European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas speaks to the media as she arrives at the fifth EU–Southern Neighbourhood Ministerial meeting in Brussels on July 14, 2025. Yves Herman/Reuters
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s Sept. 3 remarks at a parade held in Beijing to celebrate a war anniversary drew criticism from the European Union when he proclaimed that the Chinese people under the CCP stood “on the right side of history.”
Xi was flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in photo ops, forming what analysts have described as a new axis that seeks to upend the international order. Two dozen other foreign heads of state were also in attendance.
