The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Summit in Tianjin, China, this week, which was the largest of its kind with leaders from 24 countries in Eurasia attending, witness important outcomes (which we will report on separately) highlighted by President Xi Jinping’s opening speech. However, one of the most eye-catching developments was the meeting between the Chinese leader and Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, who visits China after several years of frosty relations between the two giant countries in Asia. We republish here an article written by Erik Solheim, President of Europe-Asia Centre in Brussels, Former Executive Director of the UN Environment Program, Former Minister of Development of Norway, Vice-President of the International Green Belt and Road Coalition.
The meeting between President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Tianjin sent a clear signal that the multipolar global landscape is accelerating. The future belongs to all.
Europe should draw inspiration from the experiences of China and India. In the face of global bullying and unfair unilateral tariffs, China and India have shown a determined attitude, not allowing differences and historical issues to stand in the way of tremendous economic and political cooperation opportunities.
When Europe is willing to become a vassal of the United States, it cannot win the respect of its own people, nor the world.
China and India are willing to cooperate with the United States in areas such as trade, but only if they adhere to independence and defend the fundamental interests of their people.
The two countries are home to about 3 billion people, or 37 percent of the world’s population. India has the world’s fastest growing large economy, while China is growing at a solid rate of around 5% and playing a leading role in the green transition. Together, the two will undoubtedly form a great synergy. Europe must move beyond its US-dependent mindset and actively cooperate with the global South in order to find its place in the emerging multipolar world.
As India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said recently, Europe cannot simply act as if “the world’s problems are not Europe’s, and the problems of Europe are the world’s.”
What Europe needs now is not to cling to the past, but to embrace the future.