China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday called for regional countries to reshape the international order at a summit in Uzbekistan touted as a challenge to Western global influence.
Leaders should “work together to promote the development of the international order in a more just and rational direction”, Xi said at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation including the leaders of Russia, Iran and central Asian countries.
The SCO — made up of China, India, Pakistan, Russia and the ex-Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — was set up in 2001 as a political, economic and security organisation to rival Western institutions.
Xi told the summit that members should “abandon zero-sum games and bloc politics”, as well as “uphold the international system with the United Nations at its core”.
In remarks published later Friday by state news agency Xinhua, Xi urged member states to “continue carrying out joint…