A New World Order: Implications of the SCO Global South Tianjin Summit

For years, countries in the Middle East and Asia have held fractured relations, with no concrete unity. However, Chinese President Xi Jinping is making moves to change that. But the warrant on his head issued by the International Court of Transitional Justice, constituting of crimes of aggression, crimes against humanity, and genocide indicates that Xi may not lead this region in a positive direction. The SCO, or Shanghai Cooperation Organization, is a group of nations established in 2001. The organization is composed of “global South” countries, many with authoritarian or non-democratic governments. The ten member states—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Belarus—are all located in Asia or the Middle East. Many SCO members are extremely relevant to international politics and trade, making the actions they take and the organizations they commit to impactful on an international scale. For example, China is a leading manufacturer and exporter of goods, especially electronics essential to modern innovation, and the choice India faces today, of choosing its allies, could tip the balance in favor or away from Xi’s mission of unity. Particularly, the recent SCO summit hosted in Tianjin, China by Chinese President Xi Jinping perturbed the Western world, because it displayed solidarity between key countries like China, Russia, and India at an unprecedented scale. The Wall Street Journal crystallizes the reason this is concerning perfectly: “China, Russia and India are the three most important powers on the Eurasian landmass. All three have nuclear weapons.” Between the signing of the Tianjin Declaration of the SCO Council of Heads of States and the image of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Nerendra Modi holding hands, the message is clear: the global South is more unified, and more dangerous,  than ever. 

Summit Objectives

In President Jinping’s speech “Pooling the Strength of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization To Improve Global Governance,” he declared world order to be deteriorating. By stating that “the Cold War mentality, hegemonism and protectionism continue to haunt the world,” he put forward China’s view that not all members of the international community are doing their part. China has been ever more critical of the increasingly volatile American foreign policy. Between American President Donald Trump’s global trade war, international organization withdrawal, cuts to foreign aid, and online threats, China does not view the US, a leader in the western world, in a positive light. Xi stated that a nation should be, “working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advancing toward a community with a shared future for humanity,” the official objective of his proposed Global Governance Initiative (GGI.) Within the initiative, there are five main goals; first, to adhere to sovereign equality; second, to abide by the rule of international law; third, to practice multilateralism; fourth, to advocate the people-centered approach; and finally, to focus on taking real action. Xi’s speech proclaimed that these came in response to an evolving world order, seeming to reference turbulent changes in foreign policy from the American Trump administration with words like, “hegemonism and power politics,” and “unilateralism”. During the two-day summit, China’s efforts to expand relations with countries traditionally opposed to the United States were clear. In Tianjin were India’s PM Narendra Modi, Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian, and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. But Xi wasn’t just verbalizing ideals. He has a real plan for bolstering the global South as a rivaling influence to the West.

The SCO’s Big Four

Moving to expand the scope of the SCO, Xi announced plans for an SCO-run development bank, a new collaboration platform for the green and renewable energy industries, SCO member-state access to Chinese satellite system BeiDou (an alternative to American GPS,) and 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in loans to SCO member-states. All of Xi’s new ambitions point to a disconnect by the global South from the Western world (USA, Canada, European countries, Australia, and New Zealand) of the likes unheard of in the 21st century. His actions mirror his words, as he vowed at the summit to counter “hegemonism,” “Cold War mentality,” and “bullying practices.”

SCO Development Bank

Crucially, the development bank could serve to counter American influence in the economic sphere, because an SCO-controlled financial institution would promote resilience against Western sanctions. With this shield, the global South is more flexible to expand it’s economic ties, sphere of trade, and economic leverage as a competitor to the US, cutting it and other European countries off from this financial conduit. The bank is the first step in what seems like the hidden goal of the SCO: to put forward a currency to rival the dollar—not through direct attacks like sanctioning but by strengthening it so much in an independent but growing sphere that it knocks down dollar dominance. Although the amount invested into the SCO bank is negligible, amounting to only 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion,) the statement it makes is unmistakable. It is a bank designed for the global South, creating a trade network that completely blindsides the West. As Xi stated in the SCO summit’s opening remarks, “We should leverage the strength of our mega-sized markets and economic complementarity between member states and improve trade and investment facilitation.” An independent currency unshaken by dollar economy-based sanctioning and tariffs puts the global South in a position to push back against the west… and potentially gain the edge. 

Energy Collaboration

Furthering moves to more pointed independence from the West, Xi introduced increased collaboration on green and renewable energy between SCO member-states. Working together serves two main purposes for the SCO—of course, it promotes sustainability and a more stable future in terms of energy, but it also serves as a convenient guise for bloc-building. Reports by Carbon Monitor, a global emissions tracker, found that from January 1 to June 30 2025, U.S. emissions went up by 4.2% while China’s fell 2.7%, signaling that Beijing’s efforts to  transition to green energy are proving more effective for now. Moreover, positive statistics like that one, combined with an uptake in green initiatives, protect the SCO’s efforts to create a rival to dollar dominance. The competitor they are burgeoning not only through the SCO development bank, but also through other incremental strategies, is the renminbi: the basic unit of the yuan, and the official currency of the People’s Republic of China. But regardless of guises for economic motives, the SCO also yielded new green energy agreements for its member-states. New cooperation initiatives include protecting the energy supply of SCO countries, stabilizing energy markets, and guiding a smooth energy transition that meets each SCO-member’s unique needs. To achieve this, SCO members are working together on projects that include building new energy infrastructure, collaborating on technology and research by developing and using advanced energy technologies, and training skilled professionals to support these efforts. As stated by Chinese ambassador to India Xu Feihong, “Starting from next year, China will double the current number of SCO-specific scholarships, and launch an SCO innovative PhD program to jointly train high-caliber talent in academic as well as scientific and technological research.” In the next 5 years, Xi aims to increase the installed solar and wind capacity of every SCO country by 10 gigawatts (GW.)

SCO Access to BeiDou Satellite

Not only is Xi seeking dominance for the global South in trade and energy but also intelligence. On a global scale—in a literal sense—Xi has granted SCO member-states access to the Chinese alternative to the US-based GPS (Global Positioning System–provides precise location, speed, and time information anywhere on Earth, enabling users to navigate, track objects, create maps, and time-sensitive operations): China’s BeiDou satellite network. This becomes significant when examining BeiDou’s capabilities; numerous experts already claim it has surpassed GPS in quality. There are currently 56 BeiDou satellites in orbit, almost twice as many as GPS, and they are newer compared to American satellites made in the 1990s. Not only that, but BeiDou access is more readily available with ten times the amount of monitoring stations than GPS. An immense quantity of monitoring stations also makes it more accurate with ranges of one meter for public use and one centimeter for military use as opposed to the three meters needed for GPS. In 2024, it generated 575.8 billion yuan ($79.9 billion) in economic output, a 7.39 percent year-on-year increase. On a global scale, BeiDou is accessible in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, projecting Chinese soft power and bringing smaller, developing countries into the global southern sphere. With smartphones that are compatible with both GPS and BeiDou but that automatically switch to the more precise model when providing directions, BeiDou may be set on the path to mainstream use. 

Chinese Loans to SCO Member-states

The clincher to SCO progress is fueled by the host of the Tianjin summit and the organization’s namesake: China. In the final push for “real action” Xi announced 2 billion yuan ($280 million) in loans to SCO member-states. The funds will go towards 100 small projects installed domestically where necessary within SCO countries with the aim of improving livelihood. The money flows into the summit’s goal of fostering a global South security bloc, independent from the west.