Xi Charts ‘Major-Power Diplomacy’ After SCO, BRICS Summits
Chinese state media published a sweeping commentary on China’s foreign policy, casting President Xi Jinping’s back-to-back attendance at the 2026 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS summits as evidence that the rise of the Global South and a multipolar world order are “unstoppable.”
The piece, published by the official Xinhua News Agency on September 17 under the title “The Right Path Stretches Thousands of Miles,” is a reflective reporter’s notebook rather than a straight news report. Its framing reflects the official Chinese perspective and is not independently verified.
A Dense Diplomatic Itinerary
According to the Xinhua commentary, Xi attended the 2026 SCO summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and paid state visits to Kyrgyzstan and Egypt between August 30 and September 3, before traveling to New Delhi, India, for the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit on September 12–13.
A separate chronicle published by the People’s Daily via CCTV dates the Kyrgyzstan and Egypt legs of the trip to August 30–September 2. Xinhua described the roughly two-week span, which crossed Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia, as an itinerary “radiating across regions.”
Ahead of the Bishkek summit, the state broadcaster CCTV also previewed the visit, noting the SCO gathering would run from August 30 to September 3 and framing China-Kyrgyzstan ties around a local proverb: “Brotherhood is worth more than any wealth.”
SCO: 25 Years, 27 Nations
The Bishkek summit marked the 25th anniversary of the SCO, founded in Shanghai in 2001. Xinhua said the organization has grown from six founding members to 27 countries spanning Asia, Europe and Africa, covering nearly half the world’s population and about a quarter of global economic output.
The summit, themed “25 Years of the SCO: Jointly Committed to Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity,” focused on implementing the SCO’s 2026–2035 Development Strategy approved at the previous year’s Tianjin summit. Delegates issued the Bishkek Declaration and revised the SCO Charter.
China also released an action outcomes list containing 153 “early harvest” items, according to the commentary. Quoting Xi, Xinhua said the SCO’s “greatest development achievement” was becoming “a new type of regional cooperation organization with the world’s largest area, largest population and greatest development potential.”
BRICS and the ‘Global South’
The New Delhi summit coincided with the 20th anniversary of the BRICS cooperation mechanism. Xinhua said the bloc represents nearly half the world’s population, about 30 percent of global GDP and more than 50 percent of world economic growth.
The commentary tied both summits to a broader theme: the growing weight of emerging economies. It cited Xi’s remark that “the Global South is rising prominently, and world multipolarity is unstoppable,” noting that over the past 40 years the Global South’s share of global economic output rose from 24 percent to more than 40 percent.
On the sidelines of the BRICS summit, Xi met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, part of what Xinhua described as efforts to move China-India relations from a “fresh start” to a “further upgrade.”
Bilateral Deals and a Middle East Proposal
The tour produced several bilateral agreements. Xinhua reported that China and Kyrgyzstan issued a joint declaration on a “comprehensive strategic partnership in the new era” and formally signed a treaty on permanent good-neighborly friendship and cooperation. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov called the relationship a “golden period” at an “all-time high.”
In Egypt, the two sides issued a joint statement deepening their comprehensive strategic partnership and committing to building a “China-Egypt community with a shared future.” Egypt was the first Arab and African country to recognize the People’s Republic of China, with 70 years of relations.
During the visit, Xi proposed a four-point initiative on building a “new Middle East security architecture,” urging support for regional countries developing good-neighborly relations and a “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable” security outlook.
What to Watch
The commentary is part of a series of state-media retrospectives framing Xi’s summer diplomacy as steady and principled amid a shifting global order. Key questions remain open: whether the SCO’s expansion translates into concrete collective action, how far BRICS can coordinate on economic policy, and whether China’s Middle East security proposal gains regional traction.
For now, Beijing’s message is one of continuity. As Xinhua put it, quoting a Xi line about the world’s great rivers: their forward momentum “is something no one can stop.”