SCO Summit in Beijing: A Stress Test for Multilateralism and the UN’s Role
- Ahmed Fathi
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
By Ahmed Fathi
New York: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) rarely makes front-page news in the West. But maybe it should. Founded in 2001, it began as a modest forum to ease border tensions and build trust among China, Russia, and Central Asian states.
Today, it has grown into the world’s largest regional organization by population. Its members now include India, Pakistan, and Iran, with dialogue partners stretching from Egypt to the Persian Gulf. What started as a regional security club has become a forum that aims to shape global trade, energy, and even the rules of digital governance.
This week, Beijing is hosting the SCO’s annual summit—and the guest list says it all. Twenty heads of state are attending, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, and India’s Narendra Modi. Just as striking is the participation of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres. His presence elevates the meeting beyond regional politics. It turns the SCO gathering into a global stage—a test of whether multilateralism still matters in a fractured world.
Why the SCO matters now
For years, Western analysts dismissed the SCO as a “talk shop”—lots of speeches, little action. But that view looks increasingly outdated. The SCO represents almost half of humanity, and it includes some of the fastest-growing economies and biggest energy producers. More importantly, it gives non-Western powers a platform to coordinate, strategize, and project influence without the United States in the room.
Its agenda has expanded far beyond counterterrorism. The SCO now talks about food security, energy routes, digital sovereignty, and infrastructure corridors that could redraw trade patterns across Eurasia. When leaders representing such vast populations and resources gather, it is not just symbolic. It is an attempt to design an alternative vision of world order.
The U.S. left on the sidelines
Noticeably absent, as always, is the United States. Washington has never been part of the SCO and has often viewed it with suspicion. Under President Trump, that suspicion hardened into confrontation. To American strategists, the SCO looks like a counterweight to NATO, a forum where U.S. rivals coordinate without interference.
As I wrote in my book, America First, The World Divided: Trump 2.0 Influence, “Trump does not seek to reshape multilateral institutions—he seeks to sideline them, replacing cooperative frameworks with transactional deals that serve immediate U.S. advantage.” That philosophy leaves no space for cooperation with a bloc that includes China, Russia, Iran, and now North Korea’s leader.
Instead, Washington’s playbook has been pressure: tariffs on China and India, sanctions on Russia and Iran, and a renewed hard line against North Korea. But this creates consequences. As I also warned in the book, “By stepping back from multilateral platforms, the United States risks creating a vacuum others will fill, rewriting the rules of the game without Washington’s consent.” That vacuum is being filled—by Beijing, Moscow, and Delhi.
The UN walks a fine line
This is why Secretary-General Guterres’ presence in Beijing matters so much. His attendance is not routine—it is deliberate. At a time when the UN Security Council is paralyzed by vetoes and entrenched divisions, Guterres is signaling that the UN cannot afford to ignore rising centers of power.
By showing up, he reminds the world that the UN is supposed to be universal, not just Western. But his move is not without risk. Some may see his attendance as giving legitimacy to an alternative order that sidelines the UN itself. The question is whether Guterres can use the SCO to bring regional organizations closer to the UN—or whether he becomes a guest in someone else’s house.
The fatigue of global cooperation
Here is the human truth: multilateralism is not dead, but it is exhausted. It struggles under the weight of vetoes, broken promises, and a lack of trust. Leaders are searching for other places to talk and to act, even if those places are imperfect. That is why the SCO is gaining ground.
In New York, at the UN, the same debates play on repeat. In Beijing, this week, leaders are writing a different script—one where U.S. power is not the default, and where “rules-based order” is defined by voices outside Washington. For half the world’s population, that shift is not only appealing—it feels overdue.
A test of the future
The SCO Summit is more than a gathering. It is a stress test for whether multilateralism can adapt to a world where power is shifting eastward, and where the United States is no longer at the center. If the UN can adapt and insert itself into these emerging spaces, it may still serve as a bridge. If it cannot, we may one day look back on meetings like this as the turning point when global order tilted decisively away from New York.
As Beijing rolls out the red carpet, the SCO is sending a clear message: the future of multilateralism will not be written in one capital alone.
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