Hong Kong (CNN)Smiling broadly as he strode into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in June 2018 alongside a group of world leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping had never looked stronger.
Less than one week later, however, the United States imposed its first tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, kicking off what would become a raging global trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
On Friday, Xi returns to the SCO under markedly different circumstances.
