SCO Photo:VCG

From Tuesday to Saturday, Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 24th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Astana and, at the invitation of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of the Republic of Kazakhstan and President Emomali Rahmon of the Republic of Tajikistan, pay state visits to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, China's Foreign Ministry announced on Sunday. 

The upcoming visits carry great ramifications against the backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions, rampant US decoupling pushes that are fragmenting the world, and the West's attempts to sow discord among the cooperation framework, observers said, while highlighting China's significant contribution to the SCO summit that will help to build a more "cohesive, influential" regional community that overcomes geopolitical rivalries and promotes mutual trust.

The state visits to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan also underscore that China attaches great importance to neighborhood diplomacy and is set to inject new impetus into the relationship between China and Central Asia, where all five countries are China's strategic partners, observers said. 

Considering that Kazakhstan is where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was proposed and that vibrant cooperation under the BRI has transformed landlocked Central Asia region into a vital regional transportation hub, foreign scholars expect that the visits could prompt bilateral and regional cooperation between China and Central Asia to reach deeper and broader areas, such as on the construction of more logistics corridors that could further promote regional integration and development. 

Highlights of SCO summit

The SCO summit will be held in Astana on July 3-4, according to a statement on the SCO website. China will take over the SCO rotating chair at the conclusion of the summit.  

The timing of the SCO summit is particularly apt given the drastic changes in the international situation and the stepped-up containment and bloc confrontation instigated by the West, according to Chinese analysts. 

"It sends a message to the Western world that there are many different voices from the emerging economies that need to be heard and represented, and the mainstream trend of global cooperation won't be reversed by their obstruction," Zhou Rong, a senior researcher at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told the Global Times over the weekend. 

He stressed the SCO summit's significance in demonstrating unity among member states and inspiring new collective approaches to deal with emerging challenges and conflicts. 

According to the Astana Times, Kazakhstan has proposed to develop its SCO Initiative On World Unity for Just Peace and Harmony during the Astana summit. Tokayev noted that the adoption of the document will "contribute to the consolidation of international efforts to resolve conflicts in various regions of the world." 

Observers said the SCO initiative aligns with the Global Security Initiative proposed by China and reflects the two countries' constructive and consistent contributions to upholding regional stability and peace. 

Gulnar Shaimergenova, director of the China Studies Center in Kazakhstan, told the Global Times on Sunday that the contribution of Chinese wisdom to the SCO is also manifested in other China-proposed initiatives such as the BRI, which have achieved synergies with the SCO agenda in terms of promoting economic cooperation and infrastructure development. She anticipates that China will play a bigger role in promoting dialogue and mutual understanding, as well as bolstering cohesion among SCO members. 

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said he expects his country will join the SCO at the Astana summit, according to media reports. That would mark the organization's new round of member expansion, after Iran formally joined SCO last year. 

Analysts said the expansion will be a "historic breakthrough" that brings the number of SCO members to a two-digit level of 10, underscoring the organization's growing influence in the international arena amid a complex international environment. 

"Cooperation under the SCO sets a paradigm for a new type of international relations in the spirit of mutual respect, justice, equality and mutually beneficial cooperation. Its growing relevance in the global context reflects the common desire for this kind of relationship and is a pushback against the US' hegemonic abuse," Li Xin, director of the Institute for Eurasian Studies at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times. 

Bolat Nurgaliyev, former SCO secretary-general, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview that the SCO also serves as proof of the possibility that countries with different economic and political systems can cooperate quite harmoniously, reconcile their sometimes diverging interests and work out a joint approach in dealing with common challenges and risks. 

Along with the membership expansion, the economic complementarity among member countries will see significant enhancement, so will the potential for broader regional collaboration - making it another hot topic of discussion during the SCO summit, analysts noted. 

In addition, they predict that the anti-terrorism fight will be at the top of the agenda at the Astana summit. 

Both Russia and Pakistan have been hit by terrorist attacks this year, and SCO members may talk face-to-face on how to coordinate security policies to resolutely combat the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism in the region, Zhou noted. 

Central Asia visits

Kazakhstan was the place where the concept of the BRI was first proposed in 2013. In 2022, President Xi made his first overseas trip after the pandemic to Kazakhstan, setting in motion a new "golden 30 years" of bilateral cooperation. Since May 2023, Tokayev has visited China three times, indicating frequent exchange of visits at the highest level between China and Kazakhstan.

"During the visits, our leaders reached important agreements and coordinated political strategies, which should be viewed as exemplary, as they reflected the top level of mutual trust and good will. That is why the forthcoming visit of the Chinese top leader to Astana will definitely become yet another brick in the foundation of the beautiful edifice of the Kazakh-Chinese friendship," Nurgaliyev said.

Currently, all five Central Asian states are China's strategic partners. Among them, the China-Kazakhstan partnership has reached one of the highest levels of a permanent comprehensive strategic partnership, while China and Tajikistan have also established comprehensive strategic partnership. China and Central Asia have also vowed to build a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future. 

The visits highlight that China is putting emphasis on neighborhood diplomacy, experts said.  

"The visits to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan will consolidate ties and lead China-Central Asia relations to a new height," Li Xin said, adding that the solid relations are based on mutual support of core interests, mutual respect, equality and openness. 

Central Asia, as one of the key areas in the implementation of the BRI, offers a vivid example of how the China-proposed global public good has been transforming the landlocked region into a land-linked region, transforming it into a bridge connecting the Eurasian continent. In this context, strengthening China-Central Asia cooperation under the BRI and SCO frameworks is consequential for the region's development in the economy, transportation, clean energy and technological fronts, analysts said.    

Li expects agreements on more infrastructure connectivity projects could be reached during the state visits, including the construction of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor, which could offer the most cost-effective passage from China to Europe amid rising geopolitical tensions.