SCO summit: a new era for humanity
Key Markets report for Thursday, 4 September 2025
On Sunday, 31 August 2025, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) opened a summit in Tianjin discussing a sustainable multipolar world and tackling its security challenges. From its modest beginnings some 20 years ago, the SCO has gained credibility in the region and in the world and today gathers ten member states (China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Belarus), two observer countries and 14 dialogue partners. In total, these nations eclipse the G7 organization in economic terms, account for about 40% of global trade and make up nearly half the world population.
This year's meeting coincided with celebrations commemorating 80 years' anniversary of the ending of WWII in the Pacific, which was celebrated with a massive and impressively executed military parade.
Predictably, western media does its thing
Predictably, Western press heaped scorn on the event, interpreting it as a threat and China’s signalling the intent to project power and become the world’s new hegemon. Here are a few choice headlines:
Telegraph, The: “China unveils plans for new world order”
Bloomberg: "China's Xi Vows to Defy 'Intimidation' at Parade of Firepower and Clout"
CNN: "China's military parade: A direct message to Trump?"
Reuters: "China's Xi projects power at military parade with Putin and Kim"
WSJ: “China Flaunts Military Might With Lavish Parade - and Sends Warning to Washington”
France 24: “How China's XXL military parade puts its military and territorial ambitions on show”
Guardian, The: “China to show off military might in parade attended by anti-west leaders”
Message to Trump. Territorial ambitions. Warning to Washington. Anti-west, etc. Perhaps the most unhinged reporting came from The Australian, which likened Chinese parade to a reenactment of Adolf Hitler's military parade in 1937:
"The goosesteps. The scale. The propaganda. It was hard to miss the similarities to Hitler’s 1937 rally as Xi Jinping’s vainglorious, precisely choreographed display of might signals China’s military has finally grown up: https://bit.ly/4g48lON”
We all know what happened after 1937, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, so based on this “hard to miss” insinuation, we can expect China to march into Austria Taiwan any day now, then annex Czechoslovakia Mongolia, invade India and Japan, then Australia, of course.
What none of these excellent paragons of fair and balanced reporting mention, is that the military parade in Beijing was held under the banners of peace, justice and humanity with three slogans conveying these values:
Justice shall prevail
Peace shall prevail
The people shall prevail
In other words, the embellishments about anti-Western stance, China’s territorial ambitions and warnings to Trump were added by our valiant mainstream media reporters. The comparison with Hitler’s 1937 parade was perhaps added for the extra slow cohort, in case the overly subtle message didn’t make sufficient impact.
But over at the White House, reporters tried to get Trump to pour more oil into the fire. On Tuesday, 2 September at the Oval Office, Trump was asked about China’s military parade:
Valiant corporate journalist: China's having a massive military parade that President Putin and Kim Jong-Un will be attending. Do you interpret that as a challenge to the US? Are you concerned at all about those countries?"
Trump: No, not at all. China needs us, and [I] have a very good relationship with President Xi as you know. But China needs us much more than we need them.
True to his style, Trump did mention that the main reason why the Chinese threw their XXL military parade was because they were hoping that he would watch it. Their effort wasn’t wasted - he did watch.
Putin: Americans are listening to us
However, a better indicator of the anti-West and anti-US mindset of the SCO member states was revealed in the otherwise highly publicized conversation between Russia’s President Putin and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico. The two met in Beijing on Tuesday and discussed a concrete example of constructive cooperation and multipolar integrations:
Fico: "I can confirm that the Slovak Republic plans to build a new state-owned reactor with a capacity of 1,100 megawatts. We are currently in discussions with the American company Westinghouse... I would be very pleased to see Russian-American cooperation in this field, and it would be beneficial to engage with Westinghouse on such a project.
Putin: ... We can consider the possibility of cooperating with Westinghouse the way you are suggesting as well. Also, by the way ... we can cooperate with our US partners at the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant as well. We have indirectly discussed these matters with them. … My recent contacts with President Trump and the US administration in Anchorage have shown that the new administration listens to us... we can see the possibility of mutual understanding now."
To my mind, Putin’s mention of the discussions with the American side about partnering at the Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant is evidence of what I’d suspected for many months now: that the contacts, discussions and cooperation between the Kremlin and Washington are far more extensive than we know and that their scope goes well beyond the question of war in Ukraine. This should be seen as a hopeful sign for the world and further corroboration that the Trump administration chose to embrace multipolar integrations instead of continuing to impose itself as the global hegemon.
Another corroboration came from Britain’s former PM Boris Johnson. He is obviously deeply vexed about Russo-American rapprochement: added: "It was frankly sickening to watch Putin being welcomed to America like that." Johnson would much prefer to see the United States at war with Russia.
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Today’s trading signals
With yesterday’s closing prices we have the following changes for the Key Markets portfolio:
