Key takeaways from Beijing’s push to reshape global order

The annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit has wound down in Tianjin with signals of a closer relationship among its members at a time when the world has been roiled by U.S. trade policies and tariffs.

The two-day event, attended by more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries, was seen as showcasing Beijing’s ambition for a new global security and economic order that poses a challenge to the U.S.

In a thinly-veiled swipe at the U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariff campaign, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his counterparts in his opening speech Monday that the “shadows of Cold War mentality and bullying have not dissipated, with new challenges mounting.”

The world has entered “a new phase of turbulence” with global governance at a “new crossroads,” Xi said, calling for joint efforts to build a “more just and balanced international governance framework.”

To what extent will Beijing’s push to reshape the global order will materialize remains to be seen. Meanwhile, here are the key takeaways from the SCO summit:

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first meeting on Chinese soil in seven years, sharing a vision of being partners not rivals.

The leaders of the world’s two most populous nations — representing some 2.8 billion people — pledged to step up cooperation and work toward resolving their long-running border dispute.

The rapprochement comes as both countries face pressure from steep U.S. tariffs. “Modi and Xi used all the diplomatic words available to signal a new found commitment … partially motivated by high Trump tariffs on both,” said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at Asia Society Policy Institute.

Still, India remains wary of a flood of cheap Chinese imports threatening its domestic industries and border disputes are far from resolved. China’s relationship with Pakistan also remains a sticking point in the New Delhi-Beijing relationship.

“Improving trade ties won’t be easy,” Cutler said, noting New Delhi was likely to keep restrictive measures in place after a series of antidumping cases against Chinese imports.

The summit also captured Xi, Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin holding hands and sharing a good laugh on the sidelines of the SCO, at a time when the U.S. has charged India and China of fueling Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

India — long courted by the U.S. as a counterweight to China — has been the target of Trump’s steep tariffs, the Kremlin has brushed aside Washington’s push for peace in Ukraine, and Beijing continues to spar with the U.S. over trade, technology and geopolitical issues.

The symbolism of the three leaders together projects China as an alternative to the U.S. as a partner. Trump is “breathing new life” into the summit, giving China a chance to frame its diplomacy as more dependable than Washington’s, said Jeremy Chan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group.

Modi told his Russian counterpart that India and Russia stood side by side even in difficult times after Putin called Modi his “dear friend,” describing their relations as “friendly and trusting.” Later Monday, Modi posted on X a photo of himself with Putin inside the Russian leader’s armored Aurus limousine.

“India is using this to opportunistically send a signal indirectly to Washington, that it has strategic options, not only in Beijing, but also in Moscow,” Chan said. 

For Russia, the SCO also remains one of the few international platforms where Putin is not on the defensive, underscoring Moscow’s enduring ties with influential Asian partners despite Western sanctions.

The Tianjin Declaration of the SCO Council reaffirmed commitments to strengthen artificial intelligence cooperation, underscoring “equal rights of all countries to develop and use AI.”

That followed Premier Li Qiang’s remarks at another AI conference in Shanghai last month, where he proposed creating an organization to coordinate global efforts to regulate the fast-evolving AI technology.

The SCO members, in a joint declaration, pledged to cooperate on reducing risks and improving the security and accountability of AI for the benefits of humanity, while committing to implement a roadmap for joint AI cooperation and development.

In a statement following the SCO AI Cooperation Forum held in May, Beijing called on member states to work together in building a collaboration center for AI application, while pledging to promote open-source AI models and share advanced technologies.

“Beijing has leaned into ‘open-source [large-language-models]’ as productivity infrastructure,” said Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA Group, adding that the challenge lies in “how or if to regulate the use of open source models across borders.”

Some member states agreed to set up an SCO development bank, what would be a significant step in the bloc’s long-standing goal of establishing an alternative payment system that reduces reliance on the U.S. dollar.

China is the largest shareholder of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, that was launched in 2014 to fund projects in developing nations as a direct challenge to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

While the proposed development bank may fall short of the AIIB’s scale, it reflects Xi’s ambition to position himself as the ‘architect’ of a China-led global governance framework, said Steven Okun, chief executive officer of consultancy APAC Advisors.

Beijing also pledged 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in free aid for member states this year and another 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in loans to the organization’s members over the next three years.