Yesterday at 20:05
The recent 25th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin and the grand military parade in Beijing that followed were not isolated events but rather a carefully orchestrated strategic communication. They embody the two pillars of Xi Jinping’s grand strategy: the diplomatic construction of a “multipolar” world order that challenges Western dominance and the demonstration of overwhelming military power to bolster these ambitions. For Ukraine, which is engaged in an existential struggle for its sovereignty, these signals from Beijing are not peripheral; they indicate an intensifying geopolitical landscape in which a major global power actively supports the aggressor and promotes a world order fundamentally hostile to the principles of international law on which Ukraine’s survival depends.
Read more in the article by Ihor Petrenko, founder of the “United Ukraine” Think Tank, Doctor of Political Sciences
The SCO summit in Tianjin served as a platform for formalizing and advancing China’s vision of global governance, which Beijing actively positions as an alternative to the Western model. This architecture of a new order is built on ideological foundations, institutional mechanisms, and skillful exploitation of global dissatisfaction with U.S. policy.
At the core of China’s diplomatic activity lies the concept of the “Shanghai Spirit,” which officially proclaims principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations, and the pursuit of common development. Beijing and Moscow position this ideology as an alternative to the Western “rules-based international order,” which they portray as a tool for unilateral actions, “intimidation,” and a “Cold War mentality.”
The Tianjin Declaration, adopted at the summit, explicitly calls for building a “more representative, democratic, and just multipolar world,” a euphemism for reducing the influence of the United States. In his speeches, Xi Jinping consistently called for resisting “hegemonism” and “bloc confrontation,” emphasizing the need to strengthen a system of international relations centered on the UN, a subtle hint at bypassing Western-dominated institutions. The organization also reaffirmed its commitment to combating the “three evil forces” – terrorism, separatism, and extremism – a convenient pretext for tightening domestic control and conducting cross-border security operations under the guise of collective threat response.
The summit’s culmination was Xi Jinping’s official unveiling of the new Global Governance Initiative (GGI). Although framed in abstract, UN-friendly terms – sovereign equality, international law, multilateralism – the fact that it was announced at the SCO platform rather than within the UN framework is a powerful symbolic act. The GGI is the capstone of Xi’s other global initiatives (on development, security, and civilization) and represents China’s clearest statement to date of its intent to lead the reform – or, in essence, revision – of the global order.
The GGI’s conceptual document identifies the “shortcomings” of the existing system, particularly the underrepresentation of the Global South in international institutions. Xi Jinping explicitly called on the SCO to “take a leading role” in implementing this initiative, underscoring Beijing’s intent to use structures under its control as a vanguard for advancing its vision. Thus, the GGI becomes not just a set of principles but a roadmap for building a world where norms and rules are shaped not in Washington or Brussels but within non-Western alliances under Beijing’s patronage.
China backs its ideological proposals with concrete institutional steps. A breakthrough at the summit was the final approval of the establishment of the SCO Development Bank – an idea Beijing had pushed for over a decade, overcoming resistance from Russia, which feared losing its influence in Central Asia. This bank, alongside the BRICS New Development Bank, is designed to create an alternative financial architecture capable of funding large-scale infrastructure projects, bypassing the U.S. dollar, and reducing member states’ dependence on Western institutions like the World Bank and the IMF.
The decision to establish the bank was complemented by Xi Jinping’s pledges to provide billions of yuan in grants and loans to SCO members, further deepening the region’s financial dependence on China. Leaders of some countries, such as Alexander Lukashenko, explicitly called for the creation of an “independent financial mechanism” to mitigate the pressure of sanctions, which fully aligns with Beijing’s strategic goals.
Notably, the appeal of the SCO and its initiatives is largely driven not by the merits of the Chinese model but by the vacuum created by U.S. policies, which many Global South countries perceive as unpredictable and punitive. Trade wars initiated by the Trump administration have pushed countries like India toward closer coordination with China and Russia. The first visit in seven years by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China and his demonstratively warm meetings with Xi and Putin were a direct reaction to U.S. tariffs. This suggests that the SCO is less a coalition of like-minded states and more a “coalition of the aggrieved,” united by a shared desire to hedge against American dominance. China skillfully exploits this discontent, positioning itself as a “fixer of global disorder,” offering stable economic partnerships under the slogan “we don’t lecture, we build.” However, this unity is reactive and fragile, and a more flexible and predictable Western foreign policy could easily expose deep contradictions within the bloc, such as the border conflict between India and China.
If the SCO summit was a demonstration of China’s diplomatic and ideological “soft power,” the military parade in Beijing, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of victory in World War II, was an uncompromising display of its “hard power.” It signaled that Beijing not only has a vision for a new world order but also the military muscle to defend and promote it.
