|
September 01, 2025
from
RT Website
Participants of the
Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) summit
pose for photos at
the Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Center
in Tianjin, China,
Sept. 1, 2025.
© Suo Takekuma/Pool
Photo via AP
Source
Xi,
Putin and Modi
have lead
calls in Tianjin
for a
UN-centered multipolar system,
as
Eurasian blocs tighten
and the EU
is sidelined...
The latest gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO)
in Tianjin looks at first like another summit - handshakes, family
portraits, scripted statements.
But the meeting on August 31-September 01, is
more than diplomatic theater:
it is another marker of the end of the
unipolar era dominated by the United States, and the rise of a
multipolar system centered on Asia, Eurasia, and the
Global South.
At the table were Chinese President
Xi Jinping, his Russian
counterpart
Vladimir Putin, and Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi - together representing more
than a third of humanity and 3 of largest countries on Earth.
Xi unveiled a broad Global Governance Initiative, including a
proposed,
Putin described the SCO as "a vehicle for genuine
multilateralism" and called for a Eurasian security model beyond
Western control.
Modi's presence - his first visit to China in
years - and the powerful optics around his meeting with Putin,
signaled that India is willing to be seen as part of this emerging
order.
What just Happened - And why it's
Bigger than a Photo-op
The pitch:
Xi is promoting an order that
"democratizes" global governance and reduces dependence on
US-centric finance (think: less dollar gravity, more regional
institutions).
Putin called the SCO a vehicle for
"genuine multilateralism" and Eurasian security.
By calling China a partner rather than a
rival, Modi signaled New Delhi won't be locked into
Washington's anti-China agenda.
The audience:
More than 20 non-Western leaders were in the
room, with
United Nations (UN)
Secretary-General
António Guterres endorsing
the event organization - not a club meeting in the shadows, but
a UN-centered frame at a China-led forum.
Translation - "We want the UN
Charter Back - Not someone else's In-house Rules"
Beijing's line is blunt:
reject Cold War blocs and restore the UN
system as the only universal legal baseline.
That's a direct rebuke to the,
post-1991 "rules-based international order",
drafted in Washington or Brussels and enforced selectively.
Examples are not hard to find.
The 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia went
ahead without a UN mandate, justified under the "responsibility
to protect."
The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was launched
despite the absence of Security Council approval - a war later
admitted even by Western officials to have been based on false
premises.
In 2011, a UN resolution authorizing a no-fly
zone over Libya was used by NATO to pursue outright regime
change, leaving behind a failed state and opening a corridor of
misery into the heart of Western Europe.
For China, Russia and many Global South states,
these episodes proved that the "rules-based order" was never about
universal law but about Western discretion.
The insistence in Tianjin that the UN Charter be
restored as the only legitimate framework is meant to flip the
script:
to argue that the SCO,
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India,
China, South Africa and new members Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and
the United Arab Emirates, plus Indonesia), and their partners
are defending the actual rules of international law, while the
West substitutes ad hoc coalitions and shifting standards for
its own convenience.
Both Xi and Putin drove the point
home, but in different registers:
Xi's line:
He denounced "hegemonism and bullying
behavior" and called for a "democratization of global
governance," stressing that the SCO should serve as a model of
true multilateralism anchored in the UN and the World Trade
Organization (WTO), not in ad hoc "rules" devised by a few
Western capitals.
Putin's line:
He went further, charging that the United
States and its allies were directly responsible for the conflict
escalation in Ukraine, and arguing that the SCO offers a
framework for a genuine Eurasian security order - one not
dictated by NATO or Western-imposed standards.
The Architecture replacing
Unipolarity - It's already Here...
Security spine:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization brings
together Russia, China, India and Central Asian states to
coordinate security, counterterrorism and intelligence - the
hard-power framework that makes the rest possible.
Economic boardrooms:
BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South
Africa) expanded in 2024 to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and
the United Arab Emirates, followed by Indonesia in 2025.
With its New Development Bank and a drive
for trade in national currencies, it now acts as a counterweight to
the Group of Seven (G7)
Regional weight:
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN)
- a ten-member bloc shaping Asian trade and standards -
increasingly aligns with SCO and BRICS projects.
Energy leverage:
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
six Arab monarchies, coordinate policy through the wider
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Plus (OPEC+),
giving them control over key oil flows.
Taken together, these bodies already function as
a parallel governance system that doesn't need Western sponsorship
or veto power.
EU's
Irrelevance
The European Union (EU) is
absent from Tianjin - and that absence speaks volumes...
Once promoted as the second global pole,
Europe is now tied to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO)
for defense, dependent on outside energy, and fractured internally.
Even its flagship Carbon Border Adjustment
Mechanism (CBAM)
has soured relations with India and other Global South
economies.
In Tianjin, Europe was not a participant
in decisions - only a spectator...
After the Talks, the Tanks
The SCO summit precedes China's Victory Day military parade in
Beijing on September 3, commemorating 80 years since Japan's
surrender in World War II.
Xi, Putin and North Korean leader
Kim Jong-un, with whom Moscow has a bilateral security pact,
will stand together as Beijing showcases intercontinental missiles,
long-range strike systems and drone formations.
The spectacle will likely demonstrate that multipolarity is not just
a form of diplomatic language, but that it backed by the hard
power on display.
Why Tianjin matters beyond Tianjin
A rival rule-set with
institutions:
From a Shanghai Cooperation Organization bank
to BRICS financing and potential ASEAN–GCC coordination, there
is now a procedural path to act without Western oversight.
UN-first framing:
By anchoring legitimacy in the UN Charter,
the bloc positions Western "rules-based" frameworks as partisan.
India's calculus:
Modi's public handshakes with Xi and Putin
have normalized a Eurasian triangle that Washington and Brussels
cannot easily fracture.
Europe's shrinking veto:
EU regulations such as the Carbon Border
Adjustment Mechanism no longer set the agenda in Eurasia,
where energy, trade and security are coordinated elsewhere.
The Bottom Line
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in
Tianjin was less about formal speeches than about symbolism.
It signaled that the unipolar world has
ended...!
From development banks to energy corridors to
parades of missiles, a
new multipolar order is taking
shape - and it no longer asks for Western "permission"...
|
