The SCO Tianjin Summit 2025 is the 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), was held from August 31 to September 1, 2025, in Tianjin, People’s Republic of China.
It was the fifth time that China hosted the annual SCO summit and the largest in SCO’s history. During this summit was attended by more than twenty world leaders and heads of ten international organizations. They include leaders of SCO member states: India’s Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Krygyz President Sadyr Japarov and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing, Nepal’s Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the Maldives’ President Mohamed Muizzu are among other leaders who attended. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn also attended the Summit.
The SCO began in 1996 as a security bloc, dubbed the “Shanghai Five”. It was formed by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to settle their border disputes following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in June 2001, the group evolved into the SCO, including Uzbekistan, with headquarters in Beijing. In 2017, the group expanded to include India and Pakistan. Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024 were also added as full members.
In addition, the organization has 14 key dialogue partners, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkiye, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. SCO member states account for 43 percent of the world’s population, and 23 percent – or almost a quarter – of the global economy. This year’s SCO summit was held under the growing shadow of war in Ukraine, Israel’s brutal onslaught in Ghaza, Security dangers between India and Pakistan, fears in the Asia Pacific region and the mysterious trade war antics of the US President Donald Trump. The world community is in a sort of a deep flux and China and Russia will make a case that the world is now entering an era of multi polarity and they will suggest indivisible security as the way to move forward.Two days after the SCO summit ends Beijing on September 3, hosted a major military parade to commemorate the end of World War II in Asia. Many of the leaders arriving for the SCO summit – such as Putin, Lukashenko and Subianto stayed on for the parade. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is also expected to travel to Beijing for the event, which will also be “a big part of this optic” of Xi hosting world leaders.
The SCO summit in China took place in an era of great regional expectations and the SCO is now being reshaped by Beijing and Moscow into a more pragmatic development organization.
At the conclusion of the summit the Chinese leadership announced the establishment of a development bank and pledged new soft loans for development in future ventures by the member countries. Developing countries including Pakistan are in desperate need of funding for their development projects and this new initiative of the SCO will go a long way in helping the works of development and now the SO will not be concerned with only security but will play a major role in development activities in the member states. The Indian PM Modi and the Pakistani PM Shahbaz Sharif both made their ideas clear in their speeches. Modi came to China for the first time after the border standoff with China in 2020 and now spoke of terrorism without naming Pakistan directly and made a veiled reference to the Chinese initiative of CPEC running through Gilgit Baltistan.
Shehbaz Sharif spoke eloquently about Territorial integrity, mutual development and cooperation with China in industry, technology and agriculture and his speech did manage to cancel out the Indian hue and cry and place Pakistan as an important partner in the development plans of the SCO and the Chinese initiative of CPEC. The Pakistani PM made it clear in all his meetings even after the summit that Pakistan has now entered the Second Phase of CPEC which will mean not only roads and highways but also power plants, industrial zones, skill developments and innovative plans. Pakistan now will be an important partner in the future evolution of the SCO both leaders, in their own way, acknowledged the same reality: the SCO is drifting away from its early identity as a security platform and becoming a forum where development, connectivity and financial support take center stage.
China during the summit also proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI), another important public good that China has shared with the world to promote building a more just and reasonable global governance system.The GGI marks the fourth landmark global initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping over the past several years, following the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.”I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advancing toward a community with a shared future for humanity,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said upon putting forward the proposal during the “Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Plus” Meeting.Xi highlighted five principles of the GGI: adhering to sovereign equality, abiding by international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating the people- centered approach, and focusing on taking real actions. “All countries, regardless of size, strength and wealth, are equal participants, decision-makers and beneficiaries in global governance,” he noted.
Highlighting that the SCO has increasingly become a catalyst for the development and reform of the global governance system, Xi urged the SCO to step up, play a leading role and set an example in carrying out the Global Governance Initiative (GGI). He vowed that China will readily share the opportunities of its vast market and continue to implement the action plan for high-quality development of economic and trade cooperation within the SCO family.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad.
