Russia, China leaders to meet at Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit

The organisation is not officially anti-West, but Russian and Chinese leaders have used it to amplify their worldview.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and more than a dozen other leaders are set to gather in Kyrgyzstan on Monday for the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has historically focused on economic issues, but President Putin and President Xi have also used the summit to promote their vision of a multipolar world and to present a united front against the West.

The SCO’s founding declaration says the group is “not an alliance directed against other states”. However, at last year’s gathering, Putin accused Western countries of provoking the Ukraine war, while Xi denounced “acts of intimidation”, referring to US-Chinese tensions.

Also expected to be in attendance are Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, though Turkiye is not a member of the organisation.

Pezeshkian is expected to hold bilateral talks with Putin at this year’s SCO in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. The foreign ministers of both countries met in July during the SCO’s Council of Foreign Ministers meeting.

Iran joined the bloc in ۲۰۲۳ and maintains close military ties to Russia and energy links with China.

Alongside the SCO’s ۱۰ permanent members, another ۱۵ states are connected as “dialogue partners”, including Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The leaders of India and Pakistan, both of which are full members of the SCO, are also expected to attend.

The bloc claims to represent some ۴۰ percent of the world’s population and ۲۵ percent of global GDP. This year marks ۲۵ years since the SCO was founded.

The meeting comes shortly after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would encourage G۲۰ members to re-examine terms of trade with China, denouncing Beijing’s $۱.۲ trillion global trade surplus as unsustainable.

“The world cannot have a China with a US$۱.۲ trillion (HK$۹.۳۶ trillion) trade surplus,” Bessent told the Reuters news agency on Sunday, ahead of a G۲۰ finance leaders meeting in the United States.

“In China, the economy is quite weak, and they are trying to export their way out of it, and they need to rebalance their economy,” he added.

The US Treasury chief also said that he planned to hold a bilateral meeting during the G۲۰ conference with People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng, but declined to discuss details.