'Powerful optics': China's Xi to welcome Putin, Modi in grand show of solidarity

President Xi Jinping will gather more than 20 world leaders at a regional security forum in China next week in a powerful show of Global South solidarity in the age of Donald Trump while also helping sanctions-hit Russia pull off another diplomatic coup.

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.

Modi last shared the same stage with Xi and Putin at last year's BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, even as Western leaders turned their backs on the Russian leader amid the war in Ukraine. Russian embassy officials in New Delhi last week said Moscow hopes trilateral talks with China and India will take place soon.

"Xi will want to use the summit as an opportunity to showcase what a post-American-led international order begins to look like and that all White House efforts since January to counter China, Iran, Russia, and now India have not had the intended effect," said Eric Olander, editor-in-chief of The China-Global South Project, a research agency. "Just look at how much BRICS has rattled (US President) Donald Trump, which is precisely what these groups are designed to do."

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.

‘Fuzzy’ implementation

Analysts say expansion is high on the agenda for many countries attending, but agree the bloc has not delivered substantial cooperation outcomes over the years and that China values the optics of Global South solidarity against the United States at a time of erratic policymaking and geopolitical flux.

"What is the precise vision that the SCO represents and its practical implementation are rather fuzzy. It is a platform that has increasing convening power, which helps in narrative projection," said Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of the Indo-Pacific Research Programme at the Takshashila Institution thinktank in Bangalore.

"But the SCO's effectiveness in addressing substantial security issues remains very limited." Frictions remain between core members India and Pakistan. The June SCO defence ministers' meeting was unable to adopt a joint statement after India raised objections, saying it omitted reference to the deadly April 22 attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir which led to the worst fighting in decades between India and Pakistan.

New Delhi also refused to join the SCO's condemnation of Israeli attacks on Iran, a member state, earlier in June. But the recent detente between India and China after five years of heightened border frictions, as well as renewed tariff pressure on New Delhi from the Trump administration, are driving expectations for a positive meeting between Xi and Modi on the sidelines of the summit.

"It's likely (New Delhi) will swallow their pride and put this year's SCO problems behind them in a bid to maintain momentum in the détente with China, which is a key Modi priority right now," said Olander.

Analysts expect India and China to announce further incremental border measures such as troop withdrawals, the easing of trade and visa restrictions, cooperation in new fields including climate, and broader government and people-to-people engagement.

Despite the lack of substantive policy announcements expected at the summit, experts warn that the bloc's appeal to Global South countries should not be underestimated.

"This summit is about optics, really powerful optics," added Olander.

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.

Reuters