Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are due to meet on Wednesday for a summit of a Eurasian security and defense club seen by Moscow and Beijing as a tool to counter the influence of the United States and its allies.
Putin and the Chinese president have expanded the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a club founded in 2001 with Russia, China and Central Asian powers, to include India, Iran and Pakistan as a counterweight to the West.
Putin will hold a series of bilateral meetings on Wednesday on the sidelines of the July 3-4 SCO summit in the Kazakh capital Astana, the Kremlin said.
He is due 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 has announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected in Moscow later this month, will not be joining the Indian prime minister's visit. He has chosen to send his foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Russia and China view the SCO, which promotes common approaches to external security threats such as drug trafficking and focuses on combating domestic instability, as a way to project influence across Asia.
“The leaders of the SCO member states will discuss the current state and prospects for deepening multifaceted cooperation within the organization and improving its activities,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
At last year's virtual summit, the group issued a statement criticizing what it called the negative impact of “the 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 aid to Ukraine.
“Partnership without limits
China and Russia declared in February 2022, during Putin's visit to Beijing, days before sending tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine, that they had a “limitless” partnership. Since then, Xi and Putin have deepened their partnership.
Xi and Putin believe that the US-dominated post-Cold War era is collapsing.
The United States views China as its greatest competitor and Russia as its greatest threat to nation states. US President Joe Biden has said that this century will be defined by an existential struggle between democracies and autocracies.
The United States views Xi Jinping and Putin as authoritarian leaders who have suppressed free speech and exercised tight control over the media and courts. Biden has called Xi a “dictator” and called Putin a “killer” and a “scumbag.” Beijing and Moscow have rebuked Biden for the remarks.
The history of the SCO dates back to 1996, when its predecessor was founded with the aim of coordinating efforts against external threats such as drug trafficking. The SCO has traditionally focused on combating any internal instability.
Belarus will attend the summit for the first time as a full member of the organization, the Kremlin said.
Other countries participating in talks with the group include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected in Astana for the summit.
