The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has marked its 25th summit with its largest gathering to date, held in Tianjin, China. Leaders from all ten member states, including India, Russia, Iran and China, attended the meeting, which underscored the bloc’s growing weight in regional security and global politics.

Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the summit, which opened with a red-carpet ceremony attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and leaders from across the region. The SCO, founded in 2001 as a security pact, now represents almost half of the world’s population and has broadened its agenda to include economic development, energy cooperation, and political coordination.

This year’s summit was notable both for the scale of attendance and the messaging. Modi used his platform to call for a united stand against terrorism while condemning nations that, in his words, “follow double standards.” Xi urged member states to resist “Cold War mentality” and instead strengthen solidarity across the Global South, framing the organisation as an alternative to Western-dominated structures. For Putin, the summit provided an opportunity to present himself as a central player in an emerging multipolar order, despite ongoing sanctions and the war in Ukraine.

Beyond official speeches, the sidelines mattered too. Modi and Xi held a rare bilateral meeting, their first in years, where they pledged to ease border tensions that have dogged relations since deadly clashes in 2020. Both leaders spoke of the importance of stability along their frontier, signalling tentative progress in one of Asia’s most fraught rivalries.

The SCO meeting set the stage for another dramatic display of Chinese power: a landmark military parade in Beijing. Presided over by Xi, the parade commemorated the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Second World War and drew more than 20 world leaders, including Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

China showcased an arsenal of new weaponry, including drones and hypersonic missiles, as thousands of troops marched through Tiananmen Square. Xi described the People’s Liberation Army as a “heroic force” on the path to becoming “world-class,” pledging it would defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity — a pointed reference to Taiwan.

The presence of Putin and Kim alongside Xi was symbolically potent, amplifying concerns among Western allies about deepening ties between China, Russia, and North Korea. For Beijing, the optics were carefully chosen: to project unity, resilience, and the ability to shape global dynamics on its own terms.

While critics noted that China’s military remains untested in modern combat, the parade was as much about politics as hardware. It capped a week in which Xi used the SCO summit and anniversary celebrations to highlight China’s dual role: architect of a “new world order” in the making and standard-bearer for a resurgent Global South.

Together, the summit and parade sent a clear message. The SCO is no longer a peripheral grouping but a stage where some of the world’s largest powers set their agenda. And China, projecting both diplomatic and military strength, is positioning itself firmly at the centre.