Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Crimea to celebrate five years since Moscow seized the peninsula from Ukraine. Later this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to Europe, where Italy is expected to sign on to Beijing's trillion-dollar Belt and Road global infrastructure plan.

Our thought bubble: Each of these visits speaks to a different way that the world order – once dominated, for better or for worse, by the Euro-Atlantic "west" – is now rapidly shifting.

Russia tearing things down: Back in 2014, President Putin justified the annexation of Crimea by rattling off 20 years worth of grievances with the West, finishing with this warning: "if you compress a spring to its limit, it will snap back hard." Russia in the years since has been in snapback mode – keen to defend what it sees Moscow's sphere of influence (Ukraine), force the US to reckon with Moscow as a global player again (Syria), and to accelerate the political fragmentation of the West along nationalist/populist lines (using its cyber capacity to exacerbate underlying social and political polarization in Europe and the US).

China building things up: But where Russia is concerned primarily with accelerating the decline of an old order, China is looking to create a new one of its own – building new China-run global financial structures, exporting Chinese technological standards and norms, particularly in the development of 5G, and broadening economic and trade relationships left to languish by a less trade-friendly US. Critics worry that Chinese loans will create debt traps, or that Chinese technology companies will muscle out Western competitors while creating national security liabilities. But dozens of countries are eager to tap into lavish Chinese financing for much-needed infrastructure, and to gain better access to that billion-strong export market.

The Belt and Road initiative, which already includes some 80 countries, is a centerpiece of President Xi Jinping's plan for China to "take center stage in the world." Until now, the that strategy has focused primarily on Africa, Asia, Latin America, and smaller countries on Europe's fringes – but if Italy signs on, it would be the first G7 country to join. That would mark a major new milestone in Beijing's global rise.

The big picture: US President Donald Trump has certainly upended long-standing assumptions about American support for a certain kind of global order. But that's only part of a much larger story in which a rising China and a rankled Russia are challenging and remaking the international landscape. In sum: it ain't all Trump.

WHAT WE ARE WATCHING

Unkillable Brexit? – Another wrench in the works for Brexit. The UK House of Commons speaker ruled late yesterday that Prime Minister Theresa May can't hold a third "meaningful vote" on her twice-defeated Brexit deal unless significant changes are made to it. Ms. Ma1y is traveling to Brussels later this week to see if she can win more time for negotiations, but even if she can, it's not clear she'd be able to get significant enough concessions from the EU to allow for another vote (let alone one that would go her way).And so the once-remote chances of a second referendum are growing by the day…

A President Stuck on a Train – To show he's a man of the people ahead of national elections in May, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa boarded a commuter train to mingle with passengers. But thanks in part to the embattled national railway and the decrepit infrastructure on which it relies, a 30-mile journey scheduled to last 45 minutes took nearly four hours. "It is unacceptable," Ramaphosa warned as his long journey ended. Things will improve or "heads will roll." Train delays are a daily source of public fury in South Africa, where late workers sometimes lose their jobs, and this is a chance for Ramaphosa to build much-needed public credibility—if he can make things better.

WHAT THEY ARE IGNORING

We usually ignore things on your behalf, but this week we spotlight a few important things that others are notably tuning out.

Protesters vs Algerian Government Reshuffle – Protesters in Algeria are evidently unmoved by the government's decision to scrap ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's candidacy for a fifth consecutive term. Last Friday, even after that concession was announced, the country saw the largest protests in memory. While Bouteflika's withdrawal from the election was the initial demand of the protesters, they now worry the government will simply reshuffle an opaque power structure dominated by the military without addressing big problems of corruption and lack of economic opportunity. And they are probably right.

Muslim Leaders vs Chinese Abuse of Muslims – The leaders of some of the largest majority-Muslim nations on earth have mostly said nothing about growing evidence that China's government is systematically repressing ethnic-Uighur Muslims in the Western province of Xinjiang. Recently in Beijing, Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman said China has the "right" to do what it likes within its borders. President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the world's largest majority Muslim nation, has also avoided criticizing China. Evidently, the need to court Chinese investment and support surpasses their concern for their coreligionists. The only major Muslim leader who has spoken out is Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is staking his own claim to regional power and leadership of the broader Muslim world.