Leaders Gather with Xi at SCO Summit in Tianjin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko joined two dozen Eurasian leaders on Monday at a ceremony hosted by China’s Xi Jinping, marking the final day of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin. The gathering aims to reinforce Beijing’s role in regional relations.

The SCO summit began on Sunday in the northern port city, days ahead of a massive military parade in Beijing commemorating 80 years since the end of World War II.

The SCO includes China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Belarus, with 16 additional countries participating as observers or “dialogue partners.”

Monday’s event served as the summit’s opening ceremony and was the first time all leaders were assembled together. Xi is expected to deliver a keynote address.

Putin arrived in Tianjin on Sunday with senior political and business officials. Xi also held bilateral meetings with leaders including Lukashenko and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, marking Modi’s first visit to China since 2018. Modi expressed India’s commitment to “forward our ties on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity.”

China and India, the world’s two most populous nations, are longstanding rivals in South Asia, having clashed on their border in 2020. A diplomatic thaw began last October when Modi met Xi in Russia for the first time in five years.

Large sections of Tianjin were closed to traffic, and a heavy police presence was deployed across the city. Official SCO posters highlighted themes of “mutual benefit” and “equality,” displayed in Chinese and Russian.

China and Russia have sometimes presented the SCO as an alternative to NATO. This year’s summit is the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001 and the first since US President Donald Trump’s return to office.

More than 20 leaders, including Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, attended the summit. Putin is expected to meet Erdogan and Pezeshkian to discuss the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme.

Many leaders will travel to Beijing on Wednesday to attend the military parade, which will also be witnessed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.