On Sept. 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the “SCO Plus” Meeting in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and delivered an important speech titled “Jointly Advocating an Equal and Orderly Multipolar World and Making Global Governance More Just and Equitable.” The year 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), with Kyrgyzstan serving as its rotating chair. With the SCO marking this milestone anniversary and Kyrgyzstan holding the rotating chair, the 26th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO—the Bishkek SCO Summit—takes on particular significance and has drawn sustained attention from scholars in China and abroad.

Kyrgyzstan: From participant to convenor

Kyrgyzstan, like most SCO member states, is an active participant in the Belt and Road Initiative. Ismaeva Rakhima, deputy director of the Graduate School at Kyrgyz National University, closely followed the Bishkek SCO Summit. She said President Xi’s speech is both strategic and programmatic in nature. “Looking back on the SCO’s 25 years of development, he not only assesses its achievements but also outlines the key priorities for its future. The speech reflects concern about the current international situation.”

“The Bishkek Summit impressed me as a moment of institutional transition. It commemorated twenty-five years of the SCO while outlining a blueprint and defining its responsibilities for the coming decade,” Muhammad Asif Noor, director of the Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan, told CSST.

“Bishkek has witnessed a significant moment,” stated Kubatbek Rakhimov, chief executive officer of the Applicata – Centre for Strategic Solutions in Kyrgyzstan. He noted that while it is not unprecedented for Kyrgyzstan to host a state visit from China alongside an SCO summit—the same happened in 2019—this round of engagement carries greater substantive weight.

Shumkarbek Adilbek uulu, director of the National Institute of Strategic Initiatives under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, noted that the summit theme—“25 Years of the SCO: Together Toward Sustainable Peace, Development, and Prosperity”—echoes the Shanghai Spirit, characterized by mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for the diversity of civilizations, and pursuit of common development. The theme not only sets the tone for the summit but also captures its underlying logic: looking back on the SCO’s development in order to consider what exactly the organization must build over the next 25 years.

At the 2025 SCO Summit in Tianjin, China, the SCO’s rotating chairmanship passed to the Kyrgyz Republic. “Hosting the summit gives Kyrgyzstan a rare moment as convenor rather than participant, in a room that includes most of Eurasia’s major countries—that transition highlights the unique pivotal position of Kyrgyzstan in geopolitics, and means an important platform to seek greater voice in international cases,” Rakhimov remarked.

The presidential visit is expected to create new opportunities for further advancing China–Kyrgyzstan relations. Rakhimov anticipates concrete deliverables to cluster around three things: railway and border-crossing infrastructure, an expanded list of Kyrgyz agricultural exports cleared for the Chinese market, and deeper cooperation in newer areas like e-commerce and digital infrastructure.

SCO keeps expanding

Over the course of its development, the SCO has grown into one of the world’s major platforms for multilateral cooperation. It now comprises 10 member states, 2 observer states, and 15 dialogue partners, making it the world’s largest regional intergovernmental organization by geographic coverage and population. The SCO seeks to put the principle of sovereign equality into practice, enabling smaller landlocked countries to engage with major global economies on an equal footing in discussions of security and development. Rakhimov sees this as the SCO’s genuine contribution to the discourse of the Global South.

Sheradil Baktygulov, director of the Institute of World Politics of Kyrgyzstan, said that, as founding members, China and Kyrgyzstan have played a foundational role in SCO membership expansion and in shaping the SCO from a border security mechanism into a key platform for Eurasian cooperation. Their unique contributions are built on practical cooperation that amplifies the voice of the Global South and enhances the representation of developing countries in global governance.

“The first, and traditionally central, priority of the Kyrgyz chairmanship is ensuring long-term stability. The second priority of the chairmanship—realizing the potential of economic cooperation,” Adilbek uulu explained. “Kyrgyzstan has consistently promoted the establishment of an SCO Development Bank and the organization’s investment fund—mechanisms without which the SCO’s declared project ambitions remain unrealized.”

Noor recalled that the SCO emerged when regional countries chose to address border concerns, separatism, and extremism through confidence-building and consultation. That process transformed strategic uncertainty into institutional trust. He argued that the SCO’s greatest achievement is therefore wider than its influence. It has established a model through which countries with different political systems, cultural traditions, development experiences, and foreign policy priorities can pursue shared interests while preserving their own features.

China–Kyrgyzstan cooperation under the SCO framework has produced tangible results in recent years. Rakhima noted that a range of China-initiated cooperation programs have taken root in Kyrgyzstan. “Confucius Institutes, Luban Workshops, and the proposed China–SCO Basic Education Cooperation Center can become important platforms for training young professionals, sharing knowledge, and strengthening direct contacts between people.”

Shanghai Spirit aligns with GGI

In September 2025, at the “SCO Plus” Meeting in Tianjin, China first proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) to the international community. The initiative, conceived as a major global public good, has received widespread international recognition.

Rakhimov noted that the GGI’s five core concepts—“staying committed to sovereign equality, staying committed to international rule of law, staying committed to multilateralism, staying committed to the people-centered approach, and staying committed to real results”—closely align with the Shanghai Spirit. He said these principles hold particular practical significance for countries such as Kyrgyzstan, with the emphasis China places on sovereign equality resonating especially strongly across the Global South.

Baktygulov added that the China–Kyrgyzstan cooperation model offers an alternative model for state-to-state collaboration and that the SCO is increasingly becoming a new platform for developing countries to coordinate on global issues.

Baktygulov emphasized that the peoples of China and Kyrgyzstan alike yearn for prosperity, peace, and well-being. “China and Kyrgyzstan have elevated their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership for a new era. The foundation of this relationship rests on high political mutual trust and the alignment of their national development strategies. As a major country globally, China faces multiple tasks—ranging from the global to the national level,” he concluded, reflecting on the future of China–Kyrgyzstan relations.