. Dubbed the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, the bill would increase funding for the US military's regional presence by funding freedom-of-navigation operations, which Beijing has condemned in the past.

Furthermore, the bill "expresses support for regular arms sales to Taiwan," the summary from Gardner's office says. About $150 million annually would be spent "for democracy, rule of law and civil society support, including $10 million annually for freedom of information efforts in North Korea."

We will examine the reason why Trump has embraced three strategic decisions which have world-historic consequences, namely: Trump’s reneging the nuclear accord with Iran; Trump’s declaration of a trade war with China; and Trump’s meeting with North Korea.

In brief we will explore the political reasons for his decisions; what he expects to gain; and what is his game plan if he fails to secure his expected outcome and his adversaries take reprisals.

Anti-Russian sanctions imposed by Washington will not affect Chinese investors’ interest in the Russian market, Beijing will continue to support bilateral cooperation in trade and investment, Liu Xuesong, the deputy director general of the Chinese Commerce Ministry’s Eurasia Affairs Department, said on Tuesday.

"Over the years, the United States has repeatedly imposed sanctions against other states unilaterally. The Chinese side is firmly against this. At present relations between Russia and China are developing very successfully, cooperation in trade and investment will not be affected by external factors… The interest of Chinese investors in Russia will not diminish," Liu told reporters.

The official added that Beijing would support Chinese companies' investments in the Russian market.

The United States is not seeking a trade war with China and top US officials are looking to make a deal with Beijing, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Tuesday. The statement came as talks between the two nations were set to resume.

President Trump surprised pundits and assorted watchers of the ongoing simmering trade war between China and the US on Sunday, when he pledged to help China’s telecom giant ZTE Corp “get back into business, fast” after a U.S. ban crippled the technology company, offering a job-saving concession to Beijing ahead of high-stakes trade talks this week.

It appears the impact of "unintended consequences" has hit the Trump administration once again. Following the 'rescue' of Rusal - driven almost into the ground by Trump's aluminum tariffs and oligarch sanctions (which sent aluminum prices skyrocketing, crushing margins for end-users); it appears China's threats of retaliation against Trump's ban on giant Chinese telecoms company ZTE have sunk in.

As a reminder, in response to Trump's 7-year ban of component sales by US companies to China's ZTE (in retaliation for "tech IT theft and distribution"), a tide of angry populist rhetoric swept across China's social media and press, amid warnings from Chinese officials (and the company itself) that

"The Denial Order will not only severely impact the survival and development of ZTE, but will also cause damages to all partners of ZTE including a large number of U.S. companies."

• It is being built since 2013, it was launched in April last year. It is a constructive copy of the Soviet / Russian aircraft carrier Vargag and Admiral Kuznetsov with a raised bow. The Chinese media say that it will be able to carry 36 J-15 hunters on board

The first Chinese carrier of a fully domestic production aircraft - currently Type 001A - sailed on May 13 at 7:00 local time for reconnaissance testing.

It is being built since 2013, it was launched in April last year, and it has sailed from the port of Dalian, in the north of China, for testing.
The Ministry of Defense announced that its reliability in navigation, the stability of drives and "all other systems" will be checked in the coming days.

It is 315 meters long and 75 meters wide.

It's heavy of 70,000 tons, and it can develop speeds of up to 31 knots.

President Trump’s decision to walk out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran has prompted condemnation by other P5+1 members, including the EU, Russia and China.

France’s National Front head Marine Le Pen believes that President Emmanuel Macron bears his share of responsibility” for the “illusions” he had about his ability to talk President Trump out of withdrawing from the nuclear deal with Tehran.

“I resolutely condemn the position of Donald Trump and also that of the French diplomacy which, in its attempts to be even more neo-Conservative than (US national security adviser] John Bolton, has found itself without US patronage and no alternative way to go,” Le Pen said in a statement released on Friday.

Let’s everyone take a breath. Yes, China presents a potential threat to American interests in the economic, cyber, and naval realms. The U.S. must maintain a credible defensive and expeditionary posture and be prepared for a worst case scenario. What we don’t need is to blunder into a regional, or, worse still, all-out war with the Chinese dragon. Not now, probably not ever.

A Japanese newspaper has raised the possibility of Chinese President Xi Jinping also travelling to Singapore when US President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for an unprecedented summit on June 12.

The Mainichi Shimbun's Washington-based correspondent cited American diplomatic sources as saying there was a chance that Mr Xi may meet Mr Trump and Mr Kim in Singapore.

In the report published on Friday, the Mainichi quoted a senior international negotiator with the National Security Council as telling reporters that "there is a possibility" the leader of a third country may take part.

Mr Trump announced via a tweet on Thursday that his summit with Mr Kim will be held on June 12 in Singapore.

China is likely to maintain cooperation with Iran even after the resumption of the American sanctions regime, scholars told Sputnik, adding that Beijing could play the role of a broker by creating a common platform for talks on the future of the Iran nuclear deal following Washington's decision to exit the agreement.

Beijing has a very good experience of using workarounds while developing cooperation with countries subjected to American sanctions, Irina Fyodorova, a senior researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), told Sputnik China, commenting on Donald Trump's May 8 pullout of the Iran nuclear deal and his decision to resume anti-Tehran restrictions.

Two feuding villages in South China have officially put an end to a 200-year marriage ban between them - mostly because no one really remembers what started it.

Representatives from Guolong and Beishan, two villages in Puning, Guangdong Province, held a reconciliation ceremony in Guolong on Sunday to mark the end of the centuries-old feud, media reported.

A friendly agreement was also signed between the two villages to start cooperation on issues such as education, economy, environment and culture.

An ex-CIA agent has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing information to Chinese intelligence officials, per the NY Times.

Why it matters: This follows a years-long investigation, launched in 2012 amid suspicion that a mole had betrayed the identities of CIA informants who kept disappearing. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, the former agent, was arrested in January and charged with the far less serious charge of illegally retaining classified information, but these charges confirm he's suspected of spying for China.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, global firms that have dipped their toes in the Iran market are left with few good choices.

The UK, France and Germany struck a defiant tone after the decision, urging the US not to prevent other countries from maintaining the status quo under the 2015 agreement.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalistic government is taking a more proactive role in regional military cooperation than its predecessors – and the reason, according to Jeff M Smith of the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Centre, is that China has emerged as a regular actor in the Indian Ocean.

That also means, Smith argues in a May 8 interview with the National Bureau of Asian Research, that Modi is less inhibited by India’s history of non-alignment and less suspicious of strategic collaboration with the United States and its security partners than previous administrations.

Russia has completed the delivery of the first regimental set of the air defense system S-400 to China. A third ship carrying missing support equipment has arrived at its port of destination. China will begin acceptance procedures at the end of May, a military-diplomatic source told TASS.

"The last batch of military equipment for the first regimental set of S-400 systems has been delivered by sea from Ust-Luga, the Leningrad Region, to China," the source said. "The ship has brought the equipment not damaged during a December storm in the English Channel and the damaged equipment after repairs."

For the past year and half a major topic throughout the alternative press has been the new Chinese oil futures contract settled/priced in yuan. The fact that China is directly challenging the Federal Reserve Note, U.S. dollar, is quiet a significant change. For those that have been paying attention this new futures oil contract is nothing more than the next step in China moving completely away from the Federal Reserve Note, and the “world reserve currency” system and towards a multi-polar world with several currencies being used for international trade.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was very pleased his country’s relationship with China had reached a high point, North Korean state media said on Tuesday, confirming his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Kim and Xi, at their meeting in China, discussed ways to strengthen their strategic alliance amid changing situations on the Korean peninsula, the North’s KCNA news agency said.

China’s Xi Jinping has urged Donald Trump to consider Pyongyang’s legitimate security concerns ahead of a highly-anticipated summit between the US president and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Xi phoned Trump shortly after meeting with Kim on Tuesday in northern China, the North Korean leader’s second visit to China in as many months. According to Chinese state media, Xi told Trump that China supports a summit between the United States and North Korea and hoped that Washington would help to foster trust between the two sides by acknowledging Pyongyang’s security concerns.

The Chinese president also relayed to Trump that Kim wanted to discuss “phased and synchronous measures” to help ease tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program.

So it’s “Orwellian nonsense” to insist on calling Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan part of China? At least that’s according to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

“This is Orwellian nonsense and part of a growing trend by the Chinese Communist Party to impose its political views on American citizens and private companies,’’ she said at the weekend in a statement.

She was referring to reports that international airlines have been told to remove all references on their websites and in other material that might suggest Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are separate or independent from China.

Washington demands China should again agree to become a weak and technologically backward state. In return, the USA will give China an opportunity to make profit on American markets.

In particular, the USA wants China to:

1. Reduce tariffs to the level of corresponding American tariffs;

2. Remove restrictions on US investment in certain sectors of the Chinese economy;

3. Stop cyber attacks on the United States;

4. Strengthen the protection of American intellectual property;

5. Eliminate state subsidies for enterprises in the sphere of high technology.

Israeli security officials believe Iran may be preparing a missile attack in retaliation for the April 9 strike on Syria’s T-4 airbase, in which seven Iranians were killed.

Israeli media reported Sunday, citing defense officials, that Tel Aviv is bracing for possible missile strikes by Iran from sites inside Syria.

According to security personnel, Iran is likely to attempt a retaliatory missile attack against military targets in northern Israel following last month's strike on the T-4 base in Syria.

In Sept. 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters.

Things to Know About Israel's Alleged Top-Secret Nuclear Program

In what sounds eerily like a re-run of the Cuban Missile Crisis (though admittedly not nearly as dire), the US has threatened Beijing with unspecified "consequences" if China doesn't remove missiles from islands in the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines.

US representatives issued a series of demands in Beijing during talks on May 4, ranging from an insistence that China take no action against US measures undermining its development of high-tech industries to the impossible ultimatum that it cut its trade surplus with the US by $200 billion within two years. These demands are not intended as the basis for negotiations, but to escalate economic conflict and military tensions.

“The US demands amount to a call for unilateral Chinese disarmament ahead of a potential trade war and for Beijing to abandon key elements of its industrial policy, which have led Washington to grow increasingly wary of China as a long-term economic rival,” the Financial Times commented.

China economy expert Eswar Prasad, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told the newspaper:

“These meetings could end up going into the books as a formalisation of hostilities rather than as a basis for a negotiated settlement.”

As tensions in relations between the United States and China continue to rise, former US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton publicly speaks against what she describes as Beijing’s political interference in Australia and New Zealand.

During her tour of Australia and New Zealand, former US Secretary of State and ex-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed that China seeks to interfere with political processes in the region, according to Business Insider.

"In Australia and here in New Zealand experts are sounding the alarm about Chinese efforts to gain political power and influence policy decisions," Clinton declared.

The market fear has raised since China issued the new tariff list of 106 U.S. products. Targeting at soybean, corn, cotton, sorghum and other U.S. agricultural exports, the additional tariff would result in the severe export decline as well as the growing panic of U.S. farming and agricultural industry. Today, U.S. soybean market’s biggest fear has been confirmed. Bunge, world’s biggest oilseed processor says China has essentially stopped buying U.S. supplies amid the brewing trade war, reported by Bloomberg.

Instead of buying U.S. soybeans, China is turning the sourcing region to Brazil and Canada, mostly Brazil. Many experts have predicted Brazil would be one of the beneficiaries in U.S-China trade war and the best alternative soybean exporter to the U.S.. Soren Schroder, chief executive of Bunge, said that he saw the U.S. making “very little if any” sales of soybeans to China, and not sure about how long it will last.

The White House issued a statement slamming a letter the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration was understood to have sent to the US and 36 foreign air carriers and demanding a number of changes to them are made.

The carriers were ordered to remove references on websites or in other material that suggests Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau are part of countries independent from China, according to US officials.

Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial issue, with China considering the self-ruled, democratic island a loose cannon in terms of its providence with former European colonies Hong Kong and Macau now part of China but running separately.

The Pentagon said in the statement: “The United States strongly objects to China's attempts to compel private firms to use specific language of a political nature in their publicly available content.

Donald Trump thinks his “maximum pressure” campaign persuaded North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But it’s a bunch of baloney. The reason Kim Jong-un is planning to denuclearize is because China adamantly opposes nuclear weapons on the peninsula. That’s the whole deal in a nutshell. China, who is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, gave Kim an ultimatum: Ditch the nukes or face long-term economic strangulation. Kim very wisely chose the former option, which is to say, he backed down.

In April we told you about how some of the "unintended consequences" of Trump's steel tariffs, such as an Illinois farmer who put the brakes on a $71,000 grain mill, but had to hold off on the purchase because the seller raised the price 5% to account for the rising price of steel, or Iowa grain mill producer Sukup Manufacturing, which had to hike their prices for grain storage bins.

The Wall Street Journal now reports that the US-China "trade spat" is now affecting US exporters of soybeans, pork and other commodities.

China has significantly boosted oil imports from Russia, while the latter has been selling less crude to Europe. An analyst told RT that Beijing has become a more preferable partner in the oil trade for Moscow.

RT’s source in Russia’s largest oil exporter Transneft has said that since January 1, the country is pumping more oil to China, while exports to Europe have plunged. Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Russia will have shipped 19 percent less oil through its ports on the Baltic and Black Seas in the first five months of 2018, and sold 43 percent more oil to China through March.

The United States has raised concerns with China about its latest militarization of the South China Sea and there will be near-term and long-term consequences, the White House said on Thursday.

U.S. news network CNBC reported on Wednesday that China had installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three manmade outposts in the South China Sea. It cited sources with direct knowledge of U.S. intelligence.

Asked about the report, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told a regular news briefing: "We’re well aware of China’s militarization of the South China Sea. We’ve raised concerns directly with the Chinese about this and there will be near-term and long-term consequences."

Sanders did not say what the consequences might be.

Due to security concerns, the federal government has moved to restrict Huawei’s operations in the United States and the Pentagon this week ordered military exchanges to stop selling electronics made by Huawei and its Chinese competitor, ZTE.

“It’s not just the South China Sea,” Navy Secretary Richard Spencer told the Senate Appropriations Committee last month. “It’s across the full spectrum that China is coming at us.”

Beijing has installed cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles on man-made islands throughout the South China Sea, according to a report on Wednesday, a move one US security analyst described as “a clear offensive threat.”

CNBC first broke the story, citing sources with direct knowledge of US intelligence reports who said the missile platforms were deployed on the outposts within the past 30 days.

The news comes less than a month after The Wall Street Journal reported that “military jamming equipment” had been installed on the Spratly Islands, one of the locations also identified in the report this week.

This week US Trade Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will meet with Liu He, economic adviser to China President Xi Jinping to discuss how a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies can be avoided.

Tensions between the US and China have escalated in recent months after the US President announced plans to impose at least $50billion of tariffs on Chinese imports.

In response China put a 25 percent levy on US imports, such as soybeans, cars and whiskey.

With US and China now heading to the negotiating table Mr Trump said: “I think we've got a very good chance of making a deal.”

Chinese property speculators are starting to bet on a rapid improvement in relations between North Korea and the rest of the world, pushing up prices in the border city of Dandong and even spurring buying interest in the world’s most isolated country.

As North Korea holds summit meetings with its archenemies — first South Korea, and soon the United States — China is hustling not to lose influence.

Its foreign minister, Wang Yi, returned Thursday to Beijing after two days in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, where he met with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, shoring up China’s position as the North’s best friend.

China holds substantial economic leverage, but in the heightened strategic competition between it and the United States, it worries that Mr. Kim is using that rivalry to reduce dependence on China, his country’s longtime benefactor.

One of Mr. Wang’s jobs was to try to stop Mr. Kim from veering toward the United States under President Trump, some Chinese experts said.

The US military warned Friday that pilots near Djibouti airspace should exercise “extreme caution,” as high-powered lasers are reportedly emanating from near China’s naval base there.

"There have been multiple lazing events involving a high powered laser in the vicinity of N1135.70 EO4303.14," US aviation safety officials said in a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM).

IHS Jane's said the coordinates listed in the NOTAM point to a location 750 meters from the People's Liberation Army Navy base in Djibouti.

The Pentagon is moving away from the war on terror, choosing instead to primarily focus on deterring “strategic competitors” China and Russia, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stressed while testifying before a Senate panel on Thursday.
Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee via written testimony:

The global situation is sobering. Russia is modernizing its full range of nuclear systems while espousing a theory of nuclear escalation in military conflict. China, too, is modernizing and expanding its already considerable nuclear forces, pursuing entirely new capabilities. China is also modernizing its conventional military forces to a degree that will challenge U.S. military superiority.

The Chinese Air Force has stated that the country’s fighter jets, reconnaissance planes and bombers have taken part in “combat drills” around Taiwan as part of a series of exercises “to strengthen its capacity to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Speaking at a monthly press conference, Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said that the Chinese military had introduced into service the DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missiles, dubbed “Guam killer” in Chinese media for its ability to attack the US naval base in the Pacific Ocean both with a conventional or nuclear weapon.

“The series of operations we are carrying out is directed against Taiwan independence forces and activities in the island. Their purpose is to prevent that the Taiwan independence forces’ plot damages the welfare of the Taiwanese people. If the independence forces continue to wantonly take rash actions, we will take further action,” Qian said.

The ultimate inheritor of this naval imperial project is the United States, which, with the new addition of air power, and with its large aircraft carrier fleet and huge network of military bases throughout the planet, is supposedly able to impose Pax Americana on the entire world. Or, rather, was able to do so—during the brief period between the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of Russia and China as new global powers and their development of new anti-ship and antiaircraft technologies. But now this imperial project is at an end.

Chinese naval forces have recently sailed through seas close to the South of Taiwan and carried out military exercises in the Western Pacific, carrying out a series of drills with Taiwan that has been criticized as amounting to ‘intimidation’. What is going on?

Two groups of Chinese researchers have reportedly confirmed a risk from radioactive exposure to their countrymen after a North Korean nuclear test site appeared to have partially collapsed.

North Korea's Mount Mantap has contained every known nuclear test in the country: the Punggye-ri nuclear test site sits under it in a network of tunnels. After a thermonuclear device was tested in early September 2017, seismic activity at the mountain was recorded in the form of a 6.3-magnitude earthquake, according to the US Geological Survey's findings, while the China Earthquake Networks Center detected a 3.4 magnitude follow-up quake.

Almost immediately, it was reported that the mountain had experienced a tunnel collapse, although with some uncertainty. Now, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that Chinese researchers have confirmed that the mountain collapsed on itself.

INDIA and Pakistan appear desperate to prevent World War 3 breaking out as the two nuclear armed nations engage in joint military drills with Russia and China, it has emerged.

Russia and China have pledged to strengthen their bilateral military and political ties as part of a strategic cooperation that challenges U.S. interests, especially to Washington's stance on Middle East allies Syria and Iran.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met Tuesday with Air Force General Xu Qiliang, deputy vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, and other regional military officials as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the eastern city of Qingdao. As increasingly powerful Russia and China build up their clout on the world stage, they sought a more united front against the U.S., which frequently challenged their rise.