Russian President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping are scheduled to convene on Wednesday at a summit of a Eurasian security and defense club viewed by Moscow and Beijing as a tool to counter the influence of the United States and its allies.
Putin and the Chinese president have broadened the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a club established in 2001 with Russia, China, and Central Asian powers, to include India, Iran, and Pakistan as a counterbalance to the West.
Putin will engage in a series of one-on-one meetings on Wednesday on the sidelines of the July 3-4 SCO summit in the Kazakh capital, Astana, as announced by the Kremlin.
He is set to meet Xi, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, and the leaders of Azerbaijan, Mongolia, and Pakistan before an informal dinner hosted by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
India stated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is anticipated in Moscow later this month, will not be in attendance. Instead, he is sending Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Russia and China consider the SCO, which advocates for common approaches to external security threats such as drug trafficking and focuses on countering any domestic instability, as a means to extend their influence across Asia.
“The leaders of the SCO member countries will discuss the current state and prospects for further deepening multifaceted cooperation within the organization and improving its activities,” the Kremlin stated in a release.
At last year’s virtual summit, the group issued a statement critical of what it called the negative impact of “unilateral and unlimited expansion of global missile defense systems by certain countries or groups of countries”, without directly referring to NATO expansion and Western military assistance to Ukraine.
China and Russia established an unrestricted partnership in February 2022 during Putin’s visit to Beijing, shortly before deploying thousands of troops to Ukraine. Since then, Xi and Putin have strengthened their alliance.
Xi and Putin are convinced that the US-led post-Cold War era is collapsing. The US sees China as its primary rival and Russia as a major national threat. President Joe Biden has stated that this century will be marked by a fundamental competition between democracies and autocracies.
The US perceives Xi and Putin as authoritarian leaders who have suppressed freedom of speech and maintained strict control over the media and judiciary within their countries. Biden has labeled Xi as a “dictator” and described Putin as a “killer” and a “crazy SOB”. Beijing and Moscow have criticized Biden for these remarks.
The SCO has its origins in 1996 when its predecessor was established to coordinate efforts against external threats like drug trafficking, with a focus on addressing internal instability.
Belarus will participate in the summit as a full member of the organization for the first time, according to the Kremlin.
Various other countries engage in discussions with the group, including Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to attend the summit in Astana.
