Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit 2025: A Gathering Storm in China
China put forward its vision for a Sino-centric future at the 2025 SCO Summit as well as a reinvention of its past victory in WWII alongside the leaders of Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
This week, the leaders of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea convened in China along with over 20 other global leaders for two major events. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, which took place in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1, followed by the 80th anniversary celebration of victory over Japan in the Second World War on September 3 in Beijing.
The events showcased solidarity and shared purpose among anti-Western forces seeking to reshape the global order, but revealed underlying tensions over whether Russia, Iran, and North Korea would accept Chinese leadership.
OVERVIEW:
Key Themes:
Solidarity, multipolarity, and historical continuity were the three key themes on display during both the SCO Summit and Victory Day Commemoration.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's public embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin, alongside meetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, projected an image of unified resistance to Western pressure under Beijing's leadership. China has framed this solidarity as essential for correcting what it characterizes as an international system that has descended into chaos under US stewardship. Throughout the summit, Chinese leaders repeatedly called for transforming the future international order into a more "just and equitable" global system featuring multiple power centers and genuine equality among states.
China frames this multipolar vision as a return to the original principles of the United Nations established after World War II, a vision it shares with Moscow. China’s monumental 80th anniversary of Victory Day over Japan is an attempt to lay claim to both achievements through a historic narrative that inflates the role of the Chinese Communist Party in defeating Japan, where it played a supporting role behind the US and Chinese National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek. It also overstates the People’s Republic of China’s role in founding the United Nations, an organization it did not officially join until 1971.1
The appearance of historic continuity is essential to Beijing for legitimating its claims to future global leadership, and fulfilling its national rejuvenation. The SCO Summit featured China’s newest bid for status as the preeminent power—the Global Governance Initiative.
New “Global Governance Initiative”:
On August 31, Xi Jinping helped inaugurate the SCO Summit by unveiling the Global Governance Initiative. According to China, the initiative contains reforms needed to address three deficiencies plaguing the international system: the underrepresentation of developing countries in positions of global leadership; the erosion of authority in existing institutions like the UN Security Council; and the need for more effective responses to key issues like climate change and AI which require global collective action.
A concept paper released on September 1 was, like the “AI Global Governance Action Plan” China released in July, short on details and provided a general framework for China’s vision of global governance. This included five core concepts of governing future international order: Staying committed to sovereign equality; international rule of law; multilateralism; a people-centered approach; and achieving real results.
These principles function more as guiding principles than fully developed policies, aimed at reforming existing multilateral institutions. Throughout, China consistently highlights the United Nations as the primary institution requiring reform and preservation. This emphasis is hardly surprising given China's frequent chafing at legal and normative constraints imposed by the UN in its current form. The primary objective of the Global Governance Initiative therefore appears to be reshaping the UN in accordance with Chinese national interests. Legitimizing Beijing’s actions by framing them as consistent with established international principles that it regularly violates, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
New Chinese-led Economic Initiatives Announced:
The SCO Summit showcased multiple new economic initiatives spearheaded by China. These included Chinese plans to contribute approximately $280M in grants and $1.1B in loans to the Interbank Consortium of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
China also announced the establishment of six “pragmatic cooperation” centers open to SCO member states. The Chinese-based cooperation centers will focus on training SCO members to advance their energy, green technology, and digital economy sectors through innovation hubs, technical training, and higher education programs. This initiative will enable China to share its industrial expertise in fields where it leads globally, while expanding available markets for its products across Eurasia.
Xi Jinping also specifically called for the creation of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization Development Bank, a proposal which all member states agreed to in the concluding Tianjin Declaration. A SCO Development Bank would help provide alternatives to the US dollar as a viable means of funding complex global projects.
Finally, China and Russia advanced their plans for the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline. The long-delayed project would deliver up to 50 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas annually to China via Mongolia. However, the agreement fell well short of analyst and investor expectations, consisting merely of a Memorandum of Understanding that outlined shared responsibilities for future negotiations rather than a binding contract.
Military Might on Display:
Immediately following the SCO Summit, China held a massive military parade in Beijing on September 3 commemorating the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan in the Second World War. The parade showcased Chinese military capabilities, in both a warning to US allies and an advertisement to potential security partners. The event highlighted China's nuclear modernization program and its advances in unmanned weapons systems.
For the first time China displayed elements of its entire nuclear triad. This included the JingLei-1 (JL-1) air-launched ballistic missile, JuLang-3 (JL-3) sub-launched intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), upgraded DongFeng-5C (DF-5C) silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile, as well as new systems such as the DongFeng-31 (DF-31) and DongFeng-61 (DF-61) mobile intercontinental ballistic missile systems.
Of note are statements made by Chinese media and analysts suggesting the DF-5C could strike anywhere on earth, a potential reference to upgrades to the missiles to feature fractional orbital bombardment systems (FOBS), which the US military and intelligence community had previously assessed China was developing. FOBS are a technology for delivering nuclear warheads anywhere on earth by placing them in low earth orbit. While the technology was developed during the Cold War, it was largely abandoned due to arms control treaties aimed at preserving strategic stability and preventing the militarization of space. A revival of this technology would exemplify the destabilizing effects of China's broader effort to reshape established global norms.
The People’s Liberation Army also highlighted numerous unmanned systems including its series of strategic unmanned aircraft. These systems included the stealthy GJ-11 “Sharp Sword” and FH-97A “Loyal Wingman” aerial combat systems analogous to the US’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program that complements China’s J-20 fighter.2 Also introduced was the new AJX-002 extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle. These are not only potent weapons that may feature prominently in a conflict over Taiwan but also demonstrate China's growing capabilities as a leader in defense technology.
BIGGER PICTURE:
While this week's gatherings in China highlighted solidarity among Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean leaders against Western pressure and their shared mission to reshape the international order, each country displayed distinct motivations for cooperation that could threaten future unity with China, whose Sino-centric vision of the future underlaid the events.
China Provides Glimpse into Sino-centric World Order
Beijing used the SCO Summit and Victory Day celebration as an opportunity to portray itself as an alternative global leader to the US and as a source of stability within Eurasia. The Global Governance Initiative, announced weeks after its proposal of a “Global AI Governance Action Plan” is yet another major attempt by China to appeal to countries isolated from or disenchanted with the West.
The core concepts of the Global Governance Initiative offer a defense of China’s authoritarian model of development. The fifth core concept, “Staying committed to real results,” which China claims is the most important principle, appears to imply a transition to top-down decision-making in global governance, with China presumably at the top for key issues.
These policy initiatives have been reinforced by diplomatic gestures showcasing China's willingness to welcome partners estranged from the US. This was demonstrated by Xi Jinping's warm reception of Narendra Modi amid India's deteriorating relations with America following the Trump administration's tariff policies, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, these public honors masked the reality that while China advocates for a multipolar world order, its summit actions revealed a distinctly Sino-centric vision serving Chinese Communist Party interests.
The diplomatic courtesies offered by Xi Jinping masked Chinese efforts to extract tribute from both Russia and India for its support in the face of US pressure. Xi was able to secure an apparent public retreat from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the heated (and frequently violent) border disputes between the two countries. China also appears to have squeezed Russia for concessions to inch forward the Siberia 2 gas pipeline. The MOU signed by both countries for the future deal set 30-year prices well below levels Russia would have secured with European markets (a development which triggered a more than 3% drop in Gazprom’s stock on the Moscow Stock Exchange.)
Russia Signals That it Can Withstand Pressure and End its War on its Terms
The Kremlin used the gatherings in Tianjin and Beijing as an opportunity to show the world that Russia is not only far from isolated, but is a leader of the ascendant global majority. By projecting a united front with China, India, and North Korea, Moscow demonstrated that it has powerful backing to withstand Western pressure to end the war in Ukraine and achieve victory on its terms. Russia went further and even used the event to reorient global attention to cracks within the West’s unity behind Ukraine by meeting with Robert Fico of Slovakia.
The honored positions given to Vladimir Putin and his wartime ally Kim Jong-un at Beijing's monumental 80th anniversary commemoration of victory over Japan, provided the means to reframe the war against Ukraine as a continuation of what Beijing calls the “World Anti-Fascist War.”3
The Kremlin emphasized its confidence in the righteousness of its cause and certainty of victory by launching over 500 drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities to coincide with the Victory Day parade. A development that was likely not welcomed by Beijing for distracting attention away from the military parade and coinciding too closely with Xi Jinping’s repeated SCO declarations hailing China’s peaceful rise, and its role in promoting global harmony.
Iran Aims to Secure Substantive Support from China and Russia
The Iranian delegation led by President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in arguably its worst strategic position in many years. Last week the European signatories to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), France, Germany and the United Kingdom, announced that they would initiate the snapback mechanism for resuming sanctions on Iran over its failure to comply with the original deal. Weeks before, Iran suffered another major strategic setback as Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a US-brokered peace deal that effectively cleared the way for greater Turkish and American influences in the South Caucasus, its traditional near abroad. The latest blows came on top of months of nonstop setbacks to its nuclear program, conventional military and proxy forces inflicted by the US and Israel.
As such the Iranian regime had hoped to obtain some substantive shows of support from both China and Russia for its nuclear program and to ward off economic pressure from the West. It is not clear Iran got what it was looking for.
Despite giving President Pezeshkian a place of honor at the military parade and assurances of support, China gave an overall lukewarm response to issues of concern for Iran, notably a defense of its nuclear program. A read out of the meeting between Xi and Pezeshkian states, “China attaches importance to Iran’s repeated pledge that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, and respects Iran’s right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.” While it sounds reassuring, this statement erodes Tehran’s already limited leverage to deter European sanctions. It provides a tacit warning not to withdraw from the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and offers no defense of Iran’s right to enrich uranium, arguably the more important “right” Iran is trying to assert.
North Korea Seeks Recognition of Its Growing Power
Kim Jong-un, who did not attend the SCO Summit, but instead traveled for the Victory Day celebration, used his appearance in Beijing to demonstrate the stability of the North Korean regime (emphasized by traveling with his daughter, the potential future heir) and its growing appeal as a security partner.
Kim Jong-un is leveraging his enhanced international standing to create competition between China and Russia for influence over North Korea, thereby maximizing support for his regime. South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) assessed that Kim is actively seeking incentives from Beijing to reduce his partnership with Moscow. Kim appears to have laid the groundwork for this strategy through recent inspections of new missile facilities, showcasing preparations for advanced Hwasong-20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. These weapons may incorporate multiple reentry vehicle technology (MIRVs) for delivering multiple nuclear warheads per missile that North Korea hopes to acquire through its collaboration with Russia.
Kim is also currently assessed to be preparing new deployments of combat troops to Russia. This deployment, and a return of North Korean troops to a more active role on the battlefield, may be bargaining chips to secure concessions from Russia as well.
IMPLICATIONS:
This week's events in China effectively modeled an alternative to US-led international institutions. It showcased the impressive scale and sophistication of the Chinese state alongside its capacity for global leadership. Support from the leaders of the other anti-US opposing forces Russia, Iran, and North Korea, presented Beijing as the center of an imposing Eurasian power bloc.
But China's leadership comes at a cost: deference to Chinese priorities. This creates sources of friction that will challenge the bloc in years to come. Russia's ambitions to conquer Ukraine and impose its will on Europe conflict with China's interest in maintaining strong trade relations with the European Union. The Chinese nuclear weapons displayed during the parade also reveal a more distant but potentially more significant source of tension between Russia and China: strategic arms limitations. Beijing expects both Russia and the US to adhere to arms control constraints while refusing to commit to such limitations itself.
Iran's own pursuit of a sovereign nuclear program, complete with indigenous uranium enrichment, diverges from Beijing's preferences for regional stability and nuclear non-proliferation. North Korea's decades-old strategy of playing Moscow against Beijing for greater regime support also risks becoming obsolete under China's growing dominance.
These emerging tensions will create opportunities for the US and its Western allies to exploit divisions within the coalition. However, this week's events demonstrate that shared opposition to Western influence remains a sufficiently powerful bond to sustain cooperation for the foreseeable future, even as the fundamental contradictions within this alliance continue to deepen.
China was instead represented by the Republic of China in Taiwan. Rapprochement between the US and the People’s Republic of China under the “One China Principle” changed this.
The FH-97A is believed by some analysts to be a direct copy of the Boeing MQ-28 “Ghost Bat.”
As discussed in the OPFOR Journal Weekly Significant Activity Report - August 30, 2025 “World Anti-Fascist War is a euphemism for the struggle waged by communist forces on a variety of fascist and non-fascist adversaries starting around the Spanish Civil War. Commemorating this version of history inflates the CCP's role in the war, diminishes Western allies' contributions, and co-opts Nationalist achievements.”
https://open.substack.com/pub/thetimetravellers/p/a-report-from-the-clouds-reflections?r=69wi1d&utm_medium=ios