Xi, Modi and Putin set to meet for SCO summit: What’s on the agenda?
By Ray Dombrowski · Reporting from Youngstown ·
The whole spectacle in Kyrgyzstan—Xi Jinping meeting Putin, Modi joining the fray—is a masterclass in signaling.
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The spectacle in Kyrgyzstan—Xi Jinping meeting Putin, Modi joining the fray—is more than just diplomacy; it is highly visible signaling. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit frames itself as a regional bloc pushing back against US dominance, an "anti-Western" counterweight. On paper, this suggests a grand pivot toward multipolarity. But strip away the flowery language of sustainable peace and prosperity, and what remains is simply a collection of nations gathering to prove their continued existence outside Western orbit.
SCO member states represent 43 percent of the world’s population and account for over a fifth (23%) of global economic output. This scale alone should absorb any economist for weeks. Yet, as William Yang notes from Al Jazeera, China uses this summit to present itself as a great power advocating for peace—a claim that reads purely as rhetoric. The primary agenda topics are predictable flashpoints: the US-Israel conflict over Iran, the Russia-Ukraine war, and Afghanistan’s ongoing economic collapse. Meanwhile, India's refusal to endorse an SCO statement condemning Israel for its attack on Iran in June 2025—a detail reported by Al Jazeera—is a precise act of national self-interest that undermines any pretense of unified moral leadership.
The myth of the alternative axis
The most capable advocate for this gathering argues that the SCO represents an inevitable, organic realignment: a necessary economic and security architecture built by developing nations to escape Western institutional constraints. They point to the historical Shanghai Five mechanism as proof of its enduring potency.
But history shows us this play before. The pattern repeats: when major global powers create alternative groupings—whether it was the initial formation of the SCO or later expansions like BRICS—the result is rarely stable governance; it is merely a sophisticated mechanism for resource allocation and strategic exclusion. Look back to the Iraq War in 2003, which intended regional stabilization but instead created power vacuums that fueled decades of opportunistic maneuvering by non-aligned powers. The SCO functions similarly. It provides an umbrella under which nations coordinate on shared geopolitical threats without generating any actual progress on the ground.
The true measure comes down to money and movement. Alicia Garcia-Herrero highlights how this meeting tests Eurasia’s ability to organize security, connectivity, and trade without defaulting to Western institutions. This is where concrete matters surface: discussions of the International North-South Transport Corridor and China’s new Arctic shipping routes involve tons of cargo, tariffs, and railway gauges. These economic talks always circle back to who pays for them and which currency holds value at the border.
India's balancing act in the middle ground
The relationship between Modi and Putin remains the most visible tension point. DW reports that this meeting frames a strategic balancing act: Russia needs assurance that India will not ditch it during its crisis, while India maintains an "America plus" approach—a strategy of keeping all major options open. This dynamic is not about ideology; it centers on securing supply chains and market stability.
The history books are littered with examples of great powers making grand pronouncements only to fail the local citizen. Consider the Arab Spring in 2011–2014. Protest movements were heralded as a democratic wave, but they delivered chaos, failed states, and years of instability that required massive external intervention just to keep basic services running.
The SCO assumes great power signaling equals geopolitical stability. History consistently proves otherwise. When global powers gather to define themselves against an opponent—whether Washington or some other Western bloc—the immediate effect is not peace, but heightened internal tension and increased dependency among members who are too weak or too invested in the status quo to challenge the powerful ones at the table.
The summit will conclude with a statement sounding impressive on paper, full of lofty principles. But those principles mean nothing when they don't translate into measurable employment. This gathering guarantees only that major powers can continue auditing each other’s strategic patience while leaving the actual work—the building, the farming, and the manufacturing—to be done by people who still have to pay taxes and keep their mortgage payments current.