SAMARKAND: Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping gather with other Asian leaders in ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand from Thursday for a regional summit touted as a challenge to Western global influence. Xi and Putin will be joined by leaders of India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran and several other countries for meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbek city on Thursday and Friday.

Main summit day will be Friday, but it is a meeting of Russian and Chinese leaders that will be most closely watched. For Putin, summit is a chance to show that Russia cannot be isolated internationally, at a time when Moscow’s forces are facing major battlefield setbacks in Ukraine. For Xi on his first trip abroad since early days of coronavirus, it is an opportunity to shore up his credentials as a global statesman ahead of a pivotal congress of ruling Communist Party in October.

“SCO offers a real alternative to Western-centric organisations,” Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters in Moscow. “All members of SCO stand for a just world order,” he said, describing summit as taking place “against background of large-scale geopolitical changes”.

Published in The Daily National Courier, September, 16 2022

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