The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been holding annual meetings for more than two decades, dating back to 1996 when five countries began meeting: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. This gathering was prompted, scholars say, by a vacuum of power in Central Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union that China was deeply concerned could be filled by the United States.
India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017, with Iran and Belarus also joining in 2023 and 2024. Last year, the meeting happened in India, and this year’s meeting took place on Monday in Tianjin, China. In the wake of Indian-U.S. tensions over tariffs and oil sales to Russia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to China in 7 years has sparked much discussion.
On Wednesday, two days after, China hosted Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, standing together with Chinese leader Xi Jinping publicly for the first time at a “Victory Day” military parade in Tiananmen Square to commemorate the end of World War II.
The Deseret News reached out to scholars with long experience studying Asian relations for more context on what Indian Prime Minister Modi’s visit to China, and the subsequent military parade, means.
Former U.S. diplomat Brent Christensen
“The recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Tianjin, China, represented another opportunity for China to show world leadership, especially among the members of this increasingly influential bloc,” wrote former U.S. diplomat, Brent Christensen, who later served as the Deputy Director then the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan.
“It also seemed to indicate a growing solidarity among China, Russia and India,” he said in an email to Deseret News, noting that Indian PM Modi’s appearance suggests that “he was using the visit to signal India’s resentment at the United States for imposing a 50 percent tariff rate on India for its importing of Russian oil.”
“However,” Christensen continued, “given India’s longstanding non-aligned status and its broader interest in maintaining a productive bilateral relationship with the United States, Modi’s attendance at the SCO meeting should not be overinterpreted.”
After 35 years in the US Foreign Service, Christensen now teaches a political science class at BYU. He said, “This SCO meeting was especially important for Putin,” given the Russian leader’s continued international isolation since the war with Ukraine began. He said that Putin “was able to use the SCO platform to strengthen economic and security cooperation with China and also advocate for their shared vision of a new multipolar world order. He was also able reaffirm Russia’s energy cooperation with India (i.e., oil exports).”
“More worrisome than the SCO meeting was the subsequent meeting in Beijing of Putin, Xi and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II,” Christensen said. “This is the first public appearance of these three leaders together and implies a new level of cooperation among these three countries.”
Researcher Celeste Beesley
Celeste Beesley is an international relations scholar and political scientist at Brigham Young University with a research focus on the political impacts of economic globalization, Russia and Ukraine.
“I think that what we are seeing is a realignment,” she said. “And this has been going on for years with the liberal international order that was based on the power structure after World War Two, and had the United States sort of at its center.
“As the U.S. has declined in relative power,” Beesley said, “for years we’ve been talking about the rise of China and the other BRICS countries like Brazil, Russia, and India."
So are these recent meetings consequential?
The scholar said, “it does indicate that some countries are finding an alternative relationship in international relations ... the United States isn’t the only game in town”
“China has been working on being a viable international alternative for quite some time,” she said, likewise discouraging overreaction.
“I don’t think that we need to worry too much about what this specific meeting means. Yes, it’s not fantastic from the perspective of US global influence. It is a symptom of the realignment of the overall power structure in the world. But that realignment has been going on for at least 20 years.”
When Beesley was asked whether this reflects a warming relationship between India and China, she said, “From the U.S. perspective, we would really like them to balance against each other in Asia.”
“The fact of the matter is, I think that relationship is going to be relatively unstable. India imports a lot from China, but they’re not a huge market for China — they’re not able to offer the same kind of economic benefits for the Chinese economy that trade with the West does.”
While acknowledging that geographic proximity gives India and China some overlapping interests, Beesley said, “they’re also going to have some conflicting interests....overall what Russia and India have to offer China, what China has to offer them, is still very much uncertain.”
“Obviously the recent 50% tariffs against India that were levied by the U.S. government incentivize India reaching out to China.” She then added, “I don’t know if that can be a long-term stable constellation, because they’re also going to have conflicting regional and power ambitions in Asia.”
Researcher Eric Hyer
One of the foremost China scholars at BYU, political scientist Eric Hyer, is working to finish his forthcoming book, “The International Relations of East Asia: War and Diplomacy from Early Times to the Present.”
Similar to the other scholars, he called for caution in overinterpreting these recent events. “The optics of what we saw in the (media) is more impressive than the meeting that actually took place there.”
“There’s two things people easily confuse,” he said. Although Indian Prime Minister Modi did spend a significant amount of time with Putin and with Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization annual meeting, Hyer said we have to remember that this meeting between Modi, Putin and Xi Jinping was along with more than 15 other heads of state, including leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Iran and even Turkey, which he pointed out is a member of NATO.
“So it’s not like this was just the axis of evil colluding against the United States,” Hyer said, referring to the over two decades of annual meetings that have happened with the SCO.
That meeting “has to be kept separate from what happened, which was the big military parade in Beijing to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Japan.”
“It’s important for people to understand that Modi left and did not stay for the military parade,” Hyer said. “The new face in town” was being Kim Jong Un, from North Korea, putting him together with Xi and Putin.
“In a way that’s more consequential, because those people have kind of become the Axis of Resistance against the United States and the Europeans,” Hyer said.
This scholar of Asian relations pointed out that “India has had a relationship with Russia that goes way back decades and decades. The Soviet Union was India’s number one arms supplier, and after the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia has continued to be a significant arms supplier for the Indians.”
By contrast, he said, “the Indians have historically had conflict with China focused on Tibet,” since the Dalai Lama, who was exiled from China, lives in India as a sanctuary. The two countries also fought a war in 1962 and had another major conflict five years ago in 2020, he said, high up in the Himalayan border between the countries.
So when Modi goes to China, Hyer said, “there’s already sort of a chill in the room because India and China don’t get along well” due to this historical “baggage.”
“But because of Trump’s policies pushing India away, it kind of made an opening for China to make a bid for better relations with India, and India has responded. And so what this meeting represents is a warming relationship between India and China,” Hyer said.
“But I wouldn’t say they have good relations. They’re still cool and chilly, but India has always been a non aligned country. They’ve never, ever been tightly aligned with any country.” Both during the Cold War and after the Cold War, India’s pattern, Hyer explains, is to maintain good relations with all the major countries.
