Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Central Asia this week with a message for a world unsettled by President Trump: China has friends and influence, and is prepared to help shape what comes next. The scene unfolded at a security summit in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, where Mr. Xi gathered with the leaders of Russia and Iran. He presented Beijing as a source of stability and a champion of an “orderly multipolar world” that would replace the current U.S.-dominated order.

If the Bishkek summit was designed to project solidarity, a meeting of the world’s most powerful countries in the mountains of Asheville, N. C., offered an image of fracture. European officials attending that meeting of the Group of 20 nations’ finance ministers and central bankers expressed outrage this week that the Trump administration had invited Russia, despite its war against Ukraine.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed that Canada was too small to fight a trade war with the United States. And officials were already confronting the economic fallout from the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which disrupted the flow of oil and pushed global energy prices up and threatened to slow growth. The simultaneous gatherings happening across the world reflected the broader contest over who will define the next phase of global order.

China is using its solidarity with Russia and Iran, two countries at war with the West, to project its influence, giving Mr. Xi leverage as he prepared for a summit with Mr. Trump later this month. The United States, meanwhile, was straining the alliances and economic relationships that have underpinned decades of global leadership. In Bishkek, at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Mr. Xi met with the leaders of Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan, but his talks with President Vladimir V.

Putin of Russia carried the most weight. Just days earlier, John Ratcliffe, the C. I.

A. director, had made a secret trip to Moscow to urge the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. Mr. Xi told Mr. Putin: “The foundation of China-Russia relations will become ever stronger.” President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran also attended the summit, though it was not immediately clear if Mr. Xi held talks with him. By comparison, the United States appears to be drifting away from its historical allies and weakening America’s ability to project strength globally. Mr. Trump has opened up a trade war with Canada and reduced war games with South Korea. Concerns are also growing that the United States is depleting its munitions in Iran and unable to meet its defense commitments around the world.

Lars Klingbeil, the German vice chancellor and finance minister, told reporters at the G20 that it was “troubling” that the Trump administration had invited Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov. Mr. Klingbeil said he scolded Mr. Siluanov during a session on Monday over Russia’s war in Ukraine. Many Europeans were also angered that the Treasury Department did not invite representatives from South Africa, a longtime G20 member and Africa’s largest economy.