China will host over two dozen world leaders in Tianjin at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) beginning today. Noteworthy attendees include Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, among other heads of state and senior ambassadors.
The SCO aims to offer an alternative multipolar vision of global power and order, according to Chinese officials, but one that they say is rooted in the founding principles and agreements of the United Nations.
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As U.S. President Donald Trump wages a global trade war and distances the United States from its traditional allies, this year’s SCO summit in Tianjin, China will be the largest in its 25-year history.
World War II 80th anniversary parade
On Wednesday, two days after opening the summit, China will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a military parade. Putin and Kim Jong Un will join Xi Jinping to preside over the parade. Leaders from India, Turkey and Egypt will be departing prior to the parade.
War in Ukraine lurks in background
The summit follows on the heels of a bilateral U.S.-Russia meeting in Alaska, where presidents Trump and Putin held a joint press conference after discussing the war in Ukraine.
The Alaska meeting yielded no ceasefire agreement or peace plan, but nonetheless prompted public commentary on the feasibility of a trilateral Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy summit. There have been no plans announced for such a summit.
Over this past weekend, President Trump suggested it was unlikely that Putin and Zelenskyy would agree to sit down together under the current terms and circumstances.
“Friendship without limits”
Days before Russia’s Feb. 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin declared a “friendship without limits” between their two countries. Since then, China has spoken out softly against Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor, but has continued to provide commercial components used by Russian forces, including for weapons, to Russia.
North Korea has involved itself more directly in the conflict, sending its own forces over to fight alongside Russian soldiers. As many as 30,000 more North Korean soldiers might soon be arriving to join Russian combat forces, and over 50,000 North Korean laborers have been sent over to Russia “to work in slave-like conditions,” according to the BBC.
