Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin took turns Monday to swipe at the West during a gathering of Eurasian leaders for a showpiece summit aimed at putting Beijing front and centre of regional relations.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), comprising China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus, is touted as a non-Western style of collaboration and seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.
Xi told the SCO leaders, including Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that the global international situation was becoming more “chaotic and intertwined”.
The Chinese leader also slammed “bullying behaviour” from certain countries — a veiled reference to the United States.
“The security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging,” he added in his address in the northern port city of Tianjin.
“Looking to the future, with the world undergoing turbulence and transformation, we must continue to follow the Shanghai spirit… and better perform the functions of the organisation,” Xi said.
See also: China slams ‘hegemonism and power politics’ ahead of world leaders’ summit
Putin used his speech to defend Russia’s Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for triggering the three-and-a-half year conflict that has killed tens of thousands and devastated much of eastern Ukraine.
“This crisis wasn’t triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin said.
“The second reason for the crisis is the West’s constant attempts to drag Ukraine into NATO.”
Earlier, leaders from the ten SCO countries stood on a red carpet and posed for a group photo.
Xi, Putin and Modi were seen on live footage chatting, the three leaders flanked by their translators. Modi and Putin were photographed holding hands.
Flurry of meetings
The SCO summit, which also involves 16 more countries as observers or “dialogue partners”, kicked off on Sunday, days before a massive military parade in the capital Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
Putin touched down in Tianjin on Sunday with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.
Xi held a flurry of back-to-back bilateral meetings with leaders including Lukashenko — one of Putin’s staunch allies — and Modi, who is 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”.
The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals, competing for influence across South Asia, and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.
A thaw began last October, when Modi met Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.
Their rapprochement deepened as US President Donald Trump pressured both Asian economic giants with trade tariffs.
‘Mutual benefit’
China and Russia have sometimes promoted the SCO as an alternative to organisations such as NATO. This year’s summit is the first since Trump returned to the White House.
Official posters promoting the SCO lined Tianjin’s streets, displaying slogans such as “mutual benefit” and “equality” written in Chinese and Russian.
More than 20 leaders, including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are attending the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
Putin is expected to hold talks on Monday with Erdogan and Pezeshkian respectively about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Many of the assembled dignitaries will be in Beijing on Wednesday to watch the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
