On the road to a new world order DW 07/05/2024

“Ni hao, huan ying!” is how Kazakh President Kassym-Shomart Tokayev greeted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping upon his arrival at the airport in the capital, Astana, to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

Tokayev, 71, is just a month older than Xi Jinping and speaks fluent Chinese. From 1985 to 1991, he served as a Soviet diplomat in Beijing.

The two heads of state get along well not only linguistically, but also on common interests.

The SCO was founded in 2001 by Russia, China and authoritarian Central Asian states including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The club now also includes India, Iran and Pakistan.

Astana currently holds the presidency of the bloc.

China's first multilateral initiative

The fundamental objectives of the SCO were to strengthen mutual trust, promote cooperation and reduce regional tensions after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“The SCO was China’s first multilateral initiative in 1996,” said Eberhard Sandschneider, a partner at the Berlin Global Advisors think tank. “When it became clear that it worked well with three Central Asian states and the Russian Federation, it was institutionalized as the SCO in 2001.”

China and Russia later expanded the club's mission to focus on counterterrorism in the region.

Beijing, for example, wanted to combat “terrorism, extremism and separatism” in the province of Xinjiang, in the far west of the country.

The Chinese government blames the predominantly Muslim Uighur community for many of the terrorist attacks in the country.

For China, this issue remains more relevant than ever. Beijing is deeply concerned about the activities of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), which wants Xinjiang to secede from China and become an independent state of East Turkestan.

The United Nations and the European Union classified the TIP as a terrorist organization in 2002.

Jihadists are also active in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, a region considered a hub for many radical militant organizations.

The rugged, mountainous terrain and porous borders make it difficult for governments to monitor and control extremist activity.

“Against external interference”

But China wants more. At the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi on Wednesday night, the second face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in six weeks, it became clear that China wants even more from the SCO.

“In the face of a constantly changing international situation, we must strive to protect the legitimate rights and interests of countries and uphold the basic norms of international relations,” Xi said.

On Thursday, the Chinese president was even clearer: “We must join forces to resist external interference, firmly support each other, care for each other's concerns… and firmly control the future and destiny of our countries, as well as regional peace and development in our own hands.”

Xi Jinping wants an even more committed regional alliance. The final communiqué mentions the economy, securing supply chains, the digital economy and energy security, as well as cultural and social exchanges and artificial intelligence.

The SCO, however, avoided talking about the formation of a new geopolitical bloc.

The statement clarifies instead that the group is non-aligned and is not directed against third parties.

“The SCO seeks objective cooperation. The stronger the SCO's influence, the more representative and visible it is in the Global South. China is using its role as a model and showing Central Asian countries how to achieve economic consensus despite political disagreements,” said Liu Qingbin of Yohohama University in Japan.

OCS plus?

For the first time, the summit adopted an expanded format, despite the absence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were present at the meeting.

“The SCO has always focused on security and growth, two key issues for effective global governance. Security ensures growth, and growth promotes security,” Liu said.

“But the SCO is just one of many multilateral initiatives that are all ultimately supported by China,” said China expert Sandschneider, pointing to the Belt and Road Initiative, BRICS+ and RCEP, a regional free trade area.

“China is building alternative institutions on a global scale that are appealing to friendly nations. Typically, these are autocracies, all clearly anti-Western.”

Sandschneider added that everyone, including those in the West, should understand that the international order established after World War II “has become a bit outdated.”

“This is not only about the autocratic initiatives that China is pursuing, but also about domestic political developments in the United States and the state of the European Union,” he said. “That is why some see this as an opportunity to counter Western dominance, long perceived as paternalism, or even to undermine it altogether.”

The SCO welcomed a new member in Astana: Belarus, another ally of Moscow and Beijing.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist for three decades.

China, in particular, is keen to deepen its ties with Belarus. The Belarusian leader's youngest son, Nikolai Lukashenko, born in 2004, is currently studying biology at the elite Beijing University in China.

This article was originally written in German and edited by Kate Martyr.

“Decoding China” is a DW series that examines Chinese positions and arguments on current international issues from a critical German and European perspective.