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TIANJIN, China: President Xi Jinping gathered the leaders of Russia and India among dignitaries from around 20 Eurasian countries on Sunday for a showpiece summit aimed at putting China front and center of regional relations.
Security was tight in the northern port city of Tianjin, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit is being held until Monday, days before a massive military parade in the capital Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Tianjin on Sunday with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.
Meanwhile Xi held a flurry of bilateral meetings with leaders from the Maldives, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and one of Putin’s staunch allies, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
He also met India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Xinhua news agency reported.
China and Russia have sometimes touted the SCO as an alternative to the NATO military alliance. This year’s summit is the first since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
In an interview published by Xinhua on Saturday, Putin said the summit will “strengthen the SCO’s capacity to respond to contemporary challenges and threats, and consolidate solidarity across the shared Eurasian space.”
“All this will help shape a fairer multipolar world order,” Putin said.
As China’s claim over Taiwan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have seen them clash with the United States and Europe, experts say that Beijing and Moscow are eager to use platforms such as the SCO to curry favor.
“China has long sought to present the SCO as a non-Western-led power bloc that promotes a new type of international relations, which, it claims, is more democratic,” said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
More than 20 leaders including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan are attending the bloc’s largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
“The large-scale participation indicates China’s growing influence and the SCO’s appeal as a platform for non-Western countries,” Loh added.
Beijing, through the SCO, will try to “project influence and signal that Eurasia has its own institutions and rules of the game,” said Lizzi Lee from the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“It is framed as something different, built around sovereignty, non-interference, and multipolarity, which the Chinese tout as a model,” Lee said.
Xi met leaders including Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet in Tianjin on Saturday.
Putin is expected to hold talks on Monday with Turkiye’s Erdogan and Iran’s Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict and Tehran’s nuclear program respectively.
The Russian president needs “all the benefits of SCO as a player on the world stage and also the support of the second largest economy in the world,” said Lim Tai Wei, a professor and East Asia expert at Japan’s Soka University.
“Russia is also keen to win over India, and India’s trade frictions with the United States presents this opportunity,” Lim said.
The summit comes days after India was hit by a sharp bump up in US tariffs on its goods as punishment for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.
India’s premier Modi arrived on Saturday, in his first visit to China since 2018.
The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.
A thaw began last October, when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.
Modi was not on a list of attendees for the Beijing parade published by Chinese state media that included Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un.

NAHA, Japan: Sporting dark face paint and clutching a gun, teenage soldier-in-training Takuma Hiyane crawls across a field on Japan’s Okinawa, the front line of the nation’s defense as anxiety grows over China’s territorial ambitions.
As the world marks the 80th anniversary of World War II, Japan — which has been officially pacifist since its defeat — is trying to lure more talent into its armed forces.
Tokyo began upping its military spending in 2023 and aims to make it two percent of its gross domestic product by the end of the 2027 fiscal year, but has come under pressure from Washington to boost it even further.
Japan fears that China could attempt a forceful takeover of Taiwan — the self-governed island it claims — potentially triggering a conflict with Washington that could drag in Tokyo as well.
But it has been hard to convince enough young Japanese to enlist.
Hiyane, a 19-year-old former high school badminton player who signed up after his graduation in March, was swayed by the idea of helping victims of natural disasters, he said.
“I thought this was a job that I could contribute to my country and be proud of, so I decided to join,” he told AFP, carefully dodging questions on the sensitive topic of national defense.
Tokyo wants a beefed-up military in southwestern regions such as Okinawa, home to some 70 percent of US military facilities in Japan and seen as strategically important for monitoring China, the Taiwan Strait and the Korean peninsula.
In 2023, the Japan Self-Defense Forces (SDF) aimed to hire almost 20,000 people, but recruited just half that number, according to the defense ministry.
Dangerous duties, low pay and a young retirement age of around 56 are off-putting for young Japanese, officials and experts say.
Japan’s low birth rate, shrinking population and tight labor market are also complicating recruitment, leaving around 10 percent of the force’s 250,000 positions unfilled.

On Okinawa, Hiyane and his fellow trainees braved scorching heat to stage a line formation, before dashing forward to capture a mock enemy fort.
“I find training here very physical and hard, but I am used to it in a way since I played sports at school,” he said.
“I find it more exhausting and nerve-racking when I have to shoot guns.”
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said in June that increasing SDF numbers was “a top priority” given Japan’s worsening security environment.
Kazuyuki Shioiri, who helps manage an infantry regiment in Okinawa where Hiyane trains, said increased defense expenditure was gradually making troops’ lives better through various upgrades including air conditioning, cleaner bathrooms and more privacy in dormitories.
“We have been able to improve conditions,” he said.
Before the extra funds, Japanese troops had complained that they lacked bullets and basic supplies.
They used to strip old tanks and jets for parts to repair newer equipment, the defense ministry said.
But it’s not simply “muscular troops with high combat capabilities” that the force wants, said Toshiyuki Asou, an SDF recruiter on Okinawa.
“We are looking for a wide range of personnel now as national security involves everything from cybersecurity, space defense, electromagnetic warfare, and of course intelligence work,” he added.

Despite the government’s defense push, Japanese citizens have traditionally kept their distance from the subject, with some still carrying bitter memories of the nation’s militarist past.
Japan’s constitution, which was drafted by the US after World War II and enjoys wide public support, bans Tokyo from using force and does not recognize the SDF as a formal military.
While the troops are highly respected, the public have loudly opposed any attempt to amend the constitution to grant them that status.
In a Gallup International survey released last year, only nine percent of Japanese respondents said they would fight for the country if there was a war, while 50 percent said they would not.
That compares with greater willingness in some other countries, with 46 percent of South Koreans, 41 percent of Americans and 34 percent of Canadians saying they would fight.
Ryoichi Oriki, the former head of the Joint Staff of the SDF, said during a recent press briefing that he wished for “greater understanding among the public about the reality of national defense.”
In the field, new recruits said they were excited about launching their military careers despite the geopolitical turbulence.
“I have learned the spirit and skills of Self-Defense Force personnel,” said Hiyane, who is about to complete his initial training. “I feel I have grown.”