Overview
- Leaders from about twenty countries and representatives of international organizations convened in Tianjin for the largest OCS gathering to date, often presented as a counterweight to NATO and representing nearly half the world’s population and about 23–24% of global GDP.
- Vladimir Putin reiterated that the Ukraine crisis stems from a Western-backed coup and scheduled separate meetings on Monday with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Iran’s Massoud Pezeshkian and India’s Narendra Modi.
- Xi Jinping and Putin are due to hold talks in Beijing on Tuesday following the summit’s opening session in Tianjin.
- Signals of a China–India thaw included a public Xi–Modi handshake and discussions on resuming direct flights suspended since 2020.
- China has slated a grand military parade in Beijing on Wednesday for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which participants including Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un are expected to attend.