Sep 02, 2026 16:01 pm IST

Opinion | China's Quiet Power Grab Is Hiding In Plain Sight

China's greatest advantage may be neither its military nor its markets, but a world too distracted to see what it is building.

Tara Kartha Tara Kartha Columnist

Tara Kartha Columnist

This time around, the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is going to be viewed rather differently. Earlier, hardly anyone noticed its somewhat lengthy and verbose statements. This time, however, every foreign correspondent worth his salt is going to be glued to its every move, every handshake, and body language. And that is not just because of the Iran war, or the Ukrainian escalation, though those things are important. It is that Chinese President Xi Jinping is to arrive in Washington at the end of this month, after his visit to India. The equations built before that, in India, Egypt, and the massive SCO meeting, will matter in how the meeting with US President Donald Trump turns out. And that, in turn, will feed back into how everyone else weighs their options. It is like a series of jigsaw puzzle pieces falling into place, in unpredictable ways.

An Economic Maze, With One Anchor

First, the SCO itself. It is all very impressive upfront. Some 20-plus countries are meeting at the summit, which includes not just the member states - Russia, China, Belarus, India, Iran, Pakistan, and four Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan - but also some 15 dialogue partners or observers; after last year's Tianjin summit, all have been converted to 'Partners'. That list includes Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the UAE, among others. Three aspects are common among all members, and, increasingly, the 'Partners'. All are neighbours of China, and for all, it is their biggest trading partner. That means this is a huge Chinese-dominated economic maze. The third is that almost all are also operating Chinese equipment - with Uzbekistan recently opting to buy J-10 CE fighter jets - adding to an existing roster of Chinese-made weaponry. Notably, this buy replaces ageing Soviet-era weaponry. Russian equipment is nowhere to be seen, as it struggles with replacing its own inventory. In short, China is the top dog in........

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