30 August 2025, China, Tianjin: The flag of China (r-l) flies alongside the flags of India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and other countries represented at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
The ten member states of the regional security organization are meeting from Sunday to Monday in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin, along with observer and host countries.
Johannes Neudecker | Picture Alliance | Getty ImagesThe annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit has wound down in Tianjin with signals of a closer relationship among its members at a time when the world has been roiled by U.S.
trade policies and tariffs.The two-day event, att by more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries, was seen as showcasing Beijing's ambition for a new global security and economic order that poses a challenge to the U.S.In a thinly-veiled swipe at the U.S.
President Donald Trump's global tariff 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 said, calling for joint efforts to build a "more just and balanced international governance framework."To what extent will Beijing's push to reshape the global order will materialize remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, here are the key takeaways from the SCO summit:Thawing India-China relationsIndian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first meeting on Chinese soil in seven years, sharing a vision of being partners not rivals.The leaders of the world's two most populous nations — representing some 2.8 billion people — pledged to step up cooperation and work toward resolving their long-running border dispute.The rapchement comes as both countries face pressure 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," said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at Asia Society Policy Institute.Still, India remains wary of a flood of cheap Chinese imports threatening its domestic industries and border disputes are far from resolved.
China's relationship with Pakistan also remains a sticking point in the New Delhi-Beijing relationship."Imving trade ties won't be easy," Cutler said, noting New Delhi was ly to keep restrictive measures in place after a series of antidumping cases against Chinese imports.Xi, Putin, Modi troikaThe summit also captured Xi, Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin holding hands and sharing a good laugh on the sidelines of the SCO, at a time when the U.S.
has charged India and China of fueling Moscow's war against Ukraine.India — long courted by the U.S.
as a counterweight to China — has been the target of Trump's steep tariffs, the Kremlin has brushed aside Washington's push for peace in Ukraine, and Beijing continues to spar with the U.S.
over trade, nology and geopolitical issues.The symbolism of the three leaders together jects China as an alternative to the U.S. as a partner.
Trump is "breathing new life" into the summit, giving China a chance to frame its diplomacy as more dependable than Washington's, said Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group.Modi told his Russian counterpart that India and Russia stood side by side even in difficult times after Putin called Modi his "dear friend," describing their relations as "friendly and trusting." Later Monday, Modi posted on X a photo of himself with Putin inside the Russian leader'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 said.
For Russia, the SCO also remains one of the few international platforms where Putin is not on the defensive, underscoring Moscow's enduring ties with influential Asian partners despite Western sanctions.AI partnership roadmapThe 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 ed Premier Li Qiang's remarks at another AI conference in Shanghai last month, where he posed creating an organization to coordinate global efforts to regulate the fast-evolving AI nology.The SCO members, in a joint declaration, pledged to cooperate on reducing risks and imving the security and accountability of AI for the benefits of humanity, while committing to implement a roadmap for joint AI cooperation and development.In a statement ing the SCO AI Cooperation Forum held in May, Beijing called on member states to work together in building a collaboration center for AI application, while pledging to mote open-source AI models and advanced nologies."Beijing has leaned into 'open-source [large-language-models]' as ductivity infrastructure," said Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA Group, adding that the challenge lies in "how or if to regulate the use of open source models across borders."A new development bankSome member states agreed to set up an SCO development bank, what would be a significant step in the bloc's long-standing goal of establishing an alternative payment system that reduces reliance on the U.S.
dollar.China is the largest holder of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that was launched in 2014 to fund jects in nations as a direct challenge to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.While the posed development bank may fall short of the AIIB's scale, it reflects Xi's ambition to position himself as the 'architect' of a China-led global governance framework, said Steven Okun, chief executive officer of consultancy APAC Advisors.Beijing also pledged 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in free aid for member states this year and another 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in loans to the organization's members over the next three years.