Explore how the SCO Summit 2025 and China’s Victory Day parade highlight the shift toward multipolarity, the rising role of the Global South, and Pakistan’s strategic crossroads in regional politics and development.
SCO, Global South, and Pakistan’s Strategic Crossroads
The initial days of September 2025 marked a significant moment in contemporary global politics when China convened the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, followed by its Victory Day military parade in Beijing. These events demonstrated two complementary dimensions of statecraft: the institutional consolidation of multipolarity through regional organisations and the exhibition of hard power through military capabilities, particularly China’s nuclear triad. Together, they symbolised the erosion of unipolarity and the emergence of a more fluid multipolar system in which the Global South is increasingly relevant. Such writing examines the global implications of these developments, the opportunities they provide for the Global South, and their specific significance for Pakistan within the evolving balance of power.
The post-Cold War era was largely characterized by unipolarity, with the United States exercising dominance through military superiority, economic institutions, and normative frameworks. However, unipolar systems inherently provoke balancing behaviour, both through material means and institutional mechanisms. China’s actions in early September 2025 illustrate such a shift.
The Victory Day parade, which publicly showcased its intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear-capable bombers, demonstrated the consolidation of a credible nuclear triad. This was not merely ceremonial but an act of strategic signalling designed to establish deterrence credibility. The presence of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un alongside Xi Jinping amplified the symbolic message that escalation dominance no longer rests exclusively with Washington. Such demonstrations highlight the ongoing redistribution of capabilities that underpin multipolarity and alter the dynamics of the international security dilemma.
Parallel to the projection of military power, the SCO summit in Tianjin signified institutional balancing. Originally a regional security grouping, the SCO has gradually expanded its scope to encompass economic cooperation, development planning, and global governance initiatives. With Belarus joining as a full member, the organisation now accounts for approximately 42 percent of the global population, one-fourth of world GDP, and a vast geographic expanse across Eurasia.
The adoption of a ten-year development strategy, the Tianjin Declaration, and discussions of an SCO Development Bank indicate efforts to create alternative governance mechanisms that dilute the dominance of Western-led institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. For the Global South, the SCO provides an institutional platform to enhance policy autonomy, diversify economic partnerships, and pursue South-South cooperation outside the traditional orbit of Western conditionalities.
The credibility of such institutional initiatives rests upon China’s underlying material capabilities. Beyond symbolic leadership, China has invested in building extensive infrastructure networks, ultra-high-voltage power transmission systems, advanced logistics chains, and a technologically competent industrial workforce. This foundation of comprehensive national power underlies its competitive edge in electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, and digital platforms. Even under the pressure of Western tariffs and restrictive trade policies, this industrial depth allows China to remain a key supplier of affordable technology and industrial goods to the Global South. Such capacity enables developing states to accelerate industrial modernisation and energy transitions, thereby strengthening economic interdependence in ways that are less reliant on Western sources of capital and technology.
Another dimension of this evolving multipolarity is the recalibration of major regional powers such as India. While rivalry between Beijing and New Delhi remains, particularly over border disputes, U.S. tariffs have encouraged a pragmatic shift in India’s foreign policy calculus. The resumption of flights between the two states and the persistence of trade ties illustrate the move away from rigid bloc politics toward issue-based coalitions. This reflects the strategic practice of hedging, whereby states simultaneously compete and cooperate with multiple powers to preserve autonomy and maximise gains. For the Global South, such practices create bargaining leverage in multilateral negotiations and development partnerships, as no single hegemon can monopolise access or dictate outcomes unilaterally.
For Pakistan, the SCO summit carried particular significance through the reaffirmation of CPEC Phase-II. Whereas the first phase emphasised connectivity through roads, ports, and energy projects, the second phase is oriented toward industrial parks, agricultural modernisation, and renewable energy integration. This situates Pakistan at the intersection of geo-economics and regionalism, linking its domestic development to China’s industrial ecosystem and the SCO’s broader cooperative framework. In practice, this could translate into diversified trade routes, participation in regional value chains, and deeper economic interdependence with Central Asia.
Furthermore, the prospect of an SCO Development Bank provides Pakistan with an alternative financing channel, reducing reliance on traditional lenders. Engagement in SCO working groups also offers opportunities to standardise certification for exports in renewable technologies and electric vehicle components, thus expanding market access.
Nevertheless, the potential of these developments must be weighed against structural risks and constraints. The nuclear parade is likely to intensify the global security dilemma, prompting counter-balancing measures from the United States and its allies. Secondary sanctions remain a persistent threat for Global South states that lean excessively toward Beijing or Moscow. Internally, the SCO is characterised by heterogeneity and intra-bloc contradictions, particularly the enduring rivalry between India and Pakistan as well as Sino-Indian tensions.
These divergences could limit the organisation’s capacity for effective collective action. At the same time, China’s own economic trajectory faces challenges of overcapacity, demographic decline, and deflationary pressures, which may destabilise the sustainability of its global outreach. For Pakistan, persistent governance deficits, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and political instability further complicate its ability to fully capitalise on the opportunities presented by CPEC Phase-II and SCO membership.
Despite these constraints, the broader trajectory of the international system is shifting unmistakably toward multipolarity. Power is increasingly dispersed, not only militarily but also through economic and institutional dimensions. For the Global South, this transition creates unprecedented space for negotiating autonomy, diversifying partnerships, and influencing the evolving normative order of global governance. The challenge lies in translating structural opportunities into developmental outcomes through effective governance, credible policy frameworks, and pragmatic diplomacy.
The Summit 2025 reveal an international order in transition. China’s military parade and the SCO summit together symbolise the erosion of unipolarity and the consolidation of multipolarity through both hard power and institutional expansion. For the Global South, this transition opens opportunities to hedge, diversify, and assert a stronger voice in global governance. For Pakistan, the reaffirmation of CPEC Phase-II and engagement in the SCO mechanisms present concrete possibilities to integrate into regional value chains and reduce financial vulnerabilities.
Yet success will depend on the capacity to overcome domestic governance challenges and navigate the complex dynamics of great-power competition. The emerging order is neither predetermined nor entirely stable, but it provides space for agency. Those states that prepare institutions, build resilient economies, and engage constructively in multipolar negotiations will be better positioned to shape the rules of global politics in the coming decades.
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Ashfaq Ali Khan is a scholar of Political Science and International Relations, known for his insightful analyses of global political dynamics.