The series of important initiatives and propositions put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping has enriched the substance of the Shanghai Spirit, the fundamental driver of growth and vibrancy of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), promoting the organization to make greater contributions to maintaining world peace and development, said international scholars.
As the curtain rises on the SCO Summit 2025, joint efforts are expected to make the organization more united and efficient, empowering it to contribute more to peace and development.
As one of the founding members, China has always made the SCO a diplomatic priority and firmly upheld the Shanghai Spirit, which features mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of common development. The country has put forward a series of important initiatives and propositions, and contributed Chinese wisdom, solutions and dynamism to the regional development.
International scholars have hailed China's role in promoting the organization’s development.
"President Xi Jinping has long promoted the development of the SCO. The three major global initiatives (the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative) and important concepts put forward by him with a far-sighted vision have enriched the substance of the Shanghai Spirit. These contributed Chinese wisdom to the SCO's efforts to maintain regional peace and prosperity, defend historical justice, and build a more equitable and just international order, while injecting more stability and positive energy into a world fraught with turmoil," said Wirun Phichaiwongphakdee, director of the Thailand-China Research Center of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
"Our world talks too much about war and too little about peace, especially today, 80 years after the end of World War II. President Xi's concepts and initiatives advocate for peace, friendship and cooperation as alternatives to tensions, war and conflict. This approach is not only crucial for the SCO Summit, but also an important element in building a new type of international and diplomatic relations," said Janusz Piechocinski, former deputy prime minister and economy minister of Poland.
International scholars said that the series of important initiatives and propositions put forward by President Xi, when practiced on multilateral platforms like the SCO, enhanced exchanges, communication, understanding and trust among different countries and peoples, facilitating global development.
"President Xi [and] the government of China have always been speaking about inclusive growth [and] shared prosperity. And when we have platforms like SCO, where civilizations, religions, countries, people are interacting, this people-to-people interaction, this civilization-to-civilization [interaction] is absolutely on the same line that President Xi has been demanding," said Hassan Daud Butt, a senior associate professor of Pakistan's Bahria University.
"President Xi has advocated that member states adhere to the 'new five concepts' -- the outlook on development, security, cooperation, civilization and global governance that transcends the clash of civilizations, the Cold War mentality and the zero-sum game. Kenya's threats from extremism in the security field and its bottlenecks in agricultural development in the economic field can all find ideas for solutions from these initiatives. This is the practical value brought to Africa by the cooperation initiatives advocated by President Xi," said Stephen Ndegwa, executive director of South-South Dialogues, a Nairobi-based communication development think tank.
"The SCO enjoys a promising development prospect. As long as it adheres to the Shanghai Spirit and actively advance the concept of a community with a shared future for humanity and the initiative of building a common home of solidarity and mutual trust, peace and tranquility, prosperity and development, good-neighborliness and friendship, and fairness and justice, the SCO is bound to achieve remarkable accomplishments," said Kazbek Maigeldinov, chairman of Public Foundation of the Kazakh Association of China Researchers.
Primarily born to address security concerns, the SCO has grown over the past 24 years its initial six founding member states into a 26-nation family comprising 10 member states, two observer states and 14 dialogue partners, covering approximately half of the world's population and about a quarter of global GDP.
The summit this year, held in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin from Sunday to Monday, is the largest since the SCO's establishment in 2001, which is a testament to its international influence and appeal.
The expected outcomes of the meeting include a declaration, a 10-year development strategy for the SCO, and documents on strengthening cooperation in the fields of security, economy, as well as cultural and people-to-people exchanges.
It expected that the Tianjin Summit will enable the SCO to build greater consensus on comprehensive cooperation and adopt new, solid measures to support its high-quality development, contribute more "SCO strength" to building a community with a shared future for humanity, and inject greater stability and positive energy to the world.
Chinese initiatives enrich Shanghai Spirit: int'l scholars
