PM Modi in Bishkek today: What is SCO, who are its members and why does the summit matter for India | Explained

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Kyrgyzstan, where he is attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit and hold a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

Modi is visiting Kyrgyzstan at the invitation of President Sadyr Zhaparov to participate in the 26th SCO Summit from 31 August to 1 September.

The 10-member SCO is marking 25 years of the organisation. The regional organisation was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with India and Pakistan joining as full members in 2017, followed by Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024.

Modi is expected to hold bilateral meetings with SCO leaders, including with Kyrgyz President Zhaparov and Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of the summit.

In his departure statement on Saturday, Modi said he looked forward to advancing India's vision for the region, anchored in "security, connectivity and opportunity, and to working with fellow members for a region free from the scourge of terrorism, separatism and extremism, which continue to threaten peace and stability".

What is Shanghai Cooperation Organisation?

The SCO has ten member states with a combined territory of about 36 million square kilometres and a population of over 3.4 billion, according to its website.

The organisation represents about 25% of global GDP and over 15% of international trade. The SCO countries are developing long-term relations of good-neighbourliness, friendship and cooperation in the spheres of mutual interest based on the universally recognised principles and norms of international law.

The SCO’s legal framework includes agreements on confidence-building in the military sphere and on the mutual reduction of armed forces in the border area signed between Kazakhstan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, and Tajikistan in 1996 and 1997. The mechanism of regular meetings of the five countries’ leaders is known as the Shanghai Five.

The necessity of transforming the Shanghai Five into a regional structure for multilateral cooperation across various spheres was set out in the Dushanbe Declaration of the heads of Kazakhstan, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia and Tajikistan, signed on 4 July 2000.

Later that year, Uzbekistan joined the five countries.

The SCO's history began on 15 June 2001, when the heads of the six countries above adopted a historic decision to establish the SCO at their meeting in Shanghai, China.

On 7 June 2002, the SCO leaders signed the SCO Charter, the organisation's fundamental document, at their summit in St Petersburg. It entered into force on 19 September 2003 and was registered with the UN Secretariat on 1 February 2013.

Overall, the SCO’s international legal framework comprises over 25 agreements and regulations, including the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the SCO (registered with the UN Secretariat on 4 January 2010), the Agreement on the Procedure for the Formation and Execution of the SCO Budget, the Agreement on Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (signed simultaneously with the SCO Charter), and regulations on SCO bodies and personnel, as well as financial regulations and rules.

Why SCO matters?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-way handshake with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the 2025 SCO summit in Tianjin, China, went viral across the global media.

The optics of the image were powerful because it came amid the Donald Trump-led US administration’s relentless pressure on India over trade and its purchases of Russian oil, writes C Raja Mohan, a columnist and a former member of India’s National Security Advisory Board in Foreign Policy.

Soon after the viral photo, President Trump declared that the United States appeared to have “lost” India and Russia to China. “The images intensified an argument in Washington over who lost India and reinforced the case for political reengagement with the Modi government, slowly but steadily stabilising the relationship,” Mohan wrote.

The SCO will focus on regional stability, economic integration, transport connectivity, and digitalisation, Mohan writes. Measured against the Trump administration’s chaos and political disarray in the West, the China-led SCO will look more productive and purposeful, he says.

PM Modi's global outreach

Over the past year, PM Modi has significantly stepped up his diplomatic outreach, travelling extensively to strengthen existing partnerships and forge new ones as India seeks to navigate growing global economic and geopolitical uncertainty, a New York Times report said.

PM Modi has visited at least 20 countries since August 2025, with several of his engagements focused on securing concrete economic and strategic outcomes, the report said. The outreach comes as India seeks to diversify its partnerships and reduce its exposure to disruptions stemming from US trade policies unleashed by President Trump, as well as wider geopolitical tensions.

India's role at SCO?

India has been a member of the SCO since 2017, and Delhi’s priorities in the SCO are based on what it espoused at the 2018 summit – a ‘SECURE’ SCO, i.e., Security; Economy and Trade; Connectivity; Unity; Respect for Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity.

During its membership, India has held the chair of the SCO Council of Heads of Government in 2020 and of the SCO Council of Heads of State during 2022-2023.

India, however, might not be too comfortable with China's growing dominance in the forum, but it would want to make the best of the bilateral diplomatic opportunities presented by the summit, which is attended by a large section of leaders from Inner Asia, according to Mohan.

“Rubbing shoulders regularly with a range of leaders, especially Xi amid structural tensions in the India-China relationship, has become one of the principal utilities of the SCO for India. New Delhi became a full member in 2017 after years of seeking entry. But whereas the SCO has emerged as a valuable venue for Indian diplomacy, it has become less interesting as an instrument for promoting Indian interests in Asia,” he wrote in Foreign Policy.

US-Iran War imprint

The US-Iran relationship, and its impact on geopolitics, are also expected to figure in the discussions, especially since Iran is a member of the SCO.

While PM Modi is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, he is also likely to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping. PM Modi is scheduled to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the summit, Iran's state-run IRNA News Agency reported on Monday.

The war that followed US and Israeli strikes against Iran in February this year has become a global talking point on the respect for “sovereignty and territorial integrity”. For India, connectivity with Central Asia through Iran has been of great interest, according to the Indian Express.

The list of outcomes at the SCO would likely include thematic statements on Strengthening the Multilateral Partnership for Nuclear Safety and Security, Cooperation in Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency, Preventive Diplomacy, and Assistance to States affected by Emergency (disaster) Situations. Information (media) Sphere, according to sources quoted by the Indian Express.