SCO Summit: With Focus On Energy, Security, Tianjin Declaration Is More Than Ceremonial

For India, a member balancing both its distinct geopolitical compulsions and its aspirations as a leading voice of the Global South, the Declaration offers several openings. These align in particular with New Delhi’s long-standing contributions in energy, connectivity, security, and digital governance.

The story of India’s SCO journey has always been one of cautious engagement, guided by clear red lines yet infused with the hope of shaping the organisation’s agenda from within. The Tianjin Declaration, with its emphasis on clean energy, connectivity, counterterrorism, and digital cooperation, provides a platform that India can both leverage and mould.

Energy: From International Solar Alliance To SCO Energy Club

Energy has been one of the most politically charged domains in the SCO, traditionally dominated by fossil fuel producers such as Russia, Kazakhstan, and now a more assertive China. India’s approach has been distinct. New Delhi has consistently foregrounded renewables, green hydrogen, and energy efficiency rather than hydrocarbons. Through the International Solar Alliance (ISA), co-founded with France, India has already established itself as a convener of a global clean energy coalition.

At Tianjin, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for an SCO Energy Cooperation Platform and Energy Club, a Beijing-led institutional mechanism that could potentially dominate the region’s future energy dialogues. While this proposal reflects Beijing’s ambition to anchor Eurasian energy flows around its Belt and Road initiatives, India finds itself with both challenges and opportunities.

On the one hand, New Delhi should not have any interest in becoming locked into energy arrangements that privilege hydrocarbons or reinforce Chinese dominance. On the other hand, the SCO’s clean energy commitment at Tianjin allows India to project its green hydrogen leadership and renewable agenda into the Eurasian discourse.

The Tianjin text is significant: it frames clean energy and sustainable development as multipolar imperatives, not Western impositions. India can leverage this opening to internationalise its domestic experiments in solar parks, hydrogen valleys, and battery storage, and present them as scalable models for the wider region.

The SCO, though not primarily an economic bloc, is slowly embracing energy as a connective theme, and Tianjin has widened the door for India to shape its narrative toward green transition rather than fossil entrenchment.

Connectivity: The Balancing Act Around Corridors

Connectivity remains the most contested theme within the SCO. For India, the Chabahar port in Iran and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) have long been showcased as alternative routes to Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. New Delhi has invested political capital in ensuring these projects are seen not merely as Indian ventures but as regional public goods.

The Tianjin Declaration’s connectivity agenda, while ambitious, is carefully worded. It makes no explicit mention of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) — a project India has consistently opposed as a violation of its sovereignty. This omission is far from accidental. It reflects a deliberate choice to keep the SCO’s language broad enough to encompass multiple connectivity visions without privileging any single corridor.

For India, this is an important diplomatic win. By aligning its own initiatives — Chabahar, INSTC, and even digital connectivity platforms — with the Declaration’s broader connectivity thrust, India can situate itself as a constructive player rather than a spoiler. Tianjin also goes beyond physical transport corridors, linking connectivity with digital infrastructure, an area where India has unique assets to offer.

The balancing act remains delicate. China will continue to push CPEC within the SCO framework, and Russia, though sympathetic to India’s sensitivities, may tilt toward Beijing’s framing in pursuit of its own continental ambitions. Yet, the Tianjin text creates a neutral space where India’s alternative corridors can be projected as equally legitimate contributions to regional integration.

Security: Terrorism, Red Lines & “Double Standards”

Security is the SCO’s original DNA, with the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) as its institutional core. India’s entry into the organisation was premised largely on its desire to shape SCO counterterrorism discourse. For New Delhi, the test has always been whether the SCO could move beyond generic rhetoric and address terrorism emanating from Pakistan and its cross-border networks.

The Tianjin Declaration marks a notable sharpening of language. It carries explicit condemnation of terrorism in all forms and, importantly, incorporates India’s long-standing demand to reject “double standards” in dealing with terror. For New Delhi, this is not a semantic victory but a crucial signalling tool. By embedding the phrase into a collective declaration, India has effectively placed its red lines within the SCO’s normative framework.

The deeper challenge lies in implementation. China and Pakistan will continue to block India’s attempts to name and shame specific groups. Yet, Tianjin provides India a stronger text to cite when contesting selective approaches within the region. Moreover, the broadening of the SCO’s security agenda to include cybersecurity, AI threats, and radicalisation resonates with India’s own domestic security debates.

For a country that has repeatedly faced the brunt of cross-border terrorism, the Tianjin Declaration is not a panacea. But it does legitimise India’s security concerns within the SCO framework, something that New Delhi can deploy in bilateral and multilateral arenas alike.

Digital & Technology: India’s Soft Power Asset

If there is one area where India has set itself apart in the global discourse, it is in digital public infrastructure (DPI). From Aadhaar to Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India has demonstrated how scalable, low-cost digital tools can transform governance. This success story has become a soft power asset, allowing New Delhi to project itself as a model for other developing nations.

The Tianjin Declaration’s language on ICT (Information and Communication Technology) cooperation and safe cyberspace opens a significant space for India. For China, the digital domain is about control and surveillance; for Russia, it is about information security. India, by contrast, emphasises open access, interoperability, and citizen-centric platforms. By bringing DPI into the SCO narrative, India can frame itself as a bridge-builder, offering alternatives that do not rely exclusively on Chinese or Western technological ecosystems.

The Tianjin outcome also links digital cooperation with security, acknowledging threats from cybercrime and misinformation. This creates overlap with India’s own agenda of safe cyberspace, which is increasingly central to its domestic regulatory frameworks. Importantly, India’s model is exportable: UPI has already been adopted in countries ranging from Singapore to the UAE, and Aadhaar-inspired platforms are under consideration in Africa. The SCO provides a regional forum to socialise these tools, reinforcing India’s reputation as a provider of digital public goods.

Reading The Openings: From Text To Strategy

Taken together, the Tianjin Declaration offers openings that align with India’s contributions across four domains. In energy, India can use the SCO’s clean energy language to project its renewable leadership. In connectivity, the neutral framing gives India room to push Chabahar and INSTC without being forced into CPEC.

On security, explicit condemnation of terrorism and rejection of double standards validates India’s core red lines. And on digital cooperation, the SCO’s safe cyberspace agenda dovetails neatly with India’s DPI export model.

The challenge, as always, is one of translation from text to strategy. Declarations are only as powerful as the initiatives that follow. For India, the task is to ensure that Tianjin does not remain a paper commitment but is operationalised through bilateral projects, regional dialogues, and consistent assertion of its red lines.

The SCO is not an easy arena: It is crowded, often incoherent, and dominated by China’s institutional weight. Yet, the Tianjin Declaration shows that with persistence, India can carve out space for its priorities and leave an imprint on the organisation’s collective agenda.

Key Takeaways

The Tianjin Declaration is not revolutionary, but it is revealing. It reflects an SCO that is slowly expanding beyond its security origins into the domains of energy transition, connectivity, and digital governance. For India, the Declaration is best read not as an external text but as an echo of its own long-standing contributions. From the ISA to Chabahar, from counterterrorism to DPI, India finds its fingerprints — direct or indirect — across the Tianjin outcomes.

At a time when the global order is being fragmented by US trade hegemony, Sino-Russian strategic assertiveness, and the search for multipolar alternatives, the SCO remains a difficult but necessary platform for India.

The Tianjin Declaration, in acknowledging India’s concerns and contributions, gives New Delhi both validation and responsibility: To stay engaged, to push its vision of sustainable, secure, and inclusive growth, and to keep asserting that the Eurasian future cannot be written on anyone else’s terms.

(The writer, a commentator, is a former Indian diplomat who has served as High Commissioner to Canada, Ambassador to Japan & Sudan. Views are personal)