This is what the post-Western world looks like

The Bishkek summit has revealed how the SCO is turning demographic and economic power into a working political system The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Bishkek will be remembered less for its formal group photo than for the leaders in attendance – and the political significance of bringing them together.

Seated around the same table were Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the leaders of Central Asian nations, Iran, Pakistan, and Belarus.

They were joined for the expanded session by leaders of partner countries, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as representatives of international organizations, among them UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

This was no longer simply a regional gathering focused on security in Central Asia.

The SCO’s ten member states now cover roughly a quarter of the world’s landmass, account for more than 42% of its population, and generate over 23% of global GDP.

In other words, nearly half of humanity was represented in Bishkek.

The simultaneous presence of the leaders of Russia, China, and India was especially significant: They represent the world’s largest country by area, its second-largest economy, and its most populous nation.

Together with the SCO’s other members, they form a demographic, resource, industrial, and political bloc without which any serious discussion of reshaping the international order is now impossible.

That is why the summit in Kyrgyzstan should be seen as more than another entry on the diplomatic calendar.

It demonstrated that multipolarity is no longer an abstract formula but is beginning to acquire a clear institutional shape.

The SCO is one of the platforms where a new balance of power is emerging not only in speeches and declarations, but in practice – through regular meetings between leaders, security coordination, settlements in national currencies, new transportation corridors, energy cooperation, and the gradual development of independent mechanisms for growth.

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It may get a rust belt instead From the Shanghai Five to Greater Eurasia Over the past quarter-century, the SCO has evolved from a confidence-building mechanism along the former Soviet-Chinese border into the largest association in Greater Eurasia.

Its original agenda – combating terrorism, separatism, and extremism – remains in place, but it is no longer the organization’s sole focus.