Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a defiant message against the West over his invasion of Ukraine after standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the two leaders showcased their close ties at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in China.
Speaking to other leaders at the two-day summit in Tianjin on September 1, Putin said that the war in Ukraine came about “not as a result of a Russian attack” but because of a Western-backed coup in Kyiv, according to the Russian news agency Tass. He added that the West’s attempts to draw Ukraine into NATO posed a “direct threat to Russia’s security.”
Putin went on to praise the SCO – whose members include Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan – as a blueprint for genuine multilateralism that could create “a system that would replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models,” in reference to the Western-backed financial and security organizations that have shaped global institutions since World War II.
Those comments added to what had already been an SCO gathering focused on China’s growing diplomatic clout, including plenty of choreographed moments meant to show the deepening relationship between Beijing and Moscow by flaunting Putin and Xi’s close personal rapport.
Scenes from the summit’s welcome banquet on August 31 showed the two men walking side-by-side after posing for a photo with other leaders, with footage released from the event showing Xi gesturing for Putin to join him as he walked past the other representatives.
The summit was also an opportunity for Xi to cast himself as a leader of the Global South who prioritizes economic stability, seeking to contrast with the uncertainty brought by US President Donald Trump’s tariff regime and cutting of US foreign aid.
“We should leverage the strength of our mega-sized markets and economic complementarity between member states and improve trade and investment facilitation,” Xi told leaders at the summit as part of a 14-minute speech.
The Chinese leader pledged 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in grants to SCO member states this year, and an additional 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) of loans to a SCO banking consortium. He also called for the creation of an SCO Development Bank to be set up as soon as possible.
A Step Forward For Xi, Putin, And The SCO?
Since its founding in 2001, the SCO has had few concrete policy achievements and often been criticized as a hollow talk shop for a collection of most-autocratic leaders to gather and push back against the Western-led global order.
Beijing is certainly trying to move past that moniker at this year’s summit in Tianjin. Beyond Xi’s announcement for new investments, Liu Bin, China’s assistant foreign minister, said that leaders at the summit are expected to adopt a 10-year development plan and could unveil other economic and security initiatives.
But the bloc is also leaning more than even into its symbolic value as it looks to reinforce the contours of an alternative global order where China is the first among equals.
Xi vowed to oppose “hegemonism,” “Cold War mentality,” and “bullying practices” — all standard nomenclature used by the Chinese Communist Party to criticize the United States without having to specifically name it.
The attendance of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi adds to the summit’s diplomatic weight.
The trip marks Modi’s first visit to China in seven years and it comes as both Beijing and New Delhi have sought to repair their damaged ties in the face of stiff US tariffs and Western scrutiny over their relationships with Russia.
Modi and Xi met on August 31 and said that they planned to move ahead with normalizing relations, although analysts note that many key differences so far remain unresolved.
Still, Modi appeared to embrace the choreography of the event. He praised Xi during his comments on September 1 and was seen warmly greeting Putin before the two walked over hand in hand to greet Xi and share a friendly conversation.
The SCO summit will be followed by another high-profile diplomatic event in China on September 3, a massive military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The SCO is expected to issue a joint statement in honor of that anniversary, with many of the bloc’s leaders — including Putin — staying in China after the summit to attend the parade.
