Saima Khan
Introduction & Summit Context
The 25th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of State Council Summit in Tianjin, China (August 31–September 1, 2025), was a carefully staged event that transcended the function of a routine diplomatic gathering. It was the largest summit in the organization’s nearly quarter-century history, convening more than 20 world leaders and heads of 10 international organizations at a moment of pronounced global turbulence. Against a backdrop of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, intensifying U.S.-led trade protectionism, and a broader strategic re-evaluation in Eurasia, the summit served as a deliberate and highly public declaration of intent from a consolidating non-Western bloc.
The event was framed by its host, Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the standard-bearer for a new global order rooted in multipolarity, multilateralism, and leadership from the Global South. This messaging was a calculated counter-narrative to what Beijing and Moscow consistently portray as “U.S.-centric dominance,” “Cold War mentality,” and “bullying practices”. The SCO, which emerged in the 1990s as a security grouping, has steadily expanded its mandate and membership. The key documents adopted in Tianjin, including the Tianjin Declaration and the SCO Development Strategy until 2035, signal a decisive shift from a mere dialogue forum to a more institutionalized system-builder capable of providing a tangible alternative to the Western liberal international order. The palpable sense of shared frustration with unilateral policies, particularly the trade tariffs imposed by the U.S. under President Donald Trump, provided a powerful unifying force that animated the leaders’ visible camaraderie and the summit’s ambitious messaging. This approach seeks to build the SCO’s legitimacy not just on economic or security cooperation, but on an alternative value system that emphasizes national sovereignty and mutual respect.
Major Power Perspectives
The Tianjin summit served as a complex arena for great power signaling, with each key player—China, Russia, India, and the United States (as an external observer)—pursuing a distinct agenda. The public-facing unity masked a deeper reality of competing interests and delicate balancing acts.
China’s Strategic Anchoring and the Alternative Architecture
As the host and founding member, China utilized the summit to position itself as the undisputed leader of a new, non-Western world order. President Xi Jinping’s speeches framed the SCO as a “global stabiliser” and a platform for a “new model of governance,” an explicit articulation of China’s strategic ambition. This vision was not merely conceptual; it was backed by significant financial commitments. Xi announced a ¥2 billion grant and a ¥10 billion loan package for SCO members, a move intended to provide an economic impetus for deeper cohesion within the bloc. The most significant institutional advancement was the formal approval of an SCO Development Bank, a proposal China has championed for years. This is a major step toward creating a parallel financial architecture, following the precedent of the BRICS New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The strategic motivation is clear: to reduce reliance on Western-led financial institutions and to create a mechanism for advancing China’s economic agenda, particularly its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), under the SCO’s multilateral umbrella. By launching new platforms for cooperation in energy, green industry, and the digital economy, China is leveraging its technological leadership to create new dependencies and standards across Eurasia, further cementing its central role.
Russia’s Recalibration and the “Reverse Nixon” Maneuver
For Russia, the summit was a critical opportunity to demonstrate its continued relevance on the global stage despite Western sanctions and diplomatic isolation over the Ukraine conflict. President Vladimir Putin’s presence was a clear signal that Moscow is not a pariah. The highly publicized camaraderie between Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi—including a shared car ride in Putin’s Aurus Senat limousine and a “hand-in-hand” walk—was a core element of the summit’s political theater. This visible warmth became a top talking point on Chinese social media, where it was widely interpreted as a powerful counterbalance to Western influence. This high-profile display served a deliberate strategic purpose: it presented Putin not as an isolated figure, but as a central pivot between two major global powers. Some analysts termed this a “Reverse Nixon” maneuver. Instead of the US pulling China away from the USSR, Putin is now positioning Russia to play the US and China off each other, using Washington’s actions to his advantage. This approach is made possible by the underlying reality of President Trump’s aggressive tariffs and isolationist rhetoric, which have unintentionally created a common grievance that draws these nations closer to Russia and each other. This counterintuitive outcome—where US pressure backfires and strengthens its rivals—was a central theme of the summit’s geopolitical dynamics.
India’s Cautious Engagement and Strategic Autonomy
Prime Minister Modi’s attendance marked his first visit to China in seven years since the 2020 border clashes, a subtle but important recalibration of Sino-Indian relations. India’s participation is not a simple choice between East and West, but rather an active exercise in “strategic autonomy”. New Delhi sees the SCO as a strategically useful forum for advancing its regional interests while maintaining its separate, and often competing, engagement with the U.S. and its allies through forums like the Quad. India secured a significant diplomatic victory with the Tianjin Declaration’s explicit condemnation of the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, which India has long attributed to external sponsorship and has consistently pushed for a clear and unified approach to terrorism. Furthermore, the inclusion of India’s civilizational concept of “One Earth, One Family, One Future” in the final declaration demonstrated New Delhi’s influence within the bloc, positioning it not as a junior partner but as a norm-shaper. The tensions between India’s SCO engagement and its Quad membership are not a contradiction but a deliberate strategy of multi-alignment. The U.S. tariffs on Indian goods have added a layer of complexity, making SCO engagement a useful signal that New Delhi possesses alternative options, thereby increasing its leverage with Washington.
The View from Washington: A Geopolitical Nerve is Touched
The optics of the summit—particularly the image of Modi, Xi, and Putin in warm conversation—were met with significant alarm in US media and political circles. Commentators labeled the gathering as a potential “anti-American axis of upheaval” and a sign that “the West is now in a box”. President Donald Trump’s public reaction, accusing the leaders of conspiring against the US, exemplified a core American anxiety about the decline of its unipolar dominance. American think tanks offered a more measured perspective, arguing that the SCO is not a formal “anti-American conspiracy” and that the Russia-India-China relationship is fraught with internal tensions. However, they concluded that the summit was a powerful symbol of a diminished U.S. leadership role and a clear reflection of tectonic shifts in the global order. The key takeaway for Washington is that pressure tactics that work within its network of allies might backfire with independent powers like India and Russia.
Regional Implications & Future Path
The Tianjin summit marked a significant step in the SCO’s maturation. The organization is actively attempting to move from a “talk shop” to a “system-builder” by creating a parallel institutional architecture to that of the West.
The Maturation of a Parallel Architecture
The most tangible outcomes of the summit were the decisions to create new permanent institutional bodies. These included the formal establishment of a Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges and Threats and an Anti-Drug Center, which are concrete steps to formalize security cooperation beyond the existing Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). The approval of the long-discussed SCO Development Bank is the most significant leap forward for the bloc’s financial aspirations. This institution is intended to provide large-scale funding for infrastructure and energy projects, reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar, and challenge Western financial hegemony. It is a direct effort to create a comprehensive governance system that operates outside the Western-dominated order. The summit also streamlined its membership structure, merging observer and dialogue partner statuses into a single “SCO Partner” category to improve efficiency and reflect its expanding appeal.
Connectivity, Security, and Divergent Interests
Despite the symbolic unity, the SCO remains a bloc fractured by internal competition and conflicting national interests. While the Tianjin Declaration strongly condemns terrorism and rejects “double standards,” it does so against a backdrop of deeply rooted contradictions. India faces the challenge of convincing member states to take action against Pakistan-based terror groups, and the lack of a common definition of terrorism remains a significant hindrance to effective cooperation.
Economic connectivity, a core agenda item, also reveals these fissures. China championed its BRI and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as the blueprint for Eurasian integration. This vision, however, directly conflicts with India’s sovereignty concerns over CPEC and its own stalled connectivity projects, such as the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). The SCO Development Bank, while a win for China, raises “debt trap” concerns for India and others who are wary of its potential to become an instrument for Beijing’s geopolitical leverage. The effectiveness of the new institutional system is limited by the very contradictions that unite its members. The shared anti-Western sentiment is a strong bond, but it masks fundamental disagreements on issues like border disputes, competing economic models, and divergent national security priorities. This duality—a bloc united by what it opposes but fractured by what it desires—will define the SCO’s trajectory.
Pakistan’s Position
Pakistan’s participation in the summit was a calculated and coherent diplomatic effort to advance its national interests and project a sophisticated foreign policy narrative. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s address positioned Pakistan as an indispensable player in regional security and connectivity, emphasizing its strategic location as an ideal “trade and transit hub” and highlighting the importance of CPEC for regional integration.
Sharif’s diplomatic engagements on the sidelines of the summit, including meetings with leaders from China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey, demonstrated a balanced and diversified foreign policy in a time of regional flux. A notable moment occurred in his meeting with President Putin, where Sharif explicitly stated that Pakistan respects Russia’s close ties with India while simultaneously seeking to strengthen its own partnership with Moscow. This was a shrewd diplomatic move to manage the multi-polarity of the region and avoid being boxed into a zero-sum equation.
The most significant outcome for Pakistan was a concrete narrative win on counter-terrorism. The Tianjin Declaration explicitly condemned specific attacks on Pakistani soil, naming the “terrorist attacks on Jaffer Express on 11 March and in Khuzdar on 21 May 2025” in the same text that named the Pahalgam attack in India. This was a first for such a high-level SCO document and represents a “text-level win” for Islamabad. By securing an SCO-level condemnation of specific attacks within its borders, Pakistan has internationalized its narrative of external sponsorship for terrorism. This action provides a powerful counter-narrative to India’s long-standing claims and shifts Pakistan from being a mere victim of terrorism to a country whose internal stability is a matter of regional concern for the entire SCO family. This diplomatic achievement validates Pakistan’s claims and provides it with considerable leverage within the bloc.
Conclusion
The Tianjin summit was a powerful and deliberately choreographed display of a consolidating multipolar order. It showcased a collective desire among a critical mass of Eurasian powers to create a strategic and institutional counterweight to Western-led institutions. The optics of the leaders’ camaraderie, the explicit anti-unilateralism rhetoric, and the tangible institutional advances—from the approval of the Development Bank to the new security centers—all project an image of unity and resolve. The event underscored that the SCO is no longer a collection of states with shared regional interests, but an increasingly consequential alternative platform with a clear ideological purpose.
However, this unity is defined more by a shared opposition to the existing world order than by a truly common vision. The SCO remains a bloc fractured by internal competition and conflicting national interests. The unresolved India-China border tensions, the competing visions for economic connectivity, and the divergent counter-terrorism approaches demonstrate that the organization’s symbolic unity often masks a deep-seated reality of national self-interest. While the summit cemented the SCO as a critical node in the emerging global architecture, its long-term effectiveness hinges on its ability to translate the symbolic posturing of Tianjin into sustained, concrete cooperation that addresses these inherent contradictions. The continued evolution of this duality will be a central feature of the shifting global order in the years to come.
