Modi, Xi and Putin in the Same Room: What Actually Came Out of the SCO's 25th Anniversary Summit

The 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek brought together all 10 member-state leaders, produced a 28-document package including a formal declaration condemning US-Israeli strikes on Iran, and offered a visible — if cautious — signal of thawing China-India relations.

The Basics

The summit ran August 30 to September 1, 2026, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, chaired by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov under the theme "25 Years of the SCO: Together Towards Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity." It marked the SCO's 25th anniversary since its founding in Shanghai in 2001. All 10 member states were represented at head-of-state level: India's Narendra Modi, China's Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin, Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif, Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko, Kazakhstan's Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Tajikistan's Emomali Rahmon, Uzbekistan's Shavkat Mirziyoyev, and host Japarov. An expanded "SCO Plus" session also drew partner-country leaders including Turkey's Erdoğan, Azerbaijan's Aliyev and Armenia's Pashinyan.

What Was Actually Signed

On September 1, leaders signed the Bishkek Declaration on the SCO's 25th Anniversary, along with 27 additional documents spanning security, counter-narcotics, artificial intelligence, biodiversity, energy and climate cooperation, nuclear security, and regional logistics. Notably, the declaration explicitly condemned the "military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran" carried out by the US and Israel as violations of international law, and expressed condolences over the assassination of Iran's former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a February 2026 airstrike — a sign of how directly the Iran war has entered the SCO's collective diplomatic language.

The China-India Subplot

Beyond the formal agenda, the summit was watched closely for a smaller signal: Modi and Xi were photographed greeting each other warmly after the group photo, which Indian media read as a further sign of improving ties following the 2020 border clashes — reinforced by renewed boundary talks between senior officials in Beijing on August 25, just days before the summit. Modi, in his departure statement, said he remained committed to advancing India's vision for the SCO centred on security, connectivity and opportunity.

The Economic and Connectivity Agenda

Kyrgyzstan used its chairmanship to push a concrete economic agenda: proposals for an SCO Development Fund, improved transport corridors linking Central Asia to China, Russia, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe, and a new international centre to combat organised crime. Central Asian states in particular are pushing for better roads, railways, energy networks and digital connections to reduce their landlocked disadvantage. India specifically linked regional conflict to energy security, maritime trade and supply chains — reflecting how directly the Iran war and Hormuz disruptions feed into India's own economic calculus as an SCO member.

Real View

The summit's substance is real but incremental — 28 signed documents is a genuine diplomatic output, not just photo-ops. But the SCO's underlying tension remains unresolved: divergent foreign-policy priorities and security interests among member states — India and Pakistan, India and China, Russia and the Central Asian states — continue to constrain how far political commitments translate into effective collective mechanisms. The Bishkek Declaration signals unity on paper; whether it changes anyone's actual behavior toward Iran, Ukraine, or regional trade is a separate question entirely. Putin and Xi's separate bilateral meeting the day before the main summit was itself a reminder that the SCO's biggest relationships are still managed bilaterally, not collectively.