Moving forward hand in hand on the vast Eurasian continent: A look ahead to President Xi Jinping's attendance at the SCO summit and state visits to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan

In the midsummer, the Ishim River flowing through Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, is full of greenery, and Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, located in the Gizar Basin, overlooks the towering snow-capped mountains. From July 2 to 6, Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 24th Meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Astana, and pay state visits to the two countries at the invitation of Kazakh President Tokayev and Tajik President Rahmon.

On the vast Eurasian continent, countries have a long history of exchanges, similar development tasks, and closely linked destinies. During this SCO summit, President Xi Jinping will discuss development plans with leaders of regional countries, build consensus on cooperation, and inject more positive energy and new impetus into maintaining peace and prosperity on the Eurasian continent and the world.

From attending the SCO Samarkand Summit in September 2022 and paying state visits to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to hosting the first China-Central Asia Summit in Xi'an in May 2023, President Xi Jinping has maintained close communication with leaders of many Central Asian countries on international and regional issues of common concern over the past two years, promoting the continuous deepening of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in various fields. China and the five Central Asian countries have achieved full coverage of the comprehensive strategic partnership and full coverage of the practice of a community with a shared future for mankind at the bilateral level.

This visit is another major diplomatic activity carried out by China towards Central Asian countries and the Eurasian continent. During his visit to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, President Xi Jinping will discuss cooperation in various fields between China and Kazakhstan and China and Tajikistan with President Tokayev and President Rahmon, jointly draw up a new blueprint for the development of bilateral relations, and promote the building of a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

In early June, the signing ceremony of the intergovernmental agreement of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project was held in Beijing. This highly anticipated railway is turning from a concept into reality, showing the international community the firm determination of the three countries to work together to promote cooperation and seek common development. After completion, it will not only benefit the people of the three countries, but also vigorously promote regional connectivity.

The cooperation between many SCO member states and China in building the Belt and Road Initiative started early and has achieved many results. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway is the latest example of the "Shanghai Spirit" leading the "SCO family" to unite, cooperate, open up and win-win.

This is the Horgos Railway Port transfer yard photographed on April 18, 2024. Photo by reporter Zhao Ge

23 years ago, the SCO was established in response to the desire of regional countries to jointly promote friendship, safeguard security and seek common development. Adhering to the "Shanghai Spirit" with "mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations and pursuit of common development" as its basic content, the SCO has a growing circle of friends, from the initial "Shanghai Five" to 9 member states, 3 observer states and 14 dialogue partners. The member states account for nearly half of the world's population and about a quarter of the world's total economic output. The development of the SCO is a vivid portrayal of the "Shanghai Spirit" and also demonstrates the vitality of the "Shanghai Spirit".

Since 2013, President Xi Jinping has attended the SCO summit every year and delivered important speeches, providing ideological guidance for the development and growth of the SCO.

Faced with the complex and profound international situation and major global challenges, President Xi Jinping has continuously enriched and improved the contemporary connotation of the "Shanghai Spirit" with the "China Solution". "In the past, we have achieved great success in practicing the 'Shanghai Spirit', and in the future we will continue to uphold the 'Shanghai Spirit' all the way forward." President Xi Jinping said in a sonorous voice.

From proposing China's outlook on development, security, cooperation, civilization, and global governance, to building a "health community", "security community", "development community", and "human community", and then to elaborating on the essence of global development initiatives, global security initiatives, and global civilization initiatives... President Xi Jinping has always advocated promoting the SCO to move forward steadily under the guidance of the "Shanghai Spirit" in the grand pattern of common human development.

Maintaining regional peace and ensuring common security are the foundation of the SCO.

In recent years, the SCO member states have carried out efficient cooperation in the fields of jointly combating the "three forces", jointly curbing the spread of drugs, protecting data security, and maintaining outer space security, and their ability to resolve regional security risks has been continuously improved. On May 20, 2024, the China-Shanghai Cooperation Organization International Judicial Exchange and Cooperation Training Base was unveiled 10 years ago. It has conducted 65 online and offline training courses of various types, and trained 2,341 foreign trainees, mainly from SCO member states and other countries along the Belt and Road.

Focusing on pragmatic cooperation and accelerating economic recovery are the driving forces for the SCO's development.

Since the establishment of the SCO, the scale of trade among member states has continued to expand, and investment cooperation has been actively promoted. The "Trade Development Report of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 20 Years Ago" released in 2022 shows that the total trade value of SCO member states has increased nearly 100 times in 20 years, and its share of global trade has increased from 5.4% in 2001 to 17.5% in 2020. The global trade influence of SCO member states continues to increase.

This year marks the beginning of the second golden decade of jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative. China will work with all parties to promote high-quality integration of the Belt and Road Initiative with the development strategies of various countries with more pragmatic and efficient actions, build more cooperation platforms, create more development opportunities, and allow the fruits of cooperation to benefit more people.

Strengthening exchanges and mutual learning and promoting mutual understanding among peoples are the warm background of the SCO.

On April 15, 2024, young students coming to China to participate in the 2024 "Chinese Bridge" SCO Youth Students Spring Camp learned tea art under the guidance of students from Xinjiang Normal University. Photo by reporter Wang Fei

As spring comes and flowers bloom, the 2024 "Chinese Bridge" SCO Youth Student Spring Camp was held in Xinjiang. While experiencing the beauty of China, many young people "linked" their life dreams with China. During the summer harvest season, Nasim Adnan, a Pakistani student at Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, harvested wheat in the fields and accumulated experimental data with his Chinese classmates. This university took the international cooperative training of agricultural science and technology talents as a breakthrough point and took the lead in establishing the SCO Member States Agricultural Universities Alliance. 21 universities from 8 SCO countries have joined. Cultural Year, Tourism Year, Ecological Year, Youth Day and other activities have been held one after another, and the SCO people-to-people exchange tree is flourishing.

Bolat Nurgaliyev, former Secretary-General of the SCO, said that China's cooperation with all parties in jointly building the "Belt and Road" has achieved fruitful results, greatly promoting the connectivity and social and economic development of regional countries. This is the best example of equal cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win results among countries, and "is also an important manifestation of the 'Shanghai Spirit'."

Sun Zhuangzhi, director of the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that President Xi Jinping's visit will, as always, unite the SCO's people to work together in solidarity, stimulate the SCO's potential, promote the quality and upgrade of cooperation in various fields such as economy, security, and humanities, and inject more positive energy into world peace and development.

Building a new “golden thirty years” for China-Kazakhstan relations

In mid-June, the sun was blazing in Horgos, Xinjiang, and the China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center was bustling with people. Merchants came to purchase goods and negotiate cooperation, and tourists came to check in at the "border line". People of different languages ​​and attire met and got to know each other here, and exchanged ideas.

These lively scenes are a microcosm of the ongoing exchanges and cooperation between China and its friendly neighbors in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

On April 19, 2024, tourists from Kazakhstan entered China to shop at the China-Kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center. Photo by reporter Chen Shuo

China and Kazakhstan share a common border of more than 1,700 kilometers, and the two peoples have a history of friendly exchanges for thousands of years. "China and Kazakhstan are good neighbors, good friends, and good partners," President Xi Jinping described the deep friendship between the two countries in his congratulatory letter to the opening ceremony of the 2024 China "Kazakhstan Tourism Year" in March this year.

The strategic guidance of the heads of state is the political advantage and distinctive feature of China-Kazakhstan relations. In September 2013, it was in Kazakhstan that President Xi Jinping first proposed the initiative of jointly building the "Silk Road Economic Belt", and the grand picture of the Silk Road in the new era was thus drawn. The cooperation in jointly building the "Belt and Road" has brought new vitality to the Silk Road friendship between China and Kazakhstan that has lasted for thousands of years.

In June 2017, during his state visit to Kazakhstan, President Xi Jinping said: “No matter what difficulties and challenges we encounter, the concept of friendship between China and Kazakhstan will not change.”

In September 2022, President Xi Jinping visited Kazakhstan again. President Tokayev went to the airport to greet him and held a grand welcome ceremony at the Presidential Palace, awarding President Xi Jinping the Order of the Golden Eagle, the highest honorary medal in Kazakhstan. The two heads of state announced their efforts to build a community with a shared future for China and Kazakhstan with everlasting friendship, high mutual trust, and shared weal and woe.

In 2023, the two heads of state met twice, from Xi'an to Beijing. Both countries are at a critical stage of development and revitalization, and are working together to create a new "golden thirty years" for China-Kazakhstan relations.

China-Kazakhstan practical cooperation in various fields has achieved fruitful results and continues to benefit the people of both countries.

On May 12, 2023, near Almaty, Kazakhstan, a freight train ran between Almaty and Horgos, China.

China and Kazakhstan have successfully built an all-round, three-dimensional interconnection network. The two countries have opened two cross-border railway trunk lines and multiple pairs of road ports that are open all year round, like a "golden channel" on the Eurasian continent. On the whizzing China-Europe trains, electromechanical equipment, electronic products, agricultural and sideline products, daily necessities and other "Made in China" products pass through Kazakhstan and are transferred to the Central Asian and European markets. Ferroalloys, fertilizers and other raw materials and products produced in Kazakhstan are transported to the China-Kazakhstan Lianyungang Logistics Cooperation Base, from which they set sail and enter the vast Pacific Ocean.

This is a photo of the wind turbines of the Zhanatas 100MW wind power project in Zhanatas, Kazakhstan, on April 3, 2023.

Major cooperation projects between China and Kazakhstan are progressing in an orderly manner, and cooperation results in agriculture, new energy, high technology and other fields are constantly emerging. From the Zhanatas wind farm to the Akmola wind farm, China-Kazakhstan cooperation has continuously broken the record of wind power generation in Central Asia. From the completion and commissioning of the Turgusun Hydropower Station to the grid-connected power generation of the Kapchagay 100-megawatt photovoltaic power station, Chinese companies have injected continuous power into Kazakhstan's energy transformation.

This is a photo of the Turgusun Hydropower Station in Kazakhstan taken on July 28, 2021.

This is a photo of the solar panels of the Kapchagay 100 MW photovoltaic power plant in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on May 4, 2023.

In 2023, China became Kazakhstan's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$41 billion, a year-on-year increase of 32%. Chinese auto brands such as Chery, Changan, and Haval have become the favorites of Kazakh consumers; flour and other products processed from Kazakhstan's high-quality wheat have enriched the Chinese people's dining tables; Kazakhstan has participated in the CIIE for six consecutive years, and the completion and commissioning of the Xi'an Land Port Terminal in Kazakhstan have opened the "door of opportunity" for its high-quality goods to enter the Chinese market.

On April 1, 2021, sales staff introduced Haval cars to consumers at a dealership in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

The cultural exchanges between China and Kazakhstan are rich and colorful, building more bridges for friendship between the two countries.

"I miss my youth in China." Ma Wenxuan, a young man from Kazakhstan, studied in Shaanxi for many years. When supporting the epidemic prevention and control work, his words "I am a foreigner, but not an outsider" were touching. President Xi Jinping once told Ma Wenxuan's story kindly, so that more people in China and Kazakhstan can understand this friendship story. After returning to China from Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Ma Wenxuan realized his ambitions at the China-Kazakhstan Traditional Medicine Center in Astana. "I want to carry forward traditional Chinese medicine in Kazakhstan and help more people in need."

On June 10, 2019, Ma Wenxuan and Ling Lang, Kazakh students studying at Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, discussed their graduation papers on acupuncture and massage in the classroom. Photo by reporter Li Yibo

In 2024, with the care and promotion of the two heads of state, China and Kazakhstan will welcome more good news: the two heads of state sent congratulatory letters to the opening ceremony of the "Kazakhstan Tourism Year" in China, and the mutual visa exemption measures encouraged tourists from the two countries to start "go on a whim" trip; the "Lu Ban Workshop", a golden signboard of Chinese vocational education that settled in Kazakhstan last year, has now started expansion; the first batch of master's students of the Kazakhstan branch of Northwestern Polytechnical University, signed by the two heads of state, will come to China soon to start graduation research projects...

As Gulnar Shaymergnova, director of the Kazakhstan Center for Chinese Studies, said, Kazakhstan-China relations are currently operating at a high level, and it is believed that President Xi Jinping's visit to Kazakhstan will open up new prospects for cooperation between the two countries in various fields.

In Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, the Tajikistan Parliament Building and the Government Office Building built with Chinese assistance are about to be completed, writing a new footnote in the brotherly friendship between the two countries.

Akhmat Bekzoda, an official from the Tajik Presidential Office, said that the completion of the two buildings will become Dushanbe's new city card and "a new symbol of friendship between the two countries."

The eagles soaring over the Pamir Plateau and the camel bells ringing on the ancient Silk Road bear witness to the generations-long friendship between the Chinese and Tajik peoples. Over the past 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, the relationship between the two countries has withstood the test of international vicissitudes and achieved leapfrog development.

The leadership of the heads of state is the political advantage and greatest guarantee for the steady and long-term development of China-Tajikistan relations. Mutual understanding, respect, trust and support are the fine traditions that China and Tajikistan uphold together. In recent years, President Xi Jinping and President Rahmon have maintained frequent interactions, forged a deep friendship, and led China-Tajikistan relations to stride forward.

In September 2014, President Xi Jinping paid his first state visit to Tajikistan. President Rahmon accompanied him for nearly 10 hours and hosted him at a family dinner. "Good brothers should go forward hand in hand!" The two heads of state walking hand in hand and side by side became a diplomatic legend.

In June 2019, during his second visit to Tajikistan, President Xi Jinping accepted the "Crown Medal", Tajikistan's highest medal, awarded by President Rahmon. The two heads of state signed a joint statement on further deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership, emphasizing that both sides are committed to gradually building a China-Tajikistan community of development and a China-Tajikistan community of security.

In May 2023, during the China-Central Asia Summit, the two heads of state jointly announced the building of a China-Tajikistan community with a shared future for generations, sharing weal and woe, and mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, which clarified the goals for the development of bilateral relations and sent a positive signal to the people of the two countries and the world.

China-Tajikistan relations have profound historical roots, a solid political foundation, rich cooperative connotations, and broad public support. Under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and Tajikistan have joined hands to continuously expand and solidify the pie of pragmatic cooperation, bringing tangible benefits to the people of the two countries, promoting economic and social development and prosperity, and effectively maintaining regional peace and stability.

Tajikistan is one of the first countries to support the Belt and Road Initiative and sign cooperation documents with China. Tajikistan actively promotes the in-depth docking of Tajikistan's "National Development Strategy before 2030" with the Belt and Road Initiative. From the steady progress of the China-Tajikistan Highway that shuttles through the Pamir Plateau, to the completion of the Yawan-Vahdat railway bridge and tunnel connecting the north and the south, from the completion of the thermal power plant that greatly alleviates the power shortage in Dushanbe in winter, to the booming agricultural textile industrial park that provides employment for many people, China and Tajikistan have achieved fruitful results in the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road.

At present, the two sides are also exploring cooperation in green technology, digital economy, artificial intelligence and other fields to inject contemporary impetus into the high-quality development of China-Tajikistan relations.

On April 12, 2023, in the Luban Workshop in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, Wu Zhengpeng, a teacher from Tianjin Urban Construction Management Vocational and Technical College, explained to students how to use surveying instruments.

In recent years, the number of Tajik students studying in Confucius Institutes and studying in China has continued to increase. In the two years since the first Luban Workshop in Central Asia was launched in Tajikistan, it has trained a large number of urgently needed talents for Tajikistan's vocational education and national industrialization and modernization. From "Chinese fever" to "China fever", from language teaching to translation of famous works, from archaeological excavation to cultural relics protection, the seeds of China-Tajikistan friendship have taken root in the hearts of young people in the two countries, and the two ancient civilizations have radiated more brilliant brilliance in dialogue and mutual learning.

Saifulloyev Kanuyaturu Ismatuloyevich, deputy director of Tajikistan's Khovar News Agency, said that Tajikistan and China are "the closest neighbors and partners" and believed that President Xi Jinping's upcoming state visit will "promote the continued development of bilateral relations and benefit the brotherly peoples of the two countries."

The road is not lonely, and walking together will lead to a long way. Faced with the current turbulent world and unprecedented challenges, China is willing to use the new achievements of Chinese-style modernization to further deepen bilateral relations with Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, provide new development opportunities for countries around the world including the SCO countries, and contribute wisdom to solving regional and global challenges through China's solutions such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the three major global initiatives.