President Xi Jinping gathered the leaders of Russia and India among dignitaries from around 20 Eurasian countries on Sunday for a showpiece summit aimed at putting China front and centre of regional relations.
TheShanghai Cooperation Organisation(SCO) summit is being held in the northern port city of Tianjin until Monday, days before a massive military parade in the capital Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.
The SCO comprises China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus with 16 more countries affiliated as observers or "dialogue partners".
Russian PresidentVladimir Putintouched down in Tianjin on Sunday with an entourage of senior politicians and business representatives.
Meanwhile Xi held a flurry of bilateral meetings with leaders from the Maldives, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and one of Putin's staunch allies, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Xi also met India's Prime MinisterNarendra Modion Sunday, who arrived the evening before, in his first visit to China since 2018.
Modi told Xi thatIndiawas committed to taking "forward our ties on the basis of mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity", according to a video the Indian leader posted on X.
The two most populous nations are intense rivals competing for influence acrossSouth Asiaand fought a deadly border clash in 2020.
A thaw began last October, when Modi met with Xi for the first time in five years at a summit inRussia.
"The interests of 2.8 billion people of both countries are linked to our cooperation. This will also pave the way for the welfare of the entire humanity," Modi told Xi.
China to bolster non-Western alliances at summit, parade
'Project influence'
The bilateral talks were held at the Tianjin Guest House, an intimate venue surrounded by lush greenery.
Security guards positioned themselves around and inside the venue, their eyes scanning reporters and guests carefully, as Chinese diplomats hurried through the halls.
Large sections of Tianjin were closed to traffic, with a significant police presence deployed around the city.
Official posters promoting the SCO lined the streets, displaying words such as "mutual benefit" and "equality" written in Chinese and Russian.
Chinaand Russia have sometimes touted the SCO as an alternative to the NATO military alliance. This year's summit is the first since US PresidentDonald Trumpreturned to the White House.
As China'sclaim over Taiwanand Russia's invasion ofUkrainehave seen them clash with the United States and Europe, experts say that Beijing and Moscow are eager to use platforms such as the SCO to curry favour.
"China has long sought to present the SCO as a non-Western-led power bloc that promotes a new type of international relations, which, it claims, is more democratic," said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
More than 20 leaders including Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and his Turkish counterpartRecep Tayyip Erdoganare attending the bloc's largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
China's Xi vows greater support for Russia as meets Lavrov
Talks on the sidelines
Putin is expected to hold talks on Monday with Erdogan and Pezeshkian about the Ukraine conflict andTehran's nuclear programme respectively.
The Russian president needs "all the benefits of SCO as a player on the world stage and also the support of the second largest economy in the world", said Lim Tai Wei, a professor and East Asia expert at Japan's Soka University.
"Russia is also keen to win over India, and India's trade frictions with the United States presents this opportunity," Lim told AFP.
The summit comes days after India was hit by asharp bump up in US tariffson its goods as punishment for New Delhi's purchases of Russian oil.
Many of the assembled leaders will be in Beijing on Wednesday to witness the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Originally published on RFI
