Tianjin, China
\nAutocrats, populists, friends and foes, a strongman waging a war in Europe and the leader of the world\u2019s biggest democracy will all be hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping this weekend at a summit designed to showcase Beijing as a global leader capable of providing a counterweight to Western institutions.
\nHeads of state and delegations from across Asia and the Middle East will meet from Sunday in the Chinese port city of Tianjin for the two-day summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security grouping that has emerged as a cornerstone of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s drive to rebalance global power in their favor.
\nChinese officials have billed the summit as the SCO\u2019s largest yet, with the diplomacy and pageantry setting the stage for Xi to tout his country as a stable and powerful alternative leader at a time when the world\u2019s leading superpower the United States under President Donald Trump is shaking up its alliances and waging a global trade war.
\nThe gathering also comes days ahead of a major military parade in Beijing that will offer a different message \u2013 that of China\u2019s rapidly developing military might, and draw autocrats like North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un and Myanmar\u2019s Min Aung Hlaing alongside Putin and Russia-friendly European leaders Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Slovakia\u2019s Robert Fico.
\nThe summit also gifts Russia\u2019s Putin some international spotlight, just two weeks after his Alaska summit with Trump, and as he continues to ignore international pressure to end his onslaught in Ukraine. Earlier this week Russia\u2019s forces carried out the second-biggest aerial attack since its full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
\nAhead of his arrival Putin praised the China-Russia partnership as a \u201cstabilizing force\u201d for the world. In a written interview for Chinese state news agency Xinhua, he said they were \u201cunited in our vision of building a just, multipolar world order\u201d \u2013 an allusion to the two countries\u2019 efforts to revise what they see as a US-led world order unfairly stacked against them.
\nSCO members \u2013 which include China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan \u2013 preside over vast swaths of global energy reserves and govern some 40% of the global population.<\/p>\n
\u2018Architect and host\u2019
\nThe guests at the summit have national rivalries between them and vast differences in political systems. And while this has sparked criticism of the group as too disparate to be effective, it also may serve to underscore Xi\u2019s message.
\n\u201cBeijing wants to signal that China is the indispensable convener in Eurasia, capable of seating rivals at the same table and translating great-power competition into managed interdependence,\u201d said Rabia Akhtar, director of the Centre for Security, Strategy and Policy Research at the University of Lahore in Pakistan.
\n\u201cThe optics are straightforward: China is not just a participant in regional order-making \u2013 it is a primary architect and host.\u201d
\nModi\u2019s attendance at the gathering also adds heft to Xi\u2019s guest list. The Indian prime minister skipped last year\u2019s summit in Kazakhstan. He now arrives in Tianjin against a backdrop of souring relations with Washington \u2013 and as Beijing and New Delhi have moved to ease their own frictions, a nascent realignment that could imperil US efforts to cultivate India as a counterweight against a rising China.
\nDelegations are also expected from the SCO\u2019s 16 official partner and observer countries, which include Cambodia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait, as well as NATO member Turkey, among others, Chinese officials said ahead of the gathering.
\nBeijing additionally invited a handful of Southeast Asian leaders. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is also expected to attend.
\nAcross the city of Tianjin, banners in English, Russian and Chinese heralding the gathering lined highways. Officials heavily restricted traffic in the city center as Chinese leaders prepare to welcome their guests with the ceremony and pomp typical of Chinese diplomacy at the highest level.
\nThe location has pointed symbolism for China, as a port that was forced open by colonial powers in the 19th century, with those from Europe and Imperial Japan receiving land concessions \u2013 and a key city occupied by Japan during World War II.
\nSome guests, including Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, are slated to stay for the military parade in Beijing, where the ruling Communist Party will show off its military might and play up its role fighting Imperial Japan as part of the Allied Forces in World War II as the globe marks 80 years since the end of that war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tianjin, China Autocrats, populists, friends and foes, a strongman waging a war in Europe and the leader of the world\u2019s biggest democracy will all be hosted by Chinese leader Xi Jinping this weekend at a summit designed to showcase Beijing as a global leader capable of providing a counterweight to Western institutions. Heads of state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-500129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n