by Stewart Battle (EIRNS) — Aug. 31, 2025
On Sunday Aug. 31, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) began its annual summit in Tianjin, China, where leaders representing 43% of the world’s population are in attendance. Occurring amidst the background of upheaval of the post-World War II international order, the two-day event is experiencing the largest ever attendance since the group’s founding in 2001, despite the enormous pressure being brought against some of its leading members: Russia, China, and India. In short, the world is changing rapidly, and it is no longer under the reins of the Anglo-American establishment.
Of particular importance at the summit was the bilateral meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping. India has recently been hit with 50% tariffs from the United States—a favorite tool of the Americans used to bring other nations into subservience—so Modi’s decision to hold firm against the tariffs and instead strengthen relations with China takes on a very significant meaning. “The cooperation between us is linked to the interests of 2.8 billion people of our two nations,” Modi told Xi, adding that their cooperation will make the 21st century a genuine “Asian century.” For his part, Xi noted that “China and India are two ancient civilizations in the East,” and “the world’s two most populous countries.” Therefore, we should “enable each other’s success, and have the dragon and the elephant dance together.” Clearly, the threats from the West are having the opposite effect.
This kind of new and dynamic process is already reshaping the world, even as insanity and destruction from the West’s rules-based-disorder is disrupting it. It has now been confirmed that Israel assassinated the Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi along with other government ministers in Yemen last week, an attack that immediately garnered threats of retaliation. Only days earlier, European nations announced they would impose “snapback” sanctions on Iran, implicitly endorsing the insane escalatory policy of war against Iran. And in the background of this is the ongoing horrific genocide and forced displacement of Palestinians, who may only have weeks or days left of life. Beyond being criminal and inhuman, these events are threatening to throw this region into all-out chaos and war in the immediate period ahead.
The Tianjin summit, along with the upcoming Sep. 3-6 Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia, represents a perspective of economic development, cooperation, and an improving future for humanity. How different would the world be if Europe and the United States chose to cooperate with this growing dynamic instead of fighting it? How easily could these brutal conflicts be resolved, and lives saved? In the West, how would our populations change, if our budgets weren’t being spent on bombs, wars, and “rearming,” but rather on greening deserts, exporting high-speed rail, and supplying advanced nuclear power technology for the Global South? Could this kind of future-oriented perspective alleviate the West’s current epidemic of suicides, drug addiction, and mass shootings?
Humanity is at a crossroads, and it remains an open question whether we possess the moral fitness as a species to survive. But the doorway is there, and the path lit, to seize a different future and end the oligarchic policy of divide-and-rule forever.