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When Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Tianjin last week for the 25th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), it marked not just another photo-op with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, but the latest milestone in India’s two-decade-long engagement with a body often dismissed as “talk-shop” but increasingly central to Eurasia’s geopolitics.
India and the SCO: A Cautious History
India’s relationship with the SCO has been a story of caution, calculation, and incremental gains. From its entry as an observer in 2005, to full membership in 2017 alongside Pakistan, New Delhi’s presence has often been motivated less by affinity and more by necessity: a need to engage Central Asia, to keep an eye on China’s growing influence, and to ensure that conversations on terrorism and connectivity do not bypass South Asia.
Hosting the summit in 2023 allowed Modi to spell out India’s “SECURE” vision, Security, Economic growth, Connectivity, Unity, Respect for sovereignty, and Environmental protection, an ambitious framework for a grouping not known for coherence.
This year’s Tianjin summit mattered for three reasons. One, it provided Modi and Xi their first face-to-face since 2018, a sign that New Delhi is prepared to cautiously reset ties after years of border stand-off and trade frictions. Two, it gave India a chance to re-anchor itself in Central Asia at a time when Western attention is consumed by Ukraine and the Middle East. Three, it allowed India to press its core demand: zero tolerance for terrorism, with no “double standards.”
Wins in Tianjin
The bilateral with Xi yielded some visible outcomes: resumption of direct flights, easing of visas, a partial lifting of export curbs, and even the reopening of pilgrim routes to Kailash-Mansarovar. Small steps, but politically loaded in a climate of mutual suspicion.
With Russia, the optics were more predictable but no less significant. Modi and Putin reaffirmed their “principle-based” partnership, underlining continuity even as Moscow leans more heavily on Beijing. For India, keeping the Russia channel warm ensures both energy security and a reminder to the West that New Delhi still plays multiple boards.
At the SCO plenary, Modi framed the grouping as a platform of “Security, Connectivity, and Opportunity,” pointedly flagging the Pahalgam massacre and warning against selective blindness to terrorism. He also proposed a Civilisational Dialogue Forum, signalling that India wants to inject cultural depth into a forum long dominated by hard security and trade rhetoric.
Successes Worth Noting
The immediate takeaway is that India has shown it can leverage SCO platforms for tangible wins without being subsumed by Chinese or Russian agendas. The diplomatic reset with Beijing, however tentative, was only possible in this setting.
Equally, Modi’s refusal to dilute India’s red lines on terrorism signals a more confident posture. Just weeks ago, India blocked a defence ministers’ statement that omitted references to the Pahalgam attack. In Tianjin, he reinforced that red line, ensuring that terror cannot be airbrushed out of multilateral scripts.
The Cautions
But the very stage that delivers opportunity also demands caution.
First, the SCO’s institutional ambitions, an SCO development bank, a global energy platform, even proposals for shared digital infrastructure, sound bold but rest on weak foundations. Divergent national interests and the lack of enforcement mechanisms risk producing more bureaucracy than breakthroughs.
Second, the optics problem. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Xi and Putin, at a summit where China pushes an anti-Western narrative, carries its own signalling risks. India thrives on ambiguity, but too much visual alignment with an “anti-West” bloc can erode credibility with the U.S. and Europe at precisely the moment when supply-chain and tech collaborations are deepening.
Third, and most delicate, is China. The resumption of flights and trade talks are positives, but they do not erase the structural imbalances, India’s ballooning trade deficit, border tensions, or Beijing’s water projects in Tibet that threaten downstream ecology. A handshake in Tianjin does not translate into trust in Arunachal. Strategic optimism must not slip into strategic naivety.
The Road Ahead
India’s SCO journey, from observer status in 2005 to proactive participant in 2025, mirrors the arc of its broader foreign policy: engage, hedge, and keep autonomy intact. The Tianjin summit affirmed that India can sit at the same table with adversaries and partners alike, extracting value while holding its ground.
Yet the lesson from SCO 2025 is also one of restraint. Multilateralism in Eurasia is messy, sometimes adversarial, often performative. For India, the challenge is not to transform the SCO but to use it: selectively, surgically, and without illusions.
The payoff lies in balance: deepening ties with Central Asia, safeguarding against terrorism, engaging China without conceding leverage, and signalling to the West that India’s multipolar diplomacy is principled, not promiscuous.
India can afford to walk with giants. But it must always walk on its own terms.
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