Beijing has long sought to present the 10-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) as a counterweight to Western-led power blocs and has pushed to strengthen collaboration between its member countries in politics, security, trade and science.
The Qingdao meeting of the organisation’s top defence officials comes as a fledgling ceasefire between Israel and Iran holds after 12 days of fighting between the arch-foes.
It is also being held as Nato members agreed to ramp up their defence spending to satisfy US President Donald Trump in their meeting in The Hague.
Defence Minister Dong Jun framed the meeting of officials in Qingdao, home to a major Chinese naval base, as a counterweight to a world in “chaos and instability”.
“As momentous changes of the century accelerate, unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise,” Dong said as he welcomed defence chiefs from Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus and elsewhere on Wednesday.
“Hegemonic, domineering and bullying acts severely undermine the international order.”
Dong urged his counterparts to “take more robust actions to jointly safeguard the environment for peaceful development”.
He called for efforts to enhance coordination within multilateral frameworks such as the United Nations and the SCO, defend international fairness and justice, and uphold global strategic stability.
India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said SCO members should “collectively aspire to fulfil the aspirations and expectations of our people as well as tackle today’s challenges”.
“The world we live in is undergoing a drastic transformation,” he said in comments posted by his office on X. “Globalisation, which once brought us closer together, has been losing momentum.”
Meeting Dong on the sidelines of the summit, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov hailed ties between the two countries as being “at an unprecedentedly high level”.
“Friendly relations between our countries maintain upward dynamics of development in all directions,” he said. (AFP/Xinhua)
