TIANJIN (REUTERS)
Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members to leverage their “mega-scale market” on Monday, while unveiling his ambition for a new global security and economic order.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has set a model for a new type of international relations, Xi said in opening remarks addressing more than 20 world leaders at a two-day summit held in northern China's port city Tianjin.
“We should advocate for equal and ordered multipolarisation of the world [alongside] inclusive economic globalisation, and promote the construction of a more just and equitable global governance system,” he said.
China will provide 2 billion yuan ($280 million) of free aid to member states this year and a further 10 billion yuan of loans to a SCO banking consortium, Xi added.
“We must take advantage of the mega-scale market... to improve the level of trade and investment facilitation,” Xi said, urging the bloc to boost cooperation in fields including energy, infrastructure, science and technology, and artificial intelligence.
Russia's Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other leaders from Central Asia, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia attended the opening ceremony in a major show of Global South solidarity.
Putin said the grouping has revived “genuine multilateralism” with national currencies increasingly used in mutual settlements.
“This, in turn, lays the political and socio-economic groundwork for the formation of a new system of stability and security in Eurasia,” he said.
“This security system...would genuinely consider the interests of a broad range of countries, be truly balanced, and would not allow one country to ensure its own security at the expense of others.”
The security-focused bloc, which began as a group of six Eurasian nations, has expanded to 10 permanent members and 16 dialogue and observer countries in recent years.
Xi also called on organisation partners to support multilateral trade systems during the summit.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said China played a "fundamental" role in upholding global multilateralism on Sunday.