China Showcases Global Ambitions at Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit

Critical Questions by Henrietta Levin

Published September 3, 2025

On August 31 and September 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the port city of Tianjin. The 10 SCO members-Belarus, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan-were joined by numerous partners from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the UN secretary-general.

Q1: What was the point of the SCO summit?

A1: Originally founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan as the "Shanghai Five" in 1996 to manage border disputes, the SCO's mandate and membership has expanded significantly over time, becoming an important part of China's accelerating efforts to build a new international order marked by greater deference to Chinese interests, norms that are more friendly to China's authoritarian political system, and the displacement of U.S. leadership. The SCO charter explicitly mandates the organization to promote a new "political and economic international order."

In Tianjin, President Xi demonstrated his ability to convene a broad range of countries and international organizations in support of this ambitious and provocative vision. While the diversity of SCO members often limits the organization's capacity for concrete action, it bolsters the argument China is making to the world-that Chinese leadership and Xi's personal "wisdom" is a widely welcomed corrective to Washington's capricious foreign policy.

Additionally, the Tianjin summit provided Xi with an important venue for strengthening many of China's bilateral relationships. Over two days, Xi held separate meetings with at least 15 other leaders, including an unusually warm engagement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which appeared to accelerate China's rapprochement with India and open new opportunities for cooperation between these longtime rivals.

Q2: What new initiatives did the SCO announce in Tianjin?

A2: The most concrete outcome of the 2025 SCO summit may be members' decision to establish an SCO Development Bank, intended to finance infrastructure and economic programs. Beijing has sought the establishment of an SCO bank for more than a decade. But in prior years, its proposal was blocked by Russia, which preferred to channel development financing for Central Asia through institutions it controlled-in contrast to SCO, where Beijing's influence exceeds that of Moscow. As Russia becomes ever more dependent on Chinese economic, financial, and military support, it is not surprising that Moscow is offering new concessions to Beijing. The SCO summit highlighted the strength of the China-Russia partnership at every turn, but this is a relationship in which Russia will increasingly play the junior role.

Additionally, China announced six new platforms for China-SCO cooperation-further institutionalizing China's de facto leadership of the organization. These platforms will focus on energy, green industry, the digital economy, technological innovation, higher education, and vocational and technical education, but it is not yet clear how Beijing intends to implement these commitments.

Q3: What is the Global Governance Initiative?

A3: At the "SCO Plus" meeting on September 1, President Xi announced a new Global Governance Initiative (GGI), signaling with unusual clarity that China intends to lead the development of a new international order. This is the fourth of Xi's "global initiatives," joining the Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilization Initiative. The importance Xi places on GGI can be measured by the obsequious praise it received in his nine subsequent bilateral meetings, according to Chinese readouts. Tajik President Emomali Rahmon reportedly noted, for example: "The Global Governance Initiative put forth by President Xi demonstrates the vision and sense of responsibility of a world-class leader."

Xi described the GGI, like its three companion initiatives, in abstract and ideological language, and he did not share implementation plans. Nonetheless, it is notable that while Xi announced GDI at a virtual meeting of the UN General Assembly in 2021, he unveiled GGI at the SCO -an international organization effectively led by China. In his speech, Xi called on the SCO to "step up and play a leading role and set an example in carrying out the GGI," praising the SCO's ability to "become a catalyst for the development and reform of the global governance system." Though Xi also insisted that GGI should "firmly safeguard the status and authority of the [United Nations]," the preponderance of his remarks, paired with the setting itself, suggest that GGI is intended primarily to elevate the role of international bodies in which China's views and norms are decisive, at the expense of the UN and other institutions underpinning the rules-based international order that Beijing has long seen as a façade of U.S. hegemony.

Q4: On September 3, Beijing hosted a military parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Is that part of SCO?

A4: While the SCO summit in Tianjin and the military parade in Beijing were separate events, the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (or as China calls it, the World Anti-Fascist War) featured prominently in China's SCO messaging. When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi summarized the "major outcomes" of the SCO summit, his second of eight points reflected on the SCO's role as "a just voice for defending the achievements of the victory in World War II." SCO leaders also issued a joint statement declaring, as summarized by Wang Yi, that "the SCO will stand firmly on the right side of history" and "uphold the correct historical perspective of World War II."

In promoting these messages, Beijing endeavors to legitimize its growing global ambitions by drawing on China's experience of World War II. While the United States and its allies may consider the post-war order to be definitionally liberal and rules-based, China envisions a very different post-war order-one that is more friendly to Beijing's political system and parochial interests, and in which China increasingly displaces its wartime allies on the world stage.

Henrietta Levin is a senior fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

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