TIANJIN (AFP/Reuters): Chinese President Xi Jinping blasted “bullying behaviour” in the world order as he gathered Eurasian leaders on Sept 1 for a showpiece summit aimed at putting Beijing front and centre of regional relations.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – comprising China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus – is touted as a non-Western style of collaboration that seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.

Xi told the SCO leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, that the global international situation was becoming more “chaotic and intertwined”.

The Chinese leader also slammed “bullying behaviour” from certain countries – a veiled reference to the US.

“The security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging,” he said in his address to the gathered dignitaries in the northern port city of Tianjin.

“Looking to the future, with the world undergoing turbulence and transformation, we must continue to follow the Shanghai spirit... and better perform the functions of the organisation,” he added.

China will provide two billion yuan (S$360 million) of free aid to member states in 2025 and a further 10 billion yuan of loans to an SCO banking consortium, Xi said.

“We should advocate for equal and orderly multi-polarisation of the world, inclusive economic globalisation and promote the construction of a more just and equitable global governance system,” he said.

He also called on the organisation’s partners to “oppose Cold War mentality and bloc confrontation” and to support multilateral trade systems, an apparent dig at US President Donald Trump’s tariff war – which has disproportionately affected developing economies such as India, whose exports were hit with a 50 per cent levy last week.

Leaders from the 10 SCO countries, including Putin, Lukashenko and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, arrived earlier on a red carpet and posed for a group photo.

Xi, Putin and Modi were seen chatting on live footage, the three leaders flanked by their official translators.

The SCO summit, which also involves 16 more countries as observers or “dialogue partners”, kicked off on Aug 31, days before a massive military parade in Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

Putin, Modi - The Gamechangers

Putin touched down in Tianjin on Aug 31 with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.

Xi held a flurry of back-to-back bilateral meetings with leaders, including Lukashenko – one of Mr Putin’s staunch allies – and Modi, who is on his first visit to China since 2018.

Modi told Xi that India was committed to taking “forward our ties on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity”.

The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.

A thaw began in October 2024, when Modi met Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.

Their rapprochement deepened as Trump pressured both Asian economic giants with trade tariffs.

‘Mutual benefit’

China and Russia have at times promoted the SCO as an alternative to organisations such as Nato. The 2025 summit is the first since Mr Trump returned to the White House.

Official posters promoting the SCO lined Tianjin’s streets, displaying words such as “mutual benefit” and “equality” written in Chinese and Russian.

More than 20 leaders, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are attending the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.

Putin is expected to hold talks on Sept 1 with Erdogan and Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme respectively.

Many of the assembled dignitaries will be in Beijing on Sept 3 to witness the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Analysts say China will use the largest summit of the year to demonstrate an alternative vision of global governance to the American-led international order at a time of erratic policymaking, a US retreat from multilateral organisations and geopolitical flux. -- AFP, REUTERS