SCO summit poised for fruitful outcomes

The upcoming summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin will mark the largest gathering the SCO has ever seen, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday, highlighting China's readiness to host a summit of friendship, unity and fruitful results.

The SCO Summit, which is scheduled for Aug 31 and Sept 1, will bring together leaders of more than 20 countries and heads of 10 international organizations, spokesman Guo Jiakun said at a regular news conference.

China, which assumed the SCO's rotating presidency in July 2024, will work with other member states to ensure the summit yields rich outcomes and injects more solidarity, coordination and vitality into the organization, Guo said.

Looking back on the year, he said that China has made concrete efforts to advance its work as the SCO chair and achieved progress.

China has hosted more than 100 events as the SCO chair, he said, adding that nearly half of them were institutional and covered multiple areas such as politics, security, economy and trade, investment, energy, the digital economy and people-to-people exchanges.

These events strengthened solidarity and mutual trust among SCO countries, and allowed them to learn more from each other and achieve win-win outcomes, Guo said.

China has worked with other member states to advance SCO reform and innovation in various fields to ensure smoother and more efficient operation of the organization, he added.

Member states are accelerating consultations regarding the establishment of a comprehensive center for dealing with security threats and challenges, an information security center, a center for fighting transnational organized crime and a counternarcotics center, in order to build a new paradigm for regional security cooperation, the spokesman said.

Over the past year, the SCO has further promoted the "Shanghai Spirit", Guo said, noting that the organization has spoken up about major international and regional issues to uphold justice, firmly upheld the multilateral trading system and strongly condemned the abuse of armed force.

The "Shanghai Spirit", which is an underlying value for the SCO, promotes mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilizations and pursuit of common development.

In mid-July, foreign ministers of the 10 SCO member states and officials of the organization gathered in Tianjin to make preparations for the summit.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who hosted that meeting, called for the organization to carry forward the "Shanghai Spirit" and strengthen cooperation to boost security and growth.

Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, encouraged all member states to get along well with each other and uphold international justice.

Zhao Huirong, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies, said that China has made significant contributions to the development of the SCO, and the more than 100 events the country hosted over the past year reflect the great importance it attaches to the organization.

Noting that the SCO is expected to adopt a strategy in Tianjin guiding its development through 2035, Zhao said the summit will become a historical moment for the organization. It will also help the SCO better address its member states' call for cooperation to tackle international and regional challenges, she added.