Beijing: At times, global diplomacy is less about what is said and more about what is portrayed. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Plus 2025 Summit held in China’s Tianjin on August 31-September 1 offered plenty of such moments. Pictures of Prime Minister Narendra Modi hugging Russian President Vladimir Putin, establishing a mutual walking pace with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin, and interacting with both leaders spoke volumes well beyond the boundaries of the conference hall. These pictures documented a new geopolitical reality, and one in which the leaders of three of the most consequential Global South powers were not appearing geoeconomic competitors but as a potential collective force.
The power of visual imagery in international politics is undeniable. Statesmen understand that a handshake, a bear hug, or just how a walk that may be choreographed can communicate more meaning than a communique. In this case, the pictures represented what many may have debated but very few would have anticipated with India, China, and Russia aligned, both optically and in purpose. The Global South has been fractured for decades with its immense potential undermined by both competing rivalries and competing alignments. Now, as the United States is trying to tighten its writ on trade, security, and global institutions, the symbolic unity of the ‘big three’ of the Global South provide a counter-narrative.
The significance of this SCO Summit lies not only in the diplomacy discussed behind closed doors but in the imagery projected to the world, something that is being watched closely by Washington, Brussels, and Tokyo. For their domestic audiences in the three countries, these images convey strength, dignity, and leadership of a new global order. And for the wider Global South, they signal a long-awaited possibility of standing together to negotiate, resist, and shape a multipolar future.
The display of solidarity comes as US President Donald Trump upends longstanding norms of global trade as he pursues a renewed protectionist agenda. In recent months, Trump has imposed a 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods entering the United States and a 30 per cent tariff on China exports, down from 145 percent proposed earlier. For Moscow, the sanctions remain deepening as the Russia-Ukraine war drags on. To the leaders in Beijing, New Delhi, and Moscow, this is not merely economic warfare but a deliberate attempt to fragment the Global South, keeping it perennially dependent and divided.
Consequently, the images from the SCO represent a slightly inconspicuous but defiant prick to the international bubble as envisioned by Donald Trump. Prime Minister Modi walking shoulder to shoulder with Xi and Putin signifies an unmistakable blow to the United States ambitions at isolating China, un-linking Russia from Asia, or forcing India into compliance to its demands of undermining its own strategic autonomy in international relations. The message is totally clear. While Washington is raising tariffs and reinforcing old alignments, the largest powers of the Global South are sketching a counter-vision that contest unilateralism and fights for multipolarity.
Xi Jinping outlined this vision clearly, calling for resistance to the “Cold War mentality” and “bullying actions” of the United States under President Trump primarily. He stressed the protection of UN-centered systems as well as the strengthening of the WTO-centered trading order. Xi’s rhetoric is not now solely an abstract commitment devoid of institutional significance, but it has the symbolic weight of solidarity with two other leaders from countries that matter to the future of the Global South.
Prime Minister Modi, too, took the opportunity to remind the world that the aspirations of billions of people in the Global South cannot be undermined by the old norms of international relations. In one of his phrases, he noted that, “the colourful dreams of the new generation cannot be imagined on a black and white screen”. It was an exhortation to reform the United Nations, to transform institutions in the face of the 21st century and to underscore that the future of the Global South is inextricable from the future of global governance. For PM Modi, these images with Xi and Putin magnify his demand that India cannot be relegated to the bench in the realm of power.
Putin, who has been embattling in the West but welcomed warmly in the East, also finds in this imagery a reaffirmation of Russia’s enduring global relevance. The embrace with Prime Minister Modi and his laughter with Xi project defiance against Western isolation efforts. In the SCO hallways, Putin is not a pariah but a partner, who is equal, engaged, and influential. Therefore, for Moscow, whose pivot to Asia has accelerated under sanctions, this summit and its visual theatrics represent a victory in the battle for perception.
The meanings of these images go beyond the trilateral relationship, resonating in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, and broader developing world, and which have long searched for alternatives to Western power in trade and diplomacy. For the smaller members of the SCO (and other Global South nations), seeing the three major actors together serves to reassure them that their complaints are, in some ways, shared by larger powers, and that paths away from a US-led order appear to be possible. As symbols are important, such images of unity at the top can promote solidarity at the ground level.
In the shadow of Trump’s tariffs and unilateralism, the stakes are high. If Washington views its trade war as leverage to compel conformity, the optics from the SCO suggest the opposite effect, which is pushing India and China in particular closer with swiftness despite some tensions of the recent past. Trump’s ‘America First’ policies, far from fragmenting the Global South, may be catalysing its consolidation. The moments of embrace, the walks, the shared laughter tell a story of leaders who, despite their differences, see common cause in resisting hegemonic pressures.
This is not to deny the geoeconomic rivalry amongst Global South powers like India and China with border disputes and diverging economic interests persisting. Yet diplomacy thrives on possibility, not certainty. The significance of the images which came out of the SCO summit is simply that it reopens the door to imagining what once seemed impossible: the major Global South powers forming deeper connections with one another while seeking challenge to the old-world order.
For several decades, international affairs have been told through a Global North discourse, be it NATO summits, G7 communiques, White House press conferences, an EU meeting, and so on. Now, it is images from Astana, New Delhi, Rio, Jakarta or Beijing with leaders of the Global South standing side-by-side, that increasingly signify alternative possibilities. In all of this, these images are a reminder that geopolitics is not only inscribed in treaties and tariffs, but also staged in embraces, gestures, and moments of solidarity like these.
In this context, the 2025 Tianjin SCO Summit not only conducted the business with consensus, thereby making it substantive, but also for its demonstrating Global South solidarity. And for PM Modi, President Xi, and President Putin, these pictures are not secondary to the summit but they are part of diplomatic efforts meant to communicate resolve, unity, and defiance. And they conveyed a possible new balance of power to the world, which is not forged in Washington or Brussels but in the Global South itself.
The message cannot be clearer that in an era of America’s renewed trade war, sanctions, and unilateralism, the Global South is learning the power of standing together, not just through rhetoric, but through substance and images that speaks clearer than any speech ever could.
–IANS
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