There is nothing official about it. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has been in existence since June 2001 and this was its 25th Summit. But the buzz around the summit held in Tianjin, China from August 31 - September 1, 2025 has all the makings of a compact of nation states joining hands to face the common hegemon, the United States. In a way, the circumstances in the weeks leading to the event and the optics emerging from the summit indicate that this may herald the arrival of a visible challenger to the US led NATO.

The circumstances in the weeks leading to the event and the optics emerging from the summit indicate that this may herald the arrival of a visible challenger to the US led NATO.

From Regional Forum to Global Counterweight

The RIC, the centrepiece Russia-India-China trio that dominate the BRICS comity of ten members and ten partner nations, out of compelling circumstances, signalled their desire in this SCO summit to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that the freedom of the US to unilaterally lay down the agenda as per its own version of a "Rule Based World Order" is over. The limitations of American power to influence global trade and transit through a variety of instruments such as the SWIFT international payments settlement system, the stranglehold over shipping insurance and commodities trade through the London Metal Exchange and the Chicago Commodity Exchange and the sway of petrodollar in oil trade, have all been exposed in the three years since the launch of the "Special Military Operations" by Russia on February 24, 2022. The US led West not only confiscated $600 billion Russian money parked in European banks, as of August 15, 2025, have imposed some 23,960 sanctions since February 2022 adding to the prior existing 2,695 sanctions imposed since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. Yet not only has Russia continued to grow at a healthy three per cent, it continues to pump its oil, finding new buyers in discounted prices in China and India.

Tariffs, Trade Wars, and Rising Tensions

US President Donald Trump had boasted of putting an end to the Ukraine conflict on Day 1 of his Presidency, if not before that. The desperate attempt at the Alaska summit on August 15, 2025 has come and gone, decisively shattering the bluff and bluster of the self-proclaimed claimant to this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Outside his own sycophantic cabinet, rogue radical Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir has been his most enthusiastic co-sponsor. Left licking his wounds, Trump has found a new target, India.

It's another matter that US trade with Russia has grown by a whopping 23 per cent in the period January-May 2025 after Trump assumed office. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

Humiliated by India's forceful denial that he had any role to play in the truce after four days of Operation Sindoor that battered Pakistani air defences, militant camps, airfield and nuclear command centres apart from unspecified casualties to American personnel and assets, Trump has doubled down on tariffs. Having failed to force India to open up her markets to US agri-business including GM crops and dairy, Trump first imposed a 25 per cent tariff and slapped another 25 per cent effective August 27, 2025 for continuing to buy Russian oil (though China which buys more Russian oil than India faces only 30 per cent tariffs). Brazil, another key member of BRICS is the only other country to face a 50 per cent tariff barrier.

Days after dubbing Russia's invasion of Ukraine as "Modi's war," Trump's henchman who doubles as his trade adviser, Peter Navarro is ranting that Washington's punitive tariffs on New Delhi are not just about "unfair trade," but about cutting Moscow's "financial lifelines," claiming that money from India's crude purchases flows directly into President Putin's "war chest." It's another matter that US trade with Russia has grown by a whopping 23 per cent in the period January-May 2025 after Trump assumed office and the administration is negotiating with Putin to take back American oil giant Exxon to Sakhalin. Also, Ukraine this year has purchased a whopping 15 per cent of its diesel from India which basically is refined Russian crude. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

India's Strategic Choices Amid US Pressure

India does not have the kind of leverages that China has such as near monopoly in rare earth elements and magnets with which it can have crippling effect on a host of American automotive, info-tech, space and military industrial activities. So while the Trump administration is engaged in a grand bargaining with China, it thinks it is fine to kick India. Only that the Trump administration has grossly underestimated the resolve and economic resilience of India and will soon come to realise how it has effectively pushed India into closer embrace with Russia and renewed a vigour to repair its troubled ties with Beijing. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India on August 19 and indicated willingness to close ranks in the build up to the Tianjin summit. During the two-day visit to the SCO Summit, Prime Minister Modi not only held a bilateral with President Xi Jinping but significantly has a separate deliberation with Politburo Standing Committee member Cai Qi.

Trump administration has grossly underestimated the resolve and economic resilience of India and will soon come to realise how it has effectively pushed India into closer embrace with Russia and renewed a vigour to repair its troubled ties with Beijing.

There are many ifs and buts about how much can India and China overcome past differences. There is the nagging boundary settlement. In Op Sindoor, Chinese military integration with Pakistani army was in full view. So India will have to tread carefully. But the push to negotiate may be mutual this time considering that the $64 billion CPEC project in Pakistan is in virtual limbo and China may find it more useful to hedge its bets should the US dollar go into a free fall and its export-dependent manufacturing base starts asphyxiating.

With Russia though, the relationship may have got a big boost. Prime Minister Modi and President Putin travelling in the latter's limousine together for their bilateral meeting, after the SCO summit, was great optics as are talks to co-produce futuristic Su-57 5th generation fighter jets as India jettisons any plans for American F-35.

Covering 40 per cent of world's population and 20 per cent of its GDP, the SCO more or less overlaps with the BRICS in terms of its members and partner countries, may be emerging as the new face of resistance to American hegemony

SCO and BRICS: Towards a New Bloc?

The SCO currently has nine countries as full members, three have an observer status, and fourteen countries have a dialogue partner status. Covering 40 per cent of world's population and 20 per cent of its GDP, the SCO more or less overlaps with the BRICS in terms of its members and partner countries, may be emerging as the new face of resistance to American hegemony.

It is important to recall that while the NATO was created on April 4, 1949, as a counter weight to the Soviet armies stationed in central and eastern Europe after WW II, the Warsaw pact itself took shape in May 1954, when the Soviets under Nikita Khrushchev sent the letters of intent for NATO membership but was rejected by the US led West. Now the wholly unjustified and unlawful tariff war unleashed by Trump may be nudging the SCO in tandem with the BRICS to emerge as a counterweight to G7 and the NATO.