SCO 2025: A Big Bang

The SCO Tianjin Summit 2025 was the 25th Heads of State Council meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was held from August 31 to September 1, 2025, in China. It was the largest summit in SCO's history, and was the fifth time that China hosted the meeting. The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic and international security organization of ten member states. It was established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners. I had the honour to make maiden representation in the SCO Security Forum held at Beijing in 2005; which led to follow up by the political and diplomatic outreach in the subsequent years as observer state, and finally Pakistan was granted membership of SCO during the 17^th SCO Summit of Heads of State, held on 8-9 June 2017 in Astana Kazakhstan,  where I had served as Pakistan’s Defence Adviser from 20007 to 2010. Iran joined the group in July 2023, and Belarus in July 2024. The 25^th Summit was attended by 26 Heads of the state/ government; besides representation from ten regional and international organisations.  

In my number of columns published in the last 7 years, a consistent effort had been made to underscore the undeniable reemergence of Russia and unprecedented rise of China as the Global Leader by 2025; just refer to “ SCO: The Greatest Regional Alliance”(published 2019 and then in 2021), “Puzzling Geopolitics”(published August 2024) and “Strategic Partnership”(published Sep 2024).  SCO is the world's largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population, covering approximately 24% of the world's total area (65% of Eurasia) and 42% of the world population. As of 2024, its combined nominal GDP accounts for around 23%, while its GDP based on PPP comprises approximately 36% of the world's total. The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council (HSC), which meets once a year.

The organization also contains the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS); a permanent organ of the SCO, which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism. It has a lot in common with Russian led Collective Treaty Security Organisation (CSTO), which is an intergovernmental military alliance in Eurasia consisting of six former Soviet States: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan. Similar to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty(NATO), Article 4 of the Collective Security Treaty (CSTO) establishes that an aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all. The CSTO maintains a peacekeeping force that has been deployed to areas of conflict, including Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. In January 2022, the CSTO deployed 2,000 of its peacekeepers to Kazakhstan to quell the local unrest. Had Pakistan been a member of CSTO, wouldn’t it have served to overcome the scourge of terrorism in Pakistan (KPK and Balochistan in particular), where the operating terrorists have their bases and links in neighbouring Afghanistan and some human resource coming from Central Asian Republics?

Coupled with the Summit, the 2025 China Victory Day Parade was a Big Bang military parade held on Chang'an Avenue, Beijing, on 3 September 2025 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the ‘end of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War-II’; indeed a proclamation of Global Leadership role henceforth. Over 12,000 troops of the People's Liberation Army participated in the stunning parade. A total of 26 world leaders attended the parade, noticeably the Indian PM was not invited. Among the attendees of the foreign guests was Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea President Kim-Jong-Un and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Iranian President, which certainly alarmed USA, as validated by POTUS Trump’s sarcastic remarks about the Chinese Military Parade and about Russian President Putin and Kim-Jong-Un. The President of China  Xi Jinping stated in his speech on the occasion, “Today, humanity is again faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum" and that the Chinese people "firmly stand on the right side of history".

In the 2005 SCO Security Forum, I was told in person  by a Chinese Minister sitting next to me on the dining table that by 2025, China would open her wings and by 2030, China would be unrivalled Global Power. Twenty years down the road, China has followed the strategic timelines as per Sun Tzu’s philosophy for her most enviable and peaceful rise. India’s military misadventure of 7-10 May 2025 and Pakistan's jaw breaking counter-stroke with the help of China as a credible & trustworthy strategic partner had set the stage for the impressive China’s Victory Day Parade displaying highly potent military potential to send shivers down the spine of her global and regional rivals. Hence, instead of proverbial ‘sailing in two  boats’, Pakistan's National Interest (security and economic) can best be served and balanced by standing firmly with the right strategic partners in formidable economic and security blocs like SCO, CSTO and BRICS. The extended strategic arms by Russia and China need to be grabbed rather than sinking into the quagmire, which we chose to walk on 7 decades ago.