SCO summit in Tianjin: Xi-Modi thaw, record attendance, and a Global South push amid tariff shocks

Eurasia-wide leaders are descending upon Tianjin to join a two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit as hosts guarantee the highest level of participation since the group's founding. More than 20 national leaders and heads of several international organizations will attend, reflecting an attempt to display multilateral unity and Global South cohesion.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first trip to China in seven years signals a tentative thaw after years of strain. In talks on the sidelines, both sides emphasized long-term, strategic engagement and the need to treat each other as partners, not rivals—an opening shaped in part by recent tariff frictions with the United States.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit signals intensifying coordination with Beijing. Marginal bilaterals will address Ukraine, regional security, and the Iranian nuclear file, since a grand-scale military commemoration in Beijing immediately following the summit is likely to keep most of the leaders in the region.

The SCO's expanding influence—now including Belarus and Iran as full members—continues to blur lines between a security-centric meeting and broad economic and political agenda. The summit will highlight "indivisible security" and multipolar vision, experts explain, even as internal differences persist on conflicts from Ukraine to the Middle East and tensions in South Asia.

Attendance transcends members and interlocutors, e.g., Turkey and others from South and Southeast Asia, since Tianjin is a venue for calibrated diplomacy: rapprochement where possible, guided divergence where they cannot, and an attempt to project stability amidst global tariff shocks.