MULTILATERAL ORGANISATION
2 SEPTEMBER 2025
- The 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation “strongly condemned” terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including the Pahalgam attack and the attacks on Jaffer Express and Khuzdar in Pakistan.
- The Tianjin Declaration was signed and adopted by all members, focussed on strengthening the Global South.
- The member states also opposed “unilateral coercive measures, including those of an economic nature”, that contravene the United Nations charter and principles of the World Trade Organization, in a possible reference to the U.S. tariffs.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping, who chaired the meeting of the heads of the member states, criticised the “bullying behaviour” in the world order and called upon leaders to “adhere to fairness and justice” while opposing “cold war mentality”.
- Mr. Xi, who chaired the ‘SCO plus’ meeting, proposed a Global Governance Initiative (GGI), calling on countries to work in concert for a more just and equitable global governance system adhering to sovereign equality, abiding by international rule of law, practicing multilateralism, advocating the people-centered approach, and focusing on taking real actions.
- SCO has decided to merge the statuses given to non-member countries — dialogue partner and observer — to a single partner status,
- Laos has been accepted as a partner country of the SCO, taking the total strength of the grouping to 27 with 10 members and 17 partners.
- Secretary-General of the SCO, Nurlan Yermekbayev, said at the briefing that an agreement was made at the summit to establish an SCO development bank, a long-term ambition of Beijing.
- All the member states, except India, also reaffirmed their support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
