The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has unveiled his vision for a new global security and economic order during the 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Tianjin, reported Reuters.
Xi’s remarks have been met with support from his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who said that the bloc has revived multilateralism and blamed the West for the ongoing war in Ukraine.
New Global Order
Addressing more than 20 world leaders, Xi on Monday hailed the SCO for setting a model for a new type of international relations, advocating for a multipolar world order.
“We should advocate for equal and orderly multipolarization of the world, inclusive economic globalization and promote the construction of a more just and equitable global governance system,” he told them.
Moreover, the Chinese leader urged them to take advantage of their “mega-scale market” to enhance trade and investment. “We should leverage the strength of our mega-sized markets and economic complementarity between member states and improve trade and investment facilitation,” Xi said, calling on the SCO members to boost cooperation in fields including energy, infrastructure, science and technology, and artificial intelligence (AI).
Opposing Cold War Mentality
Xi criticized the “bullying behavior” of other countries, urging the bloc’s members to “oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation” as the “security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging.”
Moreover, he urged world leaders at the SCO Summit to support a multilateral trading system, praising the bloc as a building a new model of “true multilateralism,” according to The Guardian.
“We must uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core and support the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core,” the Chinese leader said.
In the light of this, Xi said that China would provide 2 billion yuan ($280 million) of free aid to member states this year and a further 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) of loans to an SCO banking consortium.
Russian Support
In his speech, Putin echoed Xi’s remarks, saying that the bloc has revived “genuine multilateralism” with national currencies increasingly used in mutual settlements. “This, in turn, lays the political and socio-economic groundwork for the formation of a new system of stability and security in Eurasia,” Putin noted.
The Russian President added that this security system would “replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, take into account the interests of the broadest possible range of countries, be truly balanced, and would not allow attempts by some states to ensure their security at the expense of others.”
Furthermore, Putin claimed that Russia has not triggered the war in Ukraine, which broke out in February 2022. He said it was a result of a Western-backed coup in Ukraine and the “West’s constant attempts to drag Ukraine into NATO.”
Tianjin Summit
The SCO Summit in Tianjin is the biggest since the bloc’s establishment in 2001 in Shanghai. It comes against the backdrop of the US President Donald Trump’s tariff war and “America First” policy as Beijing is pushing back against the dominance of the US and Western-backed groups and is casting itself as a global leader.
On Sunday, Xi met with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who is on his first visit to Beijing in 7 years, signaling a potential thaw after prolonged border tensions. Both leaders pledged deepening trust and partnership, with Xi stressing that China and India are “development partners, not rivals.”
The SCO, originally formed to confront the US influence in Central Asia, has expanded over the years from six founding members to 10 members. Currently, it includes Russia, Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in addition to Afghanistan and Mongolia as observer states. Meanwhile, 14 other countries, including several from the Middle East, serve as “dialogue partners.”
The Summit comes days ahead of a military parade in Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of the second world war. Many assembled dignitaries will take part in the event, as well as North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Un.
