Decoding China: Striving for a new world order

"Ni hao, huan ying!" was how Kazakh President Kassym-Shomart Tokayev greeted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as he arrived at the airport in the capital, Astana, to attend the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The 71-year-old Tokayev is only one month older than Xi and speaks fluent Chinese. From 1985 to 1991, he served as a Soviet diplomat in Beijing.

It is not only linguistically that the two get on brilliantly. The Kazakh and Chinese heads of state also share common interests.

The SCO was founded in 2001 by Russia, China and authoritarian-ruled Central Asian states, including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The club now also includes India, Iran and Pakistan.

Astana currently holds the bloc's presidency.

China's first multilateral initiative

The foundational goals of the SCO were to strengthen mutual trust, promote cooperation and reduce regional tensions following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"The SCO was China's first multilateral initiative in 1996," said Eberhard Sandschneider, a partner at the Berlin Global Advisors think tank. "When it became clear that it was working well with three Central Asian states and the Russian Federation, it was institutionalized as the SCO in 2001."

China and Russia later expanded the club's mission to focus on combating terrorism in the region.

Beijing, for instance, has wanted to fight "terrorism, extremism and separatism" in the far-western province of Xinjiang.

The Chinese government blames the province's predominantly Muslim Uyghur community for launching many terror attacks in the country.

For China, this issue remains more relevant than ever. Beijing views with great concern the activities of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), which wants Xinjiang to separate from China and become an independent state of East Turkestan.

The United Nations and the European Union classified the TIP as a terrorist organization in 2002.

The jihadis are also active in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, a region considered a hub for many radical militant organizations.

The rugged, mountainous terrain, as well as porous borders, make it tough for governments to monitor and control extremist activities.

'Against outside interference'

But China wants more. At the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi on Wednesday evening, the second face-to-face meeting between the two leaders in six weeks, it became clear that China expects even more from the SCO.

"In the face of the ever-changing international situation, we must strive to protect the legitimate rights and interests of countries and uphold the basic norms of international relations," Xi said.

On Thursday, the Chinese president made it even clearer: "We should join hands to resist external interference, firmly support each other, take care of each other's concerns... and firmly control the future and destiny of our countries and regional peace and development in our own hands."

Xi wants a regional alliance that is even more committed. The final communique mentioned the economy, securing supply chains, the digital economy and energy security, as well as cultural and social exchanges and artificial intelligence.

However, the SCO avoided talk of forming a new geopolitical bloc.

The communique instead stated that the grouping is non-aligned and not directed against any third parties.

"The SCO seeks objective cooperation. The stronger the SCO's influence, the more representative and visible it is in the Global South. China is using its role model function and showing the Central Asian countries how to achieve economic consensus despite political dissent," said Liu Qingbin, of the Yokohama University in Japan.

SCO plus?

For the first time, the summit took on an expanded format, despite the absence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the meeting.

"The SCO is always about security and growth, both of which are the most important issues in effective global governance. Security guarantees growth, growth promotes security," said Liu.

"But the SCO is just one of several multilateral initiatives that are all ultimately backed by China," said China expert Sandschneider, pointing to the Belt and Road Initiative, the BRICS+ and the RCEP, a regional free trade zone.

"China is in the process of establishing alternative institutions on a global scale that appeal to friendly nations. As a rule, these are autocracies, all of which are clearly anti-Western in character."

Sandschneider added that everyone, including those in the West, should understand that the international order that came into being after World War II "has become a little outdated."

"This has to do not only with these China-led autocratic initiatives but also with domestic political developments in the US and the state of the European Union," he said. "That's why some sense a chance to counter Western dominance, which has long been perceived as paternalism, if not totally undermine it."

The SCO welcomed a new member in Astana: Belarus, another ally of Moscow and Beijing.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has ruled the country with an iron fist for the past three decades.

China, in particular, is looking forward to deepening its ties with Belarus. The youngest son of the Belarusian leader, Nikolai Lukashenko, born in 2004, is now studying biology at the elite Peking University in China.

This article was originally written in German and edited by Kate Martyr.

"Decoding China" is a DW series that examines Chinese positions and arguments on current international issues from a critical German and European perspective.