Russia and Belarus presidents joined two dozen Eurasian leaders on Monday at a ceremony hosted by China’s Xi Jinping, on the final day of a showpiece summit aimed at putting Beijing front and centre of regional relations.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit kicked off on Sunday in the northern port city of Tianjin, days before a massive military parade in the capital Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or “dialogue partners”.
Billed as an “opening ceremony”, Monday’s gathering is the first time all the leaders assembled together at the summit, and Xi will deliver a speech.
Russian President Vladimir Putin touched down in Tianjin on Sunday with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.
Xi held a flurry of back-to-back bilateral meetings with leaders including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko — one of Putin’s staunch allies — and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is on his first visit to China since 2018.
Modi told Xi that India was committed to taking “forward our ties on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity”.
The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence across South Asia and fought a deadly border clash in 2020.বিস্তারিত