SCO Foreign Ministers Meet as Internal Rifts Deepen

(L–R) Defence ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan pose for a group photo during the SCO Defence Ministers' Meeting in Qingdao, China, on June 26, 2025. (Photo: Pedro Pardo/AFP)

The nine foreign ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will meet this week in the Chinese coastal city of Tianjin. It’s a bit hard to believe that this is a group that’s almost 25 years old now, since it has few, if any, notable achievements.

But that may not be the point of the SCO. It could be like the BRICS, which was founded to serve more as a forum to air out anti-Western grievances than to create tangible policy outcomes. And if that is the case, then that’s legitimate given the outsized importance grievance plays in today’s politics.

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by Eric Olander

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