This is what the post-Western world looks like

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.

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. Trade, energy, transportation, digitalization, food security, humanitarian exchanges, and the reform of international institutions have all been added to the list.

The Bishkek summit cemented that evolution. The leaders adopted the Bishkek Declaration along with 27 other documents. The package included decisions on responding to emerging security challenges, combating drug trafficking, developing ports and logistics hubs, nuclear safety, energy, and emergency response. The SCO also introduced a single partner status, merging the previously separate categories of observer state and dialogue partner. On the surface, this may look like an administrative reform. Its political significance, however, is much broader: The organization is streamlining its external framework and preparing for more systematic engagement with countries that want to cooperate without immediately becoming full members.

The practical side of multipolarity is also visible in the economic sphere. Putin said national currencies now account for more than 98% of Russia’s settlements with other SCO countries. This does not yet amount to a common currency or a unified financial system, but it points to a sustained trend: The organization’s members are seeking to reduce their mutual trade’s dependence on external payment infrastructure. Discussions about an SCO Development Bank, new investment instruments, and the integration of Eurasian transportation routes are part of the same effort.

At the same time, the SCO’s emergence as a genuine center of global politics will depend on how quickly it can turn declarations into working projects. The organization already possesses immense collective potential, but there is always a gap between potential and real influence. Final communiqués alone will not close it. Banks, transportation routes, payment systems, security centers, and resilient trade networks will.

SCO Plus: Expanding without endlessly adding members

The defining political development of the Bishkek summit was the consolidation of the SCO Plus format. The first summit-level meeting under that name was held in Astana in 2024. In Bishkek, it moved beyond the experimental stage and became a distinct element of the summit itself. Representatives of 17 countries and six international organizations took part in the SCO and SCO Plus events. The expanded session focused on the role of the United Nations and the SCO countries’ contribution to building a fair multipolar world order.

The logic closely resembles that of BRICS Plus. In both cases, the goal is to build a broad circle of partners around a permanent core. This model allows the organization to expand its geographic reach without turning the admission of new members into an endless process or overburdening its decision-making machinery. Countries can participate in discussions of major issues, advance economic and political initiatives, and develop ties with members while retaining their freedom of maneuver.

There is, however, a difference between the two formats. BRICS Plus is primarily focused on the global economy, development, and reform of international financial governance. SCO Plus has emerged from a Eurasian agenda centered on security, transportation connectivity, and political dialogue. Over time, the two mechanisms could complement one another: BRICS can provide the broader global framework, while the SCO builds a dense network of cooperation across Greater Eurasia.

Türkiye’s participation in the meeting was particularly revealing. Ankara remains an SCO partner rather than a full member, while also belonging to NATO and pursuing an independent policy in Eurasia. Its presence demonstrates that the SCO does not force its partners to make a rigid geopolitical choice. Instead, it offers a platform to countries that do not want to confine themselves to a single bloc and are seeking to diversify their foreign relationships.

This is one of the defining features of the emerging multipolar system. It does not necessarily mean replacing the old closed camp with a new one. Rather, it is a system of overlapping formats in which countries can cooperate on some issues while disagreeing on others. SCO Plus is becoming the institutional expression of precisely that model.

Iran, Pakistan, and Türkiye: The SCO’s new geography

The presence of Iran, Pakistan, and Türkiye gives the SCO a significance that extends far beyond Central Asia. Their respective statuses, however, differ – and that distinction matters. Iran and Pakistan are full members: Islamabad joined alongside India in 2017, while Tehran completed the accession process in 2023. Türkiye participates in the SCO’s broader orbit as a partner.

The admission of Iran and Pakistan redrew the organization’s political map. It brought South Asia, Afghanistan, the Persian Gulf, and the Middle East directly into the SCO’s purview. At the same time, it brought together countries with serious disagreements of their own. That complicates efforts to forge a common position, but it also makes the organization more valuable. Dialogue is needed most not by those who already agree, but by those whose interests regularly collide.

In the Bishkek Declaration, the participants reaffirmed their support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, condemned the military strikes on Iranian territory, and called for a political and diplomatic settlement of the conflict. This was an important outcome for Tehran. Iran’s SCO membership has acquired practical value by allowing the country to place its own security on the collective political agenda of a major Eurasian organization.

Pakistan’s role is equally significant. Islamabad is not an invited participant but a full member – and Pakistan will assume the SCO chairmanship after Kyrgyzstan. This underscores the organization’s shift from its original Central Asian core toward a broader Eurasian configuration. The simultaneous membership of India and Pakistan does not eliminate their disputes, but it preserves a common channel of communication even during periods of severe tension.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s remarks at the SCO Plus session captured the central meaning of the gathering. The emerging order, he argued, must not amount to replacing one center of hegemony with another. Multipolarity can be fair only if it rests on sovereign equality, multilateralism, and international law. This is an important caveat: Simply increasing the number of power centers does not automatically make the international system more stable. It also requires rules, representative institutions, and mechanisms for reconciling competing interests. Pezeshkian separately emphasized the potential of SCO Plus as a platform for shaping the future international order.

This also explains the criticism of the effectiveness of the UN and its Security Council voiced in Bishkek. SCO countries are not proposing that the United Nations be abandoned. On the contrary, they insist that it must retain its central role. But that role should be supported by updated representation that reflects the actual distribution of political, economic, and demographic weight in the world. Otherwise, the gap between the formal architecture of the mid-20th century and the realities of the 21st will only continue to widen.

Russia’s opportunity: A bridge, not an arbiter

For Russia, the Bishkek summit mattered not only because it reaffirmed the country’s place among Eurasia’s leading power centers. Moscow possesses a rare network of relationships that allows it to serve as a bridge between different groups within the SCO. Russia has a strategic partnership with China, a special and privileged partnership with India, stable ties with Pakistan, allied relations with the countries of Central Asia, a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran, and an ongoing political dialogue with Türkiye.

This network gives Moscow an opportunity to help resolve conflicts and reduce tensions. That does not mean turning the SCO into a supranational court or imposing ready-made solutions on its members. The organization operates by consensus, and bilateral disputes have traditionally been kept out of the center of its formal agenda. Russia’s most realistic role is therefore to offer its good offices, keep channels of communication open, facilitate informal consultations, encourage confidence-building measures, and create conditions in which direct dialogue becomes possible.

The historical parallel is obvious. In 1966, Soviet mediation led to the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, which brought an end to the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. That experience cannot simply be transplanted into the present day, but it serves as a reminder that Moscow can be useful to both sides precisely because it maintains working relations with both New Delhi and Islamabad.

A similar approach could be applied to other flashpoints, from tensions surrounding Iran and security in the Persian Gulf to Afghanistan and border disputes in Asia. Russia’s contribution could be to translate the SCO’s general commitment to political and diplomatic conflict resolution into specific mechanisms: contact groups, expert consultations, communication channels between military officials and diplomats, joint threat assessments, and agreements to protect transportation and energy infrastructure.

The organization’s capabilities should not be overstated, however. The SCO is not a military-political bloc, does not impose alliance discipline, and brings together countries with very different concepts of security. The Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan remains unresolved, India and China continue to have border disputes, and the members’ positions on many international crises do not always align. Yet the SCO’s ability to keep these countries within a common negotiating framework is itself one of its most important assets.

A multipolar world is not a world of universal agreement. It is an order in which no single power center can dictate the rules on its own, forcing states to construct a complex system of compromises. The SCO fits this logic better than many traditional alliances: It does not demand ideological conformity, impose a single model of development, or require its members to rally against a common enemy.

The bottom line from Bishkek

The summit’s most important outcome was that the SCO has definitively moved beyond seeing itself solely as a regional security organization. The Bishkek Declaration, deeper financial and transportation cooperation, the new unified partner status, and the consolidation of the SCO Plus format are creating a broader framework – political, economic, and, most importantly, institutional.

An impressive geographic reach alone does not guarantee effectiveness. The SCO still needs to accelerate the development of project-financing mechanisms, give its new security centers substantive responsibilities, improve transportation links, and learn to play a more active role in de-escalating tensions among its own members. But the direction of travel is already clear.

Bishkek presented multipolarity not as a slogan but as a political reality. Russia, China, and India were in the same room; Iran and Pakistan participated as full members; Türkiye attended as a key partner in the expanded format. These countries do not constitute a unified bloc, nor do they seek to subsume their individual interests into a common line. But they are creating a space in which security, development, and global governance can be discussed without outside supervision or compulsory submission to a single center of power.

In this sense, SCO Plus is more than a successful adaptation of the BRICS model. It is a bid to build an open political framework around Greater Eurasia. If the organization can translate its demographic and economic scale into functioning institutions, platforms like this will shape not only the debate about a multipolar world, but also the way that world operates in practice.