THE summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation took place against the backdrop of significant geopolitical upheaval. This has been driven largely by President Donald Trump’s disruptive policies, which have upended global trade by a tariff war and also reordered Washington’s geopolitical priorities. The US president’s aggressive trade policy applied against both allies and adversaries has encouraged them to seek closer ties with each other even as they pursue negotiations with Washington to secure lower levies.
Trump’s coercive approach has pushed China and Russia even closer together. His trade assault on India and imposition of penalties over Indian import of Russian oil has undermined strategic ties built over decades with New Delhi. This has urged India to reach out to China and deepened the thaw in their relations. It is also the principal reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to undertake his first visit to China in seven years to attend the SCO summit.
These developments shaped the environment for the high-profile SCO summit. This was its biggest gathering so far since the Eurasian organisation’s inception in 2001. It was attended by leaders of 10 member states and another 16 observer or dialogue partner countries as well as heads of 10 international organisations. A regional security and economic grouping, SCO represents over 40 per cent of the world’s population and accounts for a quarter of the global economy.
The summit marked an opportunity for President Xi Jinping to set out an alternative vision for the global order that places emphasis on cooperation in contrast to the confrontation represented by Trump’s policies.
In a volatile international landscape created by Trump’s actions, China offered stability and more responsible and reliable global leadership. It also offered to be a strong voice for the Global South.
The summit convened in the backdrop of Trump’s disruptive actions that accelerated geopolitical trends.
The summit was important for its symbolism, messages to the world, especially the US, display of Global South solidarity and for bilateral meetings on the sidelines aimed at strengthening regional relationships or as some said, “redrawing the geopolitical map”. President Xi’s speech called for a fairer, more equitable international system. He reiterated China’s support for multilateralism, stressing the need to strengthen it and accord the UN a key role. Taking aim at the US, without naming it, he rejected “bullying behaviour” by certain countries and decried the “Cold War” mentality that “continues to haunt the world”. He also called for “a clear stand against hegemonism” and to oppose “unilateralism”.
Declaring the global governance system was at a crossroads, he announced a ‘Global Governance Initiative’ predicated on international law and equal participation of all states with a greater voice for developing countries. More significantly, President Xi received support from member states to establish a new SCO development bank and pledged two billion RMB in grants and 10bn in loans for SCO members. This marks the first time the organisation’s economic role has been backed by development finance funds and reflects China’s increasing weight in the global finance system.
The Tianjin declaration issued at the summit called for the “creation of a more just multipolar world order”. In implicit criticism of the US, it said member states opposed “confrontational approaches to resolving international issues”. It rejected “unilateral coercive measures”, including economic ones and vowed to boost trade within the organisation — again a veiled reference to Trump’s tariff actions. The joint communiqué “strongly condemned the military strikes by Israel and the US against Iran in June 2025”, calling them “a gross violation of the UN Charter and international law”. It expressed concern at the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza. It called for an immediate ceasefire and a just settlement of the Palestinian issue. Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of the Ukraine war.
A significant part of the lengthy declaration was devoted to affirming the collective commitment to fight terrorism. In a display of even-handedness, it condemned both the Pahalgam incident and the terrorist attack on the Jaffer Express without mentioning where these took place. This language obviously had both Pakistan and India’s approval.
The bilateral meeting ahead of the summit between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi — the second this year — received much international attention. Positive statements by both sides after the meeting reflected the warming in their relations that had gone into deep freeze in 2020. India had previously made normalisation conditional on settlement of the border dispute while the Chinese insisted the bilateral relationship should not be limited to the border issue. The Indians seemed to have now come around to the Chinese view.
The Sino-India thaw had in any case begun earlier especially with the border management agreement reached in August. The meeting between the two leaders in Tianjin was seen as helping to further normalise the relationship. How far this is tactical, reflecting Modi’s reaction to Trump’s humiliating conduct towards India, or a shift that could gather momentum, remains an open question. It would be a mistake to read too much into the Sino-Indian re-engagement because they have more divergent interests than convergences.
Interestingly the Indian opposition cautioned the Modi government against adopting a “knee-jerk foreign policy” because of the current hostile US stance towards India.
The other bilateral meeting that attracted attention was between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Russian President Vladimir Putin. This underlined the desire of both countries to improve relations and expand trade. It also signalled Pakistan’s intent to chart an independent course in its foreign policy. Sharif held important meetings with President Xi and Premier Li Qiang. Both countries committed to further solidify their strategic partnership, usher in the next phase of CPEC and upgrade the Free Trade Agreement. They also approved an Action Plan for 2025-2029 and signed over a dozen MoUs. This indicated that for all the recent warming in Pakistan-US ties, China remained Pakistan’s overriding strategic priority.
The Tianjin summit reflected the geopolitical shifts underway in a world marked by growing multipolarity and in which Trumpian policies are accelerating some of these shifts. Of these, efforts by non-Western powers to shape the new world order may turn out to be the most consequential.
The writer is a former ambassador to the US, UK and UN.
Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025