Xi, Putin and Iran's Leadership Meet in Bishkek as Europe Confronts Washington at the Group of 20

Two summits took place at the same time this week and offered contrasting views of who organizes the global economy. The New York Times reported that Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with the leaders of Russia and Iran while European governments challenged the Trump administration at the Group of 20 meeting, a split that reflects a changing world order.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation held the 26th meeting of its Council of Heads of State in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, on 31 August and 1 September, marking the organisation's 25th year. Its ten members are China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. At that meeting the organisation named Lahore its tourism and cultural capital for 2026-27, a symbolic decision that Pakistan's government has treated as recognition.

The membership list is the substance. The organisation includes the world's second largest economy, its largest energy exporter under sanctions, and an Iran currently exchanging strikes with the United States. That makes it a forum where sanctioned states and their trading partners participate together. Antara reported that Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto will attend the 11th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok as guest of honour, which places the largest economy in Southeast Asia at a Russian investment event during an active sanctions regime.

None of this amounts to a rival monetary system. What it amounts to is the political preparation for one: settlement arrangements, energy contracts and transport links negotiated among states that have concluded the dollar-clearing system carries a policy risk they would rather not run. That process unfolds over years rather than in a single news cycle, and each summit adds another arrangement to it.