A two-day
conference of the 10-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Kyrgyzstan shows
the limits of U.S. economic warfare.
·
The
gathering highlights China’s growing influence among non-Western nations and
its ability to support countries facing U.S. and Western pressure.
·
China
has become a crucial economic lifeline for Russia and Iran, buying their oil,
maintaining trade links and helping blunt sanctions and isolation efforts.
·
Xi is
seeking to position China as an alternative global power centre while
criticising what Beijing describes as U.S. hegemony.
·
Russia’s
Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian attended the summit as both
countries seek to sustain their economies and wartime objectives amid Western
pressure.
·
Beijing
has generally avoided direct military involvement in members’ conflicts,
preferring trade, technology and diplomatic support over military commitments.
·
Xi met
Putin separately and praised the outlook for China-Russia ties; Putin
highlighted visa-free travel and expanding Arctic shipping cooperation.
·
The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization has expanded from a China-Russia-Central Asia
grouping into a broader political and security bloc that now includes India,
Pakistan, Belarus and Iran.
·
Central
Asian countries have become important routes for Russian imports and payments,
and for Iranian trade, helping both countries work around restrictions.
·
China
remains the largest buyer of Russian and Iranian crude, while India has also
increased purchases of Russian oil at various points since the Ukraine
invasion.
·
Russia’s
growing dependence on China has strengthened Beijing’s leverage, including
through discounted Russian oil supplies.
·
Xi is
expected to limit overt support for Iran before a planned Washington visit to
negotiate an extension of the fragile U.S.-China economic truce.
·
Analysts
say the summit underscores a challenge for Washington: maintaining pressure on
Iran and Russia while preserving economic stability and avoiding a wider
confrontation with China.
[ABS News Service/01.09.2026]
As the leaders of China, Russia, India, Iran and other nations
converged on Central Asia for a two-day summit beginning on Monday (01.09.2026),
one thing was clear from the outset. Even as President Trump tries to bend the world
to revolve around Washington, Xi Jinping of China has his own powerful orbit.
The Chinese leader’s arrival in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan,
for a meeting of the 10-nation political and security grouping known as the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization underscored Mr. Xi’s broad ability to sustain Washington’s
foes, both in peacetime and in war.
The talks come against the backdrop of two wars that have pushed
the globe into a period of intense geopolitical instability, suppressing economic
growth and driving up inflation. Those challenges were at the heart of discussions
taking place simultaneously on the other side of the globe in Asheville, N.C., at
a gathering of finance ministers from the Group of 20 countries.
The meeting in Bishkek, in contrast, was a showcase for the
incredible leverage that the wars have given Mr. Xi.
No nation has been more critical to Russia and Iran in sustaining
their economies and war efforts than China. Mr. Xi has undermined efforts by the
United States and its allies to pressure Russia and Iran economically, employing
Beijing’s vast geopolitical and economic clout as the world’s largest importer of
crude oil and exporter of consumer goods.
Mr. Xi’s biggest rival, the United States, has been distracted
by the war in Iran and has pulled some of its military forces from Asia and Europe.
Last month, the Chinese leader was able to brush off threats by President Trump
that the United States would inflict an “economic D-Day” on countries that provided
Tehran with a lifeline. Mr. Trump once made similar threats about purchasers of
Russian oil, but did not follow through with any actions against Beijing.
“After the past year, Trump has a fundamental credibility problem
with Xi,” said Julian Gewirtz, who served as the senior director for China and Taiwan
Affairs at the National Security Council during the Biden administration. “Both
his threats and his assurances appear to Beijing, as another world leader put it,
to be written in pencil.”
In Bishkek, Mr. Xi’s priority is to burnish his image as the
leader of non-Western nations and to push back against what he calls U.S. hegemony.
Despite that, he will most likely be cautious about how much support he publicly
offers Iran.
The Chinese leader cannot afford to provoke Mr. Trump less than
a month before he is scheduled to travel to Washington to attempt to extend a fragile
economic truce between the United States and China. Before heading to the United
States, Mr. Xi will travel to Egypt and India for state visits.
The series of trips leading up to his summit with Mr. Trump
is aimed at casting Mr. Xi as a powerful statesman at a time when Mr. Trump has
frayed U.S. relations globally, analysts said.
“Xi appears to see an opportunity to show that China has friends
and options around the world at precisely the moment Washington is alienating many
of its allies,” Mr. Gewirtz said.
This week’s summit in Bishkek is a reminder of the limits of
U.S.-led economic warfare. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Masoud
Pezeshkian of Iran, both critically reliant on China, arrived in the Kyrgyz capital
on Monday as they work to defy Western efforts to isolate them and persevere with
their own wartime goals.
Beijing has largely obliged, extending economic lifelines to
both Moscow and Tehran and leveraging its economic clout to the frustration of Washington.
While Mr. Xi’s power is on the rise, there are limits to it.
Though the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is partly a security grouping, Beijing
has been unwilling to deploy its military to defend members such as Iran, which
joined the organization in 2023, or Russia, instead formally calling for dialogue
and an end to the conflicts.
Mr. Xi does not want to be entangled in foreign wars, analysts
have said, viewing them as one of the primary reasons the United States has seen
its power wane over the decades. But Beijing is willing to increase trade and provide
technologies that can be used on the battlefield.
The Chinese leader met with Mr. Putin for bilateral talks in
Bishkek on Monday, praising what he called ever-brighter prospects for relations
between China and Russia.
Mr. Putin, in turn, highlighted the success of visa-free travel
between the two nations and said he was ready to make the arrangement permanent.
The Russian leader noted that the first scheduled voyage of a Chinese container
ship passed through what is known as the Northern Sea Route in mid-August, presaging
broader cooperation in the Arctic.
Whether Mr. Xi meets with the Iranian leader separately from
the summit will indicate how much the Chinese leader is willing to push the line
ahead of the scheduled visit to the United States.
Though it once counted only Russia, China and four Central Asian
nations as members, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization expanded in 2017 to include
India and Pakistan and more recently added Belarus and Iran. In the process, it
has become a growing counterpoint to Western-led political and security groupings.
Some of the leaders gathering for the summit in Bishkek have
helped Mr. Putin continue his war against Ukraine, which is now in its fifth year,
and aided Iran in its attempt to weather a monthslong onslaught by the United States.
Not long after Mr. Putin launched the all-out invasion in 2022,
Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drones and helped Moscow establish domestic production
facilities for the weapons.
Central Asian nations have become critical import and payment
routes for Russia, as Moscow works its way around Western restrictions. Iran has
turned to Central Asia as an alternative import route amid a U.S. blockade.
India, Kazakhstan and Belarus are among the countries that have
stepped in to ship gasoline to Russia in recent weeks as Ukrainian long-range strikes
have decimated Russian oil refineries.
India emerged as one of the biggest purchasers of Russian oil
in the aftermath of Mr. Putin’s invasion. Though its imports dropped following pressure
from Mr. Trump and new U.S. sanctions on Russian oil giants, the U.S. war against
Iran roiled oil markets and pushed Indian suppliers to turn once again to imports
from Russia. China is the biggest importer of Russian and Iranian crude.
Mr. Xi’s relationship with Mr. Putin is increasingly one-sided
in Beijing’s favor. Western sanctions related to Russia’s war with Ukraine have
enabled China to stockpile discounted Russian oil, cushioning the blow of a blockade
in the Strait of Hormuz.
Even the site of this week’s summit highlights China’s growing
hand over Russia. Once a Soviet republic, Kyrgyzstan had been firmly within Moscow’s
sphere of influence. But China’s influence in the Central Asian nation has grown,
and the five nations of Central Asia have banded closer together in response to
Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In opening remarks before a meeting with President Sadyr Japarov
of Kyrgyzstan on Monday, Mr. Xi said relations between Beijing and Bishkek had “made
a leap forward” and that cooperation was “flourishing across all areas.”
On Monday evening, the leaders attended a lavish opening ceremony
for the World Nomad Games, held in a newly built stadium in Bishkek and hosted by
Mr. Japarov. Dancers and singers in traditional costume performed, as riders on
horseback traversed a stage area ringed by bursts of fire.
When Mr. Xi arrives in the United States, Mr. Trump is likely
to seek the Chinese leader’s cooperation on both Iran and North Korea, but it is
not clear that China will oblige, Mr. Gewirtz said.
“Trump has painted himself into a corner,” he said. “The administration
is struggling to square two seemingly irreconcilable goals: tightening pressure
on Iran and maintaining its truce with China.”