3.5 Billion People Against Western Diktat: How the SCO Is Becoming Eurasia’s New Anchor

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization accounts for nearly 3.5 billion people and a quarter of world GDP. In twenty-five years it has grown into a substantial international grouping whose priorities are security, economic cooperation and political ties.

Ten member states, together with observers and dialogue partners, give the SCO a reach across half the planet’s population and some of Eurasia’s largest markets. The region’s growth is now routinely described as among the fastest anywhere — and an increasing share of the world’s real economy is taking shape there.

Belarus–Myanmar: from political dialogue to joint projects

The Bishkek summit of 31 August–1 September 2026 coincided with the organization’s twenty-fifth anniversary. The SCO’s members are Belarus, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan and Iran. Sensing the grouping’s potential, Minsk long worked closely with it and, on 4 July 2024, became a full member. The organization’s stated aims — greater stability and broader cooperation — align with Belarus’s own. Addressing his counterparts, President Alexander Lukashenko called the SCO one of Eurasia’s most important pillars.

The bloc does not present itself as a military alliance. It nonetheless treats security as a serious brief. Challenges in that field are mounting: information, political, financial and economic pressure. The toolkit of the powerful now includes not only color-revolution techniques and hybrid influence, but also the demonstrative return of direct, large-scale military force.

Seizing the moment, Belarus also proposed the creation of an SCO scientific fund to support researchers and pool their work — from climate and the environment to smart agriculture, biotechnology and public health. Without a bet on innovation, the argument runs, survival itself is in doubt. Concrete projects of this kind would make SCO states stronger; authority in international affairs would follow from action, not slogans.

The Kyrgyz summit was not only about the “Shanghai Spirit” and collective effort. It was also a marathon of bilateral talks. World leaders use such encounters to the full, not least because so many of the states present are already bound by trade and joint ventures.

On the sidelines, the Belarusian president held talks with several partners from Asia and Africa. Laos, he suggested, could become another friend of Belarus in the South Asian region. Lukashenko called for more intensive work; Minsk, he said, is ready to widen cooperation across a range of fields.

The SCO+ format brings in all who share the Shanghai Spirit. As usual, observer states and dialogue partners joined the permanent members — this time including United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres — to discuss the UN as a cornerstone of a just world order and the contribution of SCO states. Lukashenko put the point without diplomatic varnish: political disagreements, he said, are blocking the UN from playing a real part in resolving unprovoked armed conflicts.

Belarus intends to work on the Shanghai platform with energy and initiative — not only for economic gain, but to help shape a fairer, multipolar world. The SCO does not seek to replace the United Nations. What the Shanghai table offers today is a place where large and small countries speak as equals, without pressure, without Western rules being imposed, without exhausting confrontation, and without the agenda being bent to a single center of power.