Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted around 20 leaders from across Eurasia last weekend at the 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, held in the northeast port city of Tianjin.
The two-day summit brought together leaders and representatives from the 10 SCO member states — including India, Pakistan, and Russia — and guests from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
The event was a diplomatic coup for Xi, who used the summit to cast China as a reliable partner and defender of multilateralism, despite some evidence to the contrary (e.g. its rejection of UNCLOS and economic coercion against countries including Canada). The summit communiqué, endorsed unanimously, condemned “unilateral coercive economic measures,” a not-so-veiled reference to U.S. tariffs, and committed to broadening the SCO’s remit from security to include development and trade.
Leaders also agreed to establish an SCO development bank, with Beijing offering up US$280 million in grant aid and US$1.4 billion in loans for SCO members. China also proposed a new “Global Governance Initiative (GGI)” to “promote the building of a more just and equitable global governance system,” according to a concept paper published by Beijing’s foreign affairs ministry.
The GGI is still hazy in its structure and goals, but would reportedly prioritize “sovereignty,” “the rule of law,” and “multilateralism” and complement China’s pre-existing Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative — all launched by Xi in the last five years. Tellingly, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters that the GGI was “the highlight” of the Tianjin summit.
For now, an SCO-led “global order” remains out of reach; the organization is not yet global (or orderly). Fellow SCO members India and Pakistan, for example, traded missile and drone attacks as recently as May, while relations between long-time rivals India and China have only recently thawed.
The “Shanghai Five,” founded in 1996, was the SCO’s predecessor. The organization took on its current form in 2001, when Uzbekistan joined.
Takes two to tango
In Tianjin, a Sunday meeting between Modi and Xi — the first one on Chinese soil in seven years — took centre stage. Modi told Xi that he was “committed to progressing our relations based on mutual respect, trust, and sensitivities,” while Chinese state media reported that Xi noted bilateral relations had the potential to be “stable and far-reaching." “The dragon and the elephant can dance together,” Xi added.
While the tone of the talks was positive, the rhetoric represents a tactical 'reset' rather than a wholesale strategic shift. This reset, formally initiated at a Xi-Modi meeting in November, predates this summer’s rupture in India-U.S. relations, instead reflecting India’s policy of ‘strategic autonomy’ (i.e. maintaining independence and not taking sides).
Thorny problems persist in the China-India relationship, however, including disagreements over the countries’ shared border, water management, China's support for Pakistan, and India’s concern over its US$99.2-billion trade deficit with China. What’s more, the two aren’t yet on the same page: a Chinese readout of the meeting said Xi noted the importance of a “multipolar world,” while an Indian readout emphasized, instead, a “multipolar Asia.” The variance in language suggests India has no desire for a hegemon in Asia, while China presumably sees itself as that hegemon.
After the Modi-Xi meeting, Trump said on social media that trade with India was a “one-sided disaster,” while his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, wrote that it was “a shame to see Modi getting in bed with the two biggest authoritarians in the world.”
