As the G20 gathers in North Carolina this week, the presidents of China, Russia and Iran are headlining a counter-summit of sorts in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, where the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s annual meeting is taking a shove at the post-Cold War order Washington built.
Watching closely are leaders in the Middle East, many of whom have been hedging between Beijing and Washington. China’s Xi Jinping is working to make his country’s appeal more attractive.
Xi’s positioning. In Bishkek, Xi proposed deeper cooperation among the 10 members of the SCO, which was expanded in 2023 to include Iran. The Chinese leader advocated regional governance built around dialogue and proposed an ambitious schedule of 100 joint science-and-technology projects between SCO states and their 15 so-called dialogue partners in the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait, and Turkey.
On security, Xi’s language was sharp, as he called on countries to “rigorously guard against external forces interfering in the internal affairs of countries, endangering political security, and undermining regional stability.”
Most countries, Xi said, reject power politics and want their own seat at the table through development, not confrontation; a handful of countries dominating world affairs is “a historical injustice,” and “one country’s hegemony… bloc politics” is not genuine multilateralism, he said. He didn’t name the United States, but his target was unmistakable.
Xi’s itinerary matters as much as his words: from Bishkek he heads to Egypt, which China sees as a key partner in the Middel East, then on to India for a summit of the BRICS group of major emerging economies. He is expected to meet later this month with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Iran testing the waters. Iran’s delegation, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, arrived in Bishkek with its country enmeshed in war with the U.S., which is dialing up the sanctions crushing Iran’s economy. As Washington pressures other governments to cut off Iran entirely or risk further exclusion from the dollar-based world economy, there were plenty of expressions of solidarity with Iran but little of substance to offer it much relief. One exception: the SCO Development Bank, a potential workaround to dollar-based settlement.
Is the “Shanghai Spirit” just for show? Founded in 2001 by China, Russia and four Central Asian states to resolve border disputes and fight terrorism, separatism and extremism, the SCO has since added Iran (2023) and Belarus (2024), growing to ten members and looking more like a bloc every year.
Singapore-based commentator Deng Mingjie, speaking to the BBC, called the organization’s structure “a China toolbox wrapped in a consensus banner… no one is required to become an ally.”
That structuyre, Henry Tugendhat of the Washington Institute told MBN, encourages Egypt and the Gulf states “always seek relationships with both” Washington and Beijing. The SCO doesn’t demand loyalty — which is why hedging states have no reason to fear it.
Previewing the Trump-Xi summit. As Xi heads to Cairo, Washington will be watching the fate of Huawei’s bid for Egypt’s AI data center. Tugendhat told MBN: “I’d imagine Xi Jinping will encourage his Egyptian counterparts to accept Huawei’s bid” — even as the State Department’s “Pax Silica” push warns governments off rival Chinese AI coalitions.
Tugendhat said that Xi has started with the easy part — a congenial conference in Kyrgyzstan and a warm welcome in Cairo before he travels to the White House on Sept. 23.
“He is starting with the conversations that he will have most control and influence over, whereas the U.S. meeting will be the hardest to prepare for,” Tugendhat said, “China will want to structure as much as possible… that is it the opposite of how Trump likes to operate.”
