SCO urged to play more active role

President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday that in the face of a turbulent and changing international landscape, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization must play a more proactive role in injecting greater stability and positive energy into the world.

Xi made the remarks during a meeting in Beijing with heads of foreign delegations who are in China to attend the Meeting of the Council of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of SCO Member States in Tianjin.

"Over the past 24 years since its founding, the SCO has always upheld the Shanghai Spirit, grown into a mature and robust organization and demonstrated strong vitality," Xi said.

China has always prioritized the SCO in its neighborhood diplomacy, and is committed to making the organization more substantive and stronger, safeguarding regional security and stability, promoting the development and prosperity of member states, and building a closer community with a shared future, Xi said.

He added that since China assumed the SCO's rotating presidency last July, it has actively carried out activities and advanced cooperation, with all parties taking solid steps to jointly build a better home for the organization.

"I look forward to meeting with other leaders of SCO member states in Tianjin to discuss the future development of the SCO," Xi said.

China announced on Tuesday that the SCO Tianjin Summit will be held from Aug 31 to Sept 1.

The organization should respond to the people's aspirations and be the doer in deepening cooperation, Xi said, calling for improving mechanisms to address security threats and challenges, better aligning member states' development strategies with cooperation initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, and facilitating personnel exchanges and people-to-people ties.

After the meeting with Xi, foreign ministers of SCO member states and heads of the organization's standing bodies gathered in Tianjin on Tuesday for the Meeting of the SCO Foreign Ministers Council.

During the meeting, participants exchanged views on SCO cooperation and major international and regional issues. Following the discussions, they signed a series of resolutions, including a development plan outlining the SCO's strategic goals for the next 10 years and drafts of a series of documents to be signed or approved at the upcoming Tianjin summit.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed on Tuesday the significance of the upcoming summit and highlighted key areas of cooperation and development within the SCO framework. Emphasizing that the SCO Tianjin Summit is a top priority for China as the rotating chair of the SCO, Wang said that more than 20 heads of state and chiefs of 10 international organizations are expected to attend various events during the summit.

SCO Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev said the foreign ministers' meeting was a fruitful one, noting that all sides engaged in in-depth discussions on a wide range of topics, including both global and regional issues.

Li Lifan, director of the Center for SCO Studies at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said that "the SCO has charted a distinct path to promoting global governance, serving as a key anchor for stability and certainty".

The organization is playing an increasingly important role in global governance, as it is committed to addressing both traditional and nontraditional security threats, championing equitable and inclusive globalization, opposing unilateral sanctions and tariff-based suppression, and steadfastly supporting multilateralism, Li said.