SCO: Vietnam’s first participation in Xi's summit, in the shadow of Russia and India
Some 22 heads of state and government will attend the "expanded" summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in Tianjin opening tomorrow. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính will attend as China's “invited guest”. The meeting will focus on growing economic co-operation but also competition in the South China Sea.
Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The world's spotlight will be on Tianjin tomorrow, where the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit will take place.
Set up in 2001 for economic and security cooperation between Russia, China, and four Central Asian republics, the organisation was turned under Chinese President Xi Jinping into a much broader entity in recent years, a reflection of Eurasia's new role on the global stage.
India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017, followed by Iran and Belarus, while another fifteen countries enjoy observer or dialogue partner status.
This major multilateral forum led by Beijing is the centre of particular attention, not only for the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin (just days after the inconclusive summit with Donald Trump on Ukraine), but above all for the return to China after six years of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a visible symbol of the rapprochement with Xi Jinping forced upon him by US tariffs, which are severely impacting India.
For the SCO, the upcoming Tianjin summit is also marked by an important first, namely the presence of Vietnam’s Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, as China’s “invited guest”. Until this year, Vietnam had stayed away.
This is a clear sign that mainland China is paying close attention to its relationship with its southern neighbour, which is emerging as major force in Southeast Asia, and whose “bamboo diplomacy” has shown that it can manage things with Beijing while quickly striking deals with US President Donald Trup on tariffs.
Local authorities are highlighting in Vietnamese media the country's rise in international relations through Phạm Minh Chính’s participation in the Tianjin summit, as well as the results of renewed economic co-operation with China, cemented in April by Xi Jinping's visit to Hanoi.
Vietnam is now China's fourth-largest trading partner after the United States, Japan, and South Korea. As of January 2025, China's foreign direct investment in Vietnam reached US$ 31.26 billion in 5,195 active projects, ranking sixth among 149 foreign investors.
In the first seven months of 2025, more than 3.1 million Chinese tourists visited Vietnam, representing 25.5 per cent of total international arrivals, the largest share of any source market.
Bilateral relations are not, however, frictionless. The main one concerns the South China Sea, where Vietnam has challenged China’s "nine-dash line”, a boundary Beijing arbitrarily set that includes the Spratly Islands, a hundred or so atolls located in a strategic area for international shipping, which Vietnam also claims.
Just a few days ago, a new report from the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative confirmed, using satellite imagery from MAXAR and Planet Labs, that Vietnam too has been engaged for months in a frenetic island-building race in the South China Sea, a mirror image of Beijing's own efforts.
“As of March 2025, Vietnam had created about 70 per cent as much artificial land in the Spratlys as China had,” the report reads. “Reclamation at these eight new features all but ensures that Vietnam will match – and likely surpass – the scale of Beijing’s island-building,” it added.
China is currently keeping a low profile, to prevent Vietnam from aligning with the Philippines, with which it has long been at loggerheads in the South China Sea. The issue remains a problem for Beijing, and bringing Hanoi to the SCO is likely one way of addressing it.
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