{"id":4048,"date":"2026-03-08T19:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/?p=4048"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:46:07","slug":"xi-putin-and-modi-to-meet-in-china-but-dont-expect-their-eurasian-bloc-summit-to-agree-on-anything-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/xi-putin-and-modi-to-meet-in-china-but-dont-expect-their-eurasian-bloc-summit-to-agree-on-anything-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Xi, Putin and Modi to meet in China \u2013 but don\u2019t expect their Eurasian bloc summit to agree on anything important"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham<\/strong><\/a> <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

The upcoming summit<\/a> of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, China, from August 31 to September 1, will be the organisation\u2019s largest gathering of heads of state to date. It comes at a time when the existing liberal international order is rapidly disintegrating. But rather than offering a concrete new order, the SCO demonstrates the persistent difficulties that anti-liberal powers such as China and Russia have in agreeing and implementing a credible alternative.<\/p>\n

Founded in Shanghai in 2001 with just six members \u2013 Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan \u2013 the SCO has grown rapidly<\/a> over the past decade. India and Pakistan joined in 2017, Iran in 2023, and Belarus in 2024. Beyond these ten member states, the SCO also has two observers \u2013 Afghanistan and Mongolia \u2013 and 14 dialogue partners, including Turkey, Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan, several of the Gulf states, and a number of other Asian states. If measured by population of its core member states, it is the world\u2019s largest regional organisation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Size clearly matters, but in the case of the SCO it creates problems rather than contributing to their resolution. The organisation did little in response to escalating tensions<\/a> between India and Pakistan in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Kashmir that eventually brought the two long-standing rivals to the brink of nuclear confrontation. It took US mediation<\/a> to de-escalate the violence. The SCO\u2019s subsequent failure to condemn cross-border terrorism explicitly in a joint statement of the meeting of defence ministers at the end of June led India to refuse to sign it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Israel attacked Iran, the SCO issued a strongly worded condemnation<\/a> of the attacks. But India distanced<\/a> itself officially from the SCO statement. <\/p>\n

These and other simmering tensions, such as between India and China over a new dam project in Tibet<\/a>, are likely to be papered over at the SCO summit in Tianjin. China\u2019s president, Xi Jinping, will be keen to demonstrate his country\u2019s leadership of a large coalition of like-minded nations who oppose the hitherto US-led liberal international order. <\/p>\n

However, the theme of this year\u2019s summit is \u201cUpholding the Shanghai Spirit: SCO on the Move\u201d. This sounds more like an aspirational plea to member states, observers and dialogue partners rather than a concrete plan for action. <\/p>\n

The so-called Shanghai spirit<\/a> \u2013 a hazy mixture of standard Chinese talking points about mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation \u2013 is little more than empty rhetoric. It is also very fragile. <\/p>\n

Two member states \u2013 India and Pakistan \u2013 have recently gone to war with each other. Two SCO dialogue partners \u2013 Armenia and Azerbaijan \u2013 have been involved in several full-scale violent confrontations<\/a> since they became dialogue partners almost a decade ago. And if they have now embraced the Shanghai spirit, they did so, ironically, in Washington<\/a> and after their relations with Russia significantly soured.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Azerbaijan's<\/div>
\n Donald Trump recently presided over an agreement aimed at ending a decades-old conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both SCO dialogue partners.<\/span>
\n EPA\/Nathan Howard\/pool<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nor does the SCO have much of a track record of constructive involvement in internal conflicts in its member states and dialogue partners, such as Kyrgyzstan<\/a> and Myanmar<\/a>. This is even more obvious in the case of Afghanistan<\/a> where Russia\u2019s recent official recognition of the Taliban government poses yet another challenge<\/a> to the SCO. <\/p>\n

China has cautiously welcomed Russia\u2019s recognition but not followed suit, while several Central Asian member states of the SCO already have a wide range of economic ties with Afghanistan. But Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf states remain deeply ambivalent<\/a> about the Taliban regime. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that the SCO\u2019s very selective commitment to the Shanghai spirit does not extend to relations between the organisation and non-member states. That much is evident from the SCO\u2019s lack of condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. So it\u2019s difficult to see where the SCO will move. Previous summits in 2022<\/a>, 2023<\/a> and 2024<\/a> produced lengthy declarations of intent \u2013 but little follow-through.<\/p>\n

Elephant in the room<\/h2>\n

The marked difference to these previous summits is, of course, Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House. <\/p>\n

On the one hand, Trump has demonstrated the near-irrelevance of the SCO as a security player compared to the indispensability<\/a> of the US when it comes to managing crises<\/a>, such as those between India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan and Cambodia and Thailand. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, Trump\u2019s weaponisation of trade has created a new dynamic within the SCO. The US president\u2019s imposition of punitive tariffs might see the organisation\u2019s most powerful countries \u2013 China, Russia and India \u2013 align more closely against the US. <\/p>\n

Sanctions against Russia<\/a>, however unlikely they may be to be fully implemented by Trump, are still on the table. Heavy tariffs have now been imposed on India<\/a> for continuing to buy Russian oil. And the trade war with China is only paused but not settled<\/a>. <\/p>\n

For their own sake, and even more so for the sake of their actual and potential partners in the global south, China, Russia and India must demonstrate a unity of purpose at the SCO summit. They will condemn the US and the liberal international order, which Trump himself is actively eroding. But their unity of purpose will be limited and performative. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the differences that remain between them and their conflicting individual aspirations of leadership in a post-American international order will prevent them from offering a credible alternative. <\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, there will be carefully choreographed displays of solidarity and aspirational statements of how the spirit of Shanghai will shape a new international order. But these rest on the false premise that a post-American international order will be a non-American order. <\/p>\n

Trump may try to make a deal with Russia and China<\/a> on a new world order, but a president who publicly muses<\/a> about renaming the US department of defence to the department of war is unlikely to cede global leadership \u2013 at least not without a fight.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

This article written by Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham<\/strong> and is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham The upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, China, from August 31 to September 1, will be the organisation\u2019s largest gathering of heads of state to date. It comes at a time when the existing liberal international order is rapidly disintegrating. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":4049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"inline_featured_image":false,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranians.global\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}