APEC summit and Pacific rim

IN CHINA even a handshake is an expression of power. When Xi Jinping met Barack Obama in Beijing this week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit, Mr Xi stood on the right, his body open towards the cameras in an attitude of confident strength. The visitor was required to approach him, as if paying tribute, from the left, shoulder defensively towards the photographers. These days, from the smallest details of summit choreography to the biggest global issues, the rivalry between China and America trumps everything.

On the face if it, diplomacy triumphed this week. There was an even more momentous handshake—the long-awaited, reluctant one between Mr Xi and Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, which signalled a lowering of tensions over disputed islands. Mr Xi and the president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, had a “meeting of minds” over a separate maritime matter. China and South Korea agreed a trade deal of their own. And America and China made real progress on climate change, visas, trade and security. Compared with the torpor and occasional ill-temper of previous APEC summits, this was visionary stuff (see article), and the summitry is now moving on to Myanmar and Australia. The trouble is that all this is only a first step in diffusing the tensions in the Pacific created by the rise of China and America’s relative decline.