Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among twenty world leaders attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, China. Modi’s visit—his first to China in seven years—includes talks with President Xi Jinping, while Putin received a red-carpet welcome on arrival.
The summit unfolds amid sharpened global headwinds. Washington has imposed steep tariffs on Indian goods over New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil, while Moscow faces renewed Western sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine. With 10 full members, including Pakistan and Iran, plus 16 observers and dialogue partners, the SCO—founded in 2001 by China, Russia and Central Asian states—serves as a regional counterweight to Western alliances.
While largely symbolic, the gathering offers leaders a stage to air grievances over trade frictions with the US and explore pragmatic cooperation. Tianjin has embraced the spectacle with light shows, tight security, and rolling roadblocks as motorcades sweep through the port city. Authorities have urged the metropolis’s 13 million residents to limit movement during the summit, which precedes a major military parade marking 80 years since the end of World War II.
