Tärkeitä tapahtumia Kiinassa syyskuun 2025 alussa

Kiinassa järjestettiin elokuun lopun ja syyskuun alun 2025 tienoilla merkittäviä tapahtumia, joissa Kiinan johtaman ryhmittymän valtioiden edustajat tapasivat ja neuvottelivat jatkotoimista.

Tapahtumien keskipisteenä olivat Shanghain yhteistyöjärjestön (SCO) huippukokousTianjinissa 31.8.−1.9.2025 ja sitä kahden päivän päästä Pekingissä seurannut suuri sotilasparaati, joka pidettiin toisen maailmansodan päättymisen muistoksi. Japani antautui virallisesti Yhdysvaltojen järjestämässä tilaisuudessa 2.9.1945.

Kiinalaiset muistuttivat paraatillaan 3. syyskuuta siitä, että he taistelivat Japania vastaan yhtäjaksoisesti kesästä 1937 alkaen ja kärsivät silloin noin 10 miljoonan ihmisen tappiot. Tällä taistelulla vaikutettiin Yhdysvaltojen sotatoimien ohella merkittävästi Japanin häviöön.

Nykyiselle tilanteelle merkittävämpää on kuitenkin se, että Pekingin läheisessä Tianjingissa käytiin neuvotteluja ja tehtiin monia sopimuksia ”uuden maailmanjärjestyksen” vahvistamiseksi. Sillä pyritään muokkaamaan maailmaa ”moninapaiseksi” ja irtoamaan yhä enemmän sidonnaisuuksista Yhdysvaltojen viimeiset 80 vuotta hallitsemaan maailmanjärjestykseen.

Suomen Geopoliittisen Seuran sivustolla on seurattu tätä kehitystä jo pitkään muun muassa Seppo Niemen katsausten perusteella. Julkaisemme nyt hänen tuoreen katsauksensa tiivistelmän poikkeuksellisesti englanninkielisenä. Täydellisempi versio löytyy Seppo Niemen ylläpitämältä sivustolta: Great power relations – Observer of Great Power Relations and Politics .

Seppo Niemi

SCO, Heads of State Summit 2025

Three interlocked, important events around August/September will obviously be crucial in shaping the next configuration of the geopolitical chessboard.

August 31 - September 1st. Tianjin, China. The annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

September 3. The Victory Day Parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing

September 3. Vladivostok. The start of the 10th Eastern Economic Forum (EEF)

Taken together, these three dates cover the whole spectrum of the Russia-China strategic partnership, the geopolitical and geoeconomic aspects of Eurasia integration and Global South posture and the concerted push by Eurasia actors to accelerate the drive towards a multipolar system of international relations.

SCO Heads of state summit, August 31 – September 1, Tianjin China

China hosted the SCO Summit in Tianjin from August 31 to September 1 this year. Leaders of over 20 countries including all member states of the SCO and heads of 10 international organizations attended relevant events. The SCO Tianjin Summit was the largest summit in scale since the establishment of the SCO. Under China's fifth rotating presidency, Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired the 25th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO and the "SCO Plus" Meeting, delivered keynote speeches and hosted a welcome banquet and bilateral events for participating leaders.

Today, the SCO is made up of ten member states: Russia, Belarus, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and two observer countries — Afghanistan and Mongolia — and 14 dialogue partners — Azerbaijan, Armenia, Bahrain, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sri Lanka. It is the world's largest regional cooperation organization by population, geographical coverage and growth potential. The 2025 summit was attended by 21 heads of state and also United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

On the sidelines of the summit, a great number of bilateral meetings between participating countries were organized and numerous significant agreements signed. Russian delegation signed nearly 30 various documents with different countries. Of particular interest were the meetings between China – India, China – Russia as well as Russia – India. Around 3,000 media representatives from across the globe were covering the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), taking place in China.

When the leaders of China, Russia, India, and several Central Asian states gathered in Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit, the world should have paid far closer attention. Yet much of the Western press treated the gathering as little more than a diplomatic sideshow, overshadowed by domestic political debates or the latest updates from NATO. That was a mistake. What unfolded in Tianjin was not just another regional summit. It was the clearest indication yet that the unipolar world of US primacy, which dominated the decades after the Cold War, is giving way to a new and contested multipolar order.

While China hosted the largest-ever Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, EU foreign ministers were unable to reach specific decisions on Ukraine or funding at the Copenhagen summit, and the Iran nuclear deal faced breakdown as the US refused to resume negotiations.

New membership applications

More than ten new applications from various countries to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as observers or dialogue partners are currently being reviewed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a SCO Plus expanded meeting.

Modi−Xi−Putin meetings herald shift to multipolar global economy

SCO Summit showed the world now clearly moving beyond a US-centered order toward multiple centers of economic power. The meeting in Tianjin between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, their first in seven years, carried significance far beyond protocol. 

It took place just as Donald Trump’s expanding tariff program, which began in April and has steadily intensified through the summer, has reshaped global trade flows. The timing underscores an increasingly unmistakable reality: The world economy is no longer organized around a single dominant center but is moving toward a multipolar structure with competing sources of power and influence.

In late August, India was hit with a 50% tariff on numerous product sectors, despite being described by Washington as a close ally. While Washington raises trade barriers, other capitals are increasingly drawn together by necessity.

In SCO Summit, the presence of India, China, Russia and Central Asian nations, joined by Iran and Pakistan, was more than a show of diplomatic solidarity. It reflected the start of deeper economic coordination among countries that, in many cases, share only a limited history of cooperation. 

The fact that Modi and Xi could engage in a substantive dialogue after the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clashes illustrates how rapidly strategic calculations are shifting under external pressure.

The broader consequence is that the post-war consensus, which placed the United States at the center of the global system, is steadily eroding. The US tariff program is accelerating the development of parallel networks of trade, finance and security. Where globalization once implied convergence toward shared standards, it now increasingly produces separate systems of rules and practices. 

Countries subject to tariffs or sanctions aren’t waiting for negotiations to bring them back into the fold. Instead, they’re building alternative institutions and regional frameworks designed to reduce their dependence on Washington. This isn’t an academic debate but a fundamental reorganization of how capital is allocated and how markets function. Supply chains are being redrawn around regional resilience rather than global efficiency.

Central banks have been quick to recognize the change. Reserve diversification away from the dollar is gathering pace, supported by record gold purchases and a shift into non-dollar assets. Regional payment systems are being developed to handle trade settlement without relying on Washington’s financial infrastructure. 

Energy partnerships are being restructured as sanctions and tariffs force producers and consumers to find new channels for investment and delivery. Infrastructure financing, historically led by Western-backed institutions, is increasingly sourced through regional banks and sovereign initiatives.

SCO Summit: PM Modi, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping share light moments

//www.youtube.com/@ANINewsIndia">ANI News September 1, 2025

The SCO meeting encapsulated these developments. India and China remain wary competitors, but the logic of economic survival compels them to consider cooperation. Russia, locked out of Western markets, is deepening its reliance on non-Western partners. Smaller states, from Central Asia to the Middle East, are aligning with whichever constellation offers the most reliable access to trade and capital. 

These are pragmatic calculations, not ideological choices, reinforcing the trend toward a more fragmented yet more balanced global economy. This fragmentation is not likely to be a temporary disruption. Countries are building resilience into their economic models accordingly. 

This means investors must also shift their perspective. It’s no longer realistic to expect a return to the highly integrated system of the past. What is emerging is a more regionalized structure in which influence is shared across multiple centers of power.

The image of Modi and Xi meeting in Tianjin, crystallizes what Trump’s tariffs have already set in motion. What unfolded in China this week and what is unfolding in Washington’s tariff schedules, are two sides of the same story — a story of fragmentation, resilience and new centers of economic gravity that will define markets for years to come.

Results and ramifications of the SCO Summit 2025

The SCO Heads of State meeting saw the signing and adoption of a number of key documents, including the Tianjin Declaration and a development strategy for the organization in the 2026−2035 period, which charts the SCO's blueprint for the next decade. Leaders of SCO member states agreed to accept Laos as a new dialogue partner of the organization and decided that Kyrgyzstan will take over the rotating SCO presidency for 2025-2026.

Outcomes of the meeting also include a statement on supporting the multilateral trading system, a statement on the 80th anniversary of WWII victory and of the founding of the United Nations, and 24 outcome documents on strengthening cooperation in sectors such as security, economy, energy and people-to-people ties, as well as organizational building.

Four new SCO centers were inaugurated to counter security threats and challenges, tackle transnational organized crimes, improve information security, and strengthen anti-drug cooperation, respectively.

President Xi called on SCO member states to stay true to the organization's founding mission and promote its sound and sustained development with greater resolve and more practical measures. Xi said the member states should leverage the strengths of their mega-sized markets and economic complementarity and improve trade and investment facilitation.

Xi announced that China will provide 2 billion yuan in grant to other SCO member states within this year and issue an additional 10 billion yuan in loan to the member banks of the SCO Interbank Consortium over the next three years. In addition, China plans to implement 100 development projects in the member states as well as an SCO development bank to be established as soon as possible.

Dawning of the New World Order. As the result of SCO Summit, a new chapter in the history of international politics is being written. Trump’s foreign policy is turning into a serial production of debacles. Case in point: India. The short-sighted decision to hit India with 25% tariffs, and an additional 25% penalty, has energized India’s political class to distance themselves from the United States. Prime Minister Modi, now assumes the Presidency of BRICS, and is embracing the task of planning and hosting the 2026 BRICS summit in India. He will not submit to US threats or bullying.

BRICS, along with the SCO, is busy constructing an alternative to the post-WW II international economic and political system that has dominated world affairs for the last 80 years. While many in the West foolishly dismiss these gatherings as meaningless, Russia, China and India are serious about creating an economic, financial and international political system that is no longer subject to a veto by the United States or Europe.

As much as BRICS finally stepped into the limelight at the summit in Kazan in 2024, the SCO replicated the move at the summit in Tianjin in 2025.

Once again, BRICS and SCO run intertwined, as their key focus is to progressively ditch dependence on Western paradigms and at the same time fight the effect of sanctions, which not by accident hit hard on the four top members of both BRICS and SCO: Russia, China, India and Iran.

The relations of two Asian giants, China and India, are warming up quickly. Prime minister Modi was in China for the first time in 7 years. Xi went straight to the point: “China and India are great civilizations whose responsibilities extend beyond bilateral issues. Xi once again hit the dancefloor: the future lies “in the dance of the dragon and the elephant.” The dance of Bear, Dragon and Elephant. The original RIC (Russia, India, China), as conceptualized by the Russian legendary FM Yevgeny Primakov in the late 1990s, were finally back in the game, together.

The Tianjin Declaration – not as extensive as Kazan last year – still managed to emphasize the key points that apply to Eurasia: sovereignty, above anything else; non-interference in internal affairs of member-states; and total rejection of unilateral sanctions as tools of coercion. Development strategies of different nations already cooperate with BRI projects, from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the China-Belarus Industrial Park, extrapolating to cross-border e-commerce, AI and Big Data.

The SCO’s massive geographic scale, combined with half of the world’s population, carries tremendous potential across the spectrum – for instance on trade, transport infrastructure, cross-border investment and financial transactions. The potential is far from being realized. But the high-speed trains are already rolling: geopolitical imperatives are guiding increased pan-Eurasia geoeconomic interaction.

As to the “Shanghai Spirit”, in his toast at the elegant banquet offered in Tianjin for SCO guests, Xi had to quote a Chinese proverb: “In a race of a hundred boats, those who row the hardest will lead”. It’s always about hard work – for the common good.

It was President Xi, who personally set the main guidelines – proposing no less than a broad, new Global Governance model, complete with important ramifications such as a SCO development back, which should complement the BRICS’s NDB, as well as close AI cooperation.

The SCO is turning into a complex multilateral platform coordinating infrastructure development and geoeconomics. That’s where China’s new idea – the establishment of the SCO Development Bank – comes in. It’s a mirror institution to the NDB – the BRICS bank based in Shanghai and parallel to the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the multilateral bank based in Beijing.

Global Governance, the Chinese way, encompasses five core principles. The most crucial is sovereign equality. That connects with respect for the international rule of law – and not American designed “rules-based international order”. Global Governance advances multilateralism and also inevitably encourages a “people-centered” approach in social interaction and commerce.

When speaking of multipolarity, the leaders made it known that a new world of cooperation was emerging in with or without the West. Xi declared that global governance has arrived at a crossroads. Xi went on to propose a Global Governance Initiative (GGI) based on five key cornerstones:

• Adhering to sovereign equality
• Abiding by international rule of law
• Practicing multilateralism
• Advocating the people-centered approach
• And focusing on taking real actions

By adopting a strategy until 2035, an initiative to establish its own Development Bank and reform the United Nations, the SCO is positioning itself as the strategic axis of a new, fairer and multipolar world order, in which a single center of power no longer makes decisions but by a community of equal states.

The most important role of the SCO Development Bank will be to encourage trade in national currencies, thereby strengthening the financial independence of member states. Although trade turnover between Russia and China is measured in dollars, the actual trade is conducted in national currencies — the yuan and the ruble.

Now Europe and the US are falling into the background. Although the US and EU proudly proclaim they have 800 million inhabitants, it should be noted that China and India together have three billion inhabitants, which is many times more. Russia, the largest country in the world by territory, has all the necessary resources.

This is exactly the point of the SCO: the world is changing, and the US and EU can no longer dictate the conditions as they once did. The summit, attended by leaders from Russia, China, and India, demonstrated unprecedented unity that has become a significant challenge for US-led West.

Strategic significance of “Power of Siberia 2”. Russia’s planned expansion of natural gas exports to China, has the potential to fundamentally alter the balance of the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market. According to Bloomberg, this development poses a serious challenge to US strategic ambitions in the energy sector. The strengthening of ties between Moscow and Beijing weakens Washington’s leverage in global energy politics, undermining its ability to use LNG exports as a geopolitical tool.

For the US, the challenge is significant. LNG export projects require massive investment and long-term demand guarantees. When China turns to Russian pipeline gas, the profitability of many American projects could be in jeopardy. Investors are increasingly forced to consider the risk of shrinking demand and rising competition.

Ultimately, the expanding Russia-China energy alliance signals a structural shift in the global market. Washington’s path to energy dominance is narrowing as Moscow and Beijing build a new architecture that blends economic pragmatism with geopolitical strategy.

Wrap-up of the results of SCO Summit 2025

The results of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit indicate that it is gaining increasing importance as a global pole that is beginning to compete with and threaten the Western pole. Although it has not yet fully formed a competitive global pole, the summit reflected the determination of its leaders to achieve their strategic goal of building a multipolar world order. Examining the outcomes of the 47th summit, the following conclusions can be noted.

First, the results on the political and economic levels worldwide:

• Challenging Western unipolar hegemony led by the United States of America: The convening of the summit represented a confirmation and determination by its leaders to declare their challenge to Western unipolar hegemony, especially in light of the trade tensions imposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump on countries such as China and India. This has strengthened the rapprochement between them and given new impetus to the SCO in its quest to break unipolarity in favor of building a multipolar world order free of hegemony.
• Enhancing economic, military, and security cooperation among member states: The organization aims to enhance security, economic, and military cooperation among member states, which represent approximately half the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.
• Working to build an alternative financial system to the US-dominated financial system: The summit witnessed an increased focus on the use of national currencies in intra-regional trade among member states, which is seen as a step towards reducing reliance on the US dollar and bypassing the SWIFT transfer system, which is controlled by Washington.
• Electro-Yuan Gambit. Perhaps the boldest and most consequential development was Xi Jinping’s call to expand the use of the yuan in energy settlements. Analysts quickly dubbed the concept the “electro-yuan,” a system designed to link China’s digital currency with cross-border trade in oil, gas, and electricity. Unlike conventional trade settlements, which rely on correspondent banking in US dollars, the electro-yuan would enable real-time, blockchain-enabled transactions directly between SCO member states, bypassing traditional financial intermediaries.
• Global Governance Initiative: Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a global governance initiative aimed at establishing a more just and equal international order based on the principles of multilateralism and the rule of law.
• Conflict Resolution: The organization has succeeded in resolving some border disputes between member states, reflecting its role in achieving regional stability.
• Expansion: The summit demonstrates the organization’s expansion and the accession of new countries, strengthening its geopolitical influence.

Then, in terms of rapprochement between China and India:

• The Shanghai Summit achieved a significant and tangible rapprochement between China and India, despite previous border disputes between the two countries. This rapprochement is viewed as an important step towards strengthening the organization’s role as a competitive and counterbalancing force to the Western pole.
• Chinese and Indian sides affirm their commitment to resolving their disputes: During the summit, both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to resolve their border disputes, a significant development that puts an end to previous tensions.
• Enhancing cooperation: It was agreed to enhance economic and trade cooperation, and the two countries discussed easing trade restrictions and resuming direct flights.
• Common goal: Xi emphasized that the relationship between the two countries should be one of “partners, not adversaries,” and that the common goal is to provide development opportunities, which consolidates the idea of ​​cooperation versus competition.

Based on the above, the summit’s outcomes appear to indicate that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is moving forward towards strengthening its presence as a global pole that strongly competes with the unipolar West, especially since the center of gravity in the global economy is shifting from the West to the East, where growth rates and a favorable environment for investment by international companies are higher.

 

V-Day commemorations in Beijing, September 3, 2025

September 3 is celebrated in China as Victory Day, marking the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on Sept 2, 1945.

China held a massive military parade in central Beijing to mark the 80th anniversary of its victory in World War II, pledging the country's commitment to peaceful development in a world still fraught with turbulence and uncertainties.

President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, oversaw the parade and reviewed the troops. Standing beside Xi on Tian'anmen Rostrum were Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong Un, along with more than 20 other foreign leaders.

Xi delivered a speech before the parade. More than 10,000 military personnel, along with over 100 aircraft and hundreds of ground armaments, were arranged into formations according to a wartime command system. The People's Liberation Army's (PLA) new system of services and arms -- the result of military reforms under Xi's leadership -- was put on display for the first time.

The advanced armaments put on display included nuclear triad, unmanned intelligence and counter-unmanned equipment, hypersonic missiles, directed-energy weapons, electronic jamming systems and strategic weaponry capable of global strikes.

Conclusion: PLA’s military parade was a unique show of force, unparalleled in today’s world. It confirmed the top quality and quantity of China’s military forces, revealing technically the most modern weaponry in the world. When combined these features with the knowledge of practically limitless Chinese production capacity of military material, this makes China a real superpower of today. Just one curious example: when needed, China can organize within a few months the production capacity to produce well over a billion drones annually!

11.9.2025

Seppo Niemi