China seeks to showcase global south solidarity as Xi welcomes Putin, Modi at SCO summit
Chinese President Xi Jinping will gather more than 20 world leaders at a regional security forum in China in a powerful show of Global South solidarity in the age of US trade war.
Aside from Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaders from Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia have been invited to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, to be held in the northern port city of Tianjin from August 31 to September 1.
The summit will feature Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in more than seven years as the two neighbours work on further defusing tensions roiled by deadly border clashes in 2020.
Last week, Russian embassy officials in New Delhi said Moscow hopes trilateral talks with China and India will take place soon.
In a written interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency, Putin said Russia and China jointly opposed “discriminatory” sanctions in global trade.
“During my upcoming visit, we will certainly discuss further prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation and new steps to intensify it for the benefit of the peoples of Russia and China,” he said.
Modi is expected to depart from China after the summit, while Putin will stay on for a World War Two military parade in Beijing later in the week for an unusually long spell outside of Russia.
This year’s summit will be the largest since the SCO was founded in 2001, a Chinese foreign ministry official said last week, calling the bloc an “important force in building a new type of international relations”.
The security-focused bloc, which began as a group of six Eurasian nations, has expanded to 10 permanent members and 16 dialogue and observer countries in recent years. Its remit has also enlarged from security and counter-terrorism to economic and military cooperation.
