Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for a regional summit bringing together several countries with strained relations with the West, where they are expected to preach for a multipolar world dear to Beijing and Moscow.
Vladimir Putin landed early in the morning at the airport in Astana, the capital of Central Asia’s largest economy, where a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is to be held on Thursday. Xi Jinping had arrived the day before.
The SCO, which currently has nine member countries (China, India, Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan), is conceived as a platform for cooperation competing with Western organizations, intended to contribute to the advent of a “multipolar” world, a term that is recurrently used by Russian and Chinese leaders.
Iran recently joined. The membership of Belarus, Moscow’s main ally in its war in Ukraine, is expected to be announced after Thursday’s summit.
But there are many divisions among its members. While Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi want to present a common front against the West, they remain competitors on the economic front, particularly in Central Asia, a region rich in hydrocarbons and crucial for the transport of goods between Europe and Asia.
Among the bilateral meetings scheduled on the sidelines of the summit, the two men are to meet on Wednesday, at a time yet to be specified. This meeting will take place a month and a half after their summit in China in mid-May, where the Russian leader sought increased support for his war in Ukraine.
According to the Kremlin, Mr Putin will also meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to Ankara, which has repeatedly offered to mediate to end the Ukrainian conflict.
Leaders from Central Asia, a region rich in hydrocarbons and crucial for the transport of goods between Europe and Asia, are regularly courted by Mr Putin, Mr Erdogan and Mr Xi.
This trend has been accentuated since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow wanting to maintain its influence over these ex-Soviet republics, now closely linked to China via large-scale economic projects.
Central Asia, with Kazakhstan at the forefront, is an essential link in China’s new Silk Road project, a vast infrastructure project launched more than a decade ago by Xi Jinping.
The Chinese president praised the “eternal strategic partnership” between Beijing and Astana, according to a letter published Tuesday by state media outlet “Kazakhstan Pravda.”
Western countries nevertheless intend to stay in the game. Several European leaders have recently visited the region.
New development
Belarus’ planned membership will bring to ten the number of members of the organisation, founded in 2001, which has gained new momentum in recent years as a bloc intended to counterbalance Western influence, with a focus on security and economic issues.
The organization’s goals include combating what Beijing calls the “three evils”: separatism, terrorism and extremism.
In a sign of the organization’s growing importance, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also be in Astana.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is expected in Russia this month, will be absent. Iran, which is waiting to elect its new president in a second round of presidential elections on Friday, will be represented by its interim president, following the death of leader Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash in mid-May.
In addition to its member countries, the SCO also includes 14 dialogue partner states, such as Turkey and Gulf Arab countries.
Following the Astana summit, China will hold the rotating presidency of the SCO for the period 2024-2025.