SCO bears ‘greater responsibilities’

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) security forum now bears “greater responsibility” for safeguarding regional peace and stability, as well as promoting the development and prosperity of its member states, Chinese President Xi Jinping told about 20 world leaders he hosted yesterday evening.

The ongoing SCO Summit shoulders the important mission of building consensus among all parties and stimulating momentum in cooperation, Xi was cited as telling a welcome banquet, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

The two-day summit is being held in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, reports Reuters.

The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Tianjin yesterday with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.

Xi held a flurry of back-to-back bilateral meetings with leaders including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — one of Putin’s staunch allies — and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, 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”. Xi, in turn, told Modi that he hoped the two countries would recognise that they are “partners rather than rivals”.

Putin and Xi Jinping discussed recent contacts between Russia and the United States, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian media without elaborating. Xi and Putin met on the sidelines of the summit.

Putin is expected to hold talks with Erdogan and Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme respectively today, reports AFP.

Xi met Erdogan yesterday to discuss the situations in Gaza and Ukraine, a readout from Ankara said. Turkey has hosted three rounds of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv this year that have failed to break the deadlock over how to end the conflict.

The Russian president needs “all the benefits of SCO as a player on the world stage and also the support of the second largest economy in the world”, said Lim Tai Wei, a professor and East Asia expert at Japan’s Soka University.

“Russia is also keen to win over India, and India’s trade frictions with the United States presents this opportunity,” Lim told AFP.