Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday to attend a summit hosted by Xi Jinping with around 20 other world leaders.
The SCO summit is ongoing in the port city until Monday, just a few days before a massive military parade, likely in the capital, Beijing, to mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War on Wednesday.
The SCO includes major world powers from the south and southeast, as well as the Central Asian republics, extending to Eurasian countries such as Belarus, which is part of this bloc.
Two of the major members of this bloc, China and Russia, have often described the SCO as a counterweight to the NATO military alliance.
In an interview on Saturday, Putin said the summit would "strengthen the SCO's capacity to respond to contemporary challenges and threats and consolidate solidarity across the shared Eurasian space".
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“The SCO will help shape a fairer, balanced multipolar world order, which is not concentrated on the sole superpower, the United States, since the world has moved far away from the concept of a unipolar world order dominated by the West for centuries,” he said.
Additionally, both economic and military powers have described NATO as a challenge for the civilised world, as Article 5 of NATO states that if any country is attacked, it will be considered an attack on the entire bloc.
Russia and China are of the view that this very article is dangerous and could push countries towards a Third World War.
Meanwhile, more than 20 leaders, including Iranian and Turkish presidents Masoud Pezeshkian and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will attend the bloc's largest meeting since its founding in 2001.
"The large-scale participation indicates China's growing influence and the SCO's appeal as a platform for non-Western countries," said Dylan Loh, an assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.
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