30 August 2025, China, Tianjin: The flag of China (r-l) flies alongside the flags of India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and different international locations represented on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The ten member states of the regional safety group are assembly from Sunday to Monday within the northern Chinese port metropolis of Tianjin, together with observer and host international locations.
Johannes Neudecker | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
The annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit has wound down in Tianjin with alerts of a more in-depth relationship amongst its members at a time when the world has been roiled by U.S. commerce insurance policies and tariffs.
The two-day occasion, attended by greater than 20 leaders of non-Western international locations, was seen as showcasing Beijing’s ambition for a brand new global safety and financial order that poses a problem to the U.S.
In a thinly-veiled swipe on the U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariff marketing campaign, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his counterparts in his opening speech Monday that the “shadows of Cold War mentality and bullying have not dissipated, with new challenges mounting.”
The world has entered “a new phase of turbulence” with global governance at a “new crossroads,” Xi mentioned, calling for joint efforts to construct a “more just and balanced international governance framework.”
To what extent will Beijing’s push to reshape the global order will materialize stays to be seen. Meanwhile, listed below are the important thing takeaways from the SCO summit:
Thawing India-China relations
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first assembly on Chinese soil in seven years, sharing a imaginative and prescient of being companions not rivals.
The leaders of the world’s two most populous nations — representing some 2.8 billion folks — pledged to step up cooperation and work towards resolving their long-running border dispute.
The rapprochement comes as each international locations face strain from steep U.S. tariffs. “Modi and Xi used all the diplomatic words available to signal a new found commitment … partially motivated by high Trump tariffs on both,” mentioned Wendy Cutler, senior vice chairman at Asia Society Policy Institute.
Still, India stays cautious of a flood of low cost Chinese imports threatening its home industries and border disputes are far from resolved. China’s relationship with Pakistan additionally stays a sticking level within the New Delhi-Beijing relationship.
“Improving trade ties won’t be easy,” Cutler mentioned, noting New Delhi was seemingly to maintain restrictive measures in place after a sequence of antidumping instances in opposition to Chinese imports.
Xi, Putin, Modi troika
The summit additionally captured Xi, Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin holding arms and sharing snicker on the sidelines of the SCO, at a time when the U.S. has charged India and China of fueling Moscow’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine.
India — lengthy courted by the U.S. as a counterweight to China — has been the goal of Trump’s steep tariffs, the Kremlin has brushed apart Washington’s push for peace in Ukraine, and Beijing continues to spar with the U.S. over commerce, know-how and geopolitical points.
The symbolism of the three leaders collectively initiatives China instead to the U.S. as a accomplice. Trump is “breathing new life” into the summit, giving China an opportunity to body its diplomacy as extra reliable than Washington’s, mentioned Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group.
Modi advised his Russian counterpart that India and Russia stood facet by facet even in tough occasions after Putin referred to as Modi his “dear friend,” describing their relations as “friendly and trusting.” Later Monday, Modi posted on X a photograph of himself with Putin contained in the Russian chief’s armored Aurus limousine.
“India is using this to opportunistically send a signal indirectly to Washington, that it has strategic options, not only in Beijing, but also in Moscow,” Chan mentioned.
For Russia, the SCO additionally stays one of many few worldwide platforms the place Putin isn’t on the defensive, underscoring Moscow’s enduring ties with influential Asian companions regardless of Western sanctions.
AI partnership roadmap
The Tianjin Declaration of the SCO Council reaffirmed commitments to strengthen artificial intelligence cooperation, underscoring “equal rights of all countries to develop and use AI.”
That adopted Premier Li Qiang’s remarks at one other AI convention in Shanghai final month, the place he proposed creating a corporation to coordinate global efforts to regulate the fast-evolving AI know-how.
The SCO members, in a joint declaration, pledged to cooperate on lowering dangers and enhancing the safety and accountability of AI for the advantages of humanity, whereas committing to implement a roadmap for joint AI cooperation and improvement.
In a statement following the SCO AI Cooperation Forum held in May, Beijing referred to as on member states to work collectively in constructing a collaboration heart for AI utility, whereas pledging to promote open-source AI fashions and share superior applied sciences.
“Beijing has leaned into ‘open-source [large-language-models]’ as productivity infrastructure,” mentioned Paul Triolo, a accomplice at DGA Group, including that the problem lies in “how or if to regulate the use of open source models across borders.”
A brand new improvement financial institution
Some member states agreed to arrange an SCO improvement financial institution, what can be a big step within the bloc’s long-standing goal of establishing an alternative payment system that reduces reliance on the U.S. greenback.
China is the biggest shareholder of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that was launched in 2014 to fund initiatives in growing nations as a direct problem to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
While the proposed improvement financial institution might fall wanting the AIIB’s scale, it displays Xi’s ambition to place himself because the ‘architect’ of a China-led global governance framework, mentioned Steven Okun, chief government officer of consultancy APAC Advisors.
Beijing additionally pledged 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in free assist for member states this yr and one other 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in loans to the group’s members over the following three years.