The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Global South

Tianjin's long list of statements sounds impressive on the surface, but, as usual, thin on details and how and whether sufficient accountability mechanisms will exist or function.

- DANIEL WAGNER

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's (SCO's) Tianjin summit combined hearty symbolism, opportunism, and pageantry with some substance into a single message aimed squarely at the Global South: a more equitable global order is within reach. This form of New Multilateralism—focused on the realities of today rather than the global model that existed when many multilateral institutions were created in the 1940s through the 1960s—better represents the aspirations of the vast majority of the world's people and is more reflective of the plethora of challenges facing the world. A move toward a more flexible, inclusive, multi-actor system—with accountability at its core—is the path forward.

Multipolarity is today's reality, where a dense web of actors and forums forms the mosaic of international relations. However, the landscape has become so crowded and the interrelationships so complex and interwoven, that diplomatic initiatives and the proliferation of parallel institutions risks fragmentation, duplicated efforts, and forum shopping. Such counter-veiling initiatives are also at risk of becoming yet another effort at exerting the power of one coalition over another. In the absence of effective accountability mechanisms to ensure that stronger, richer, and more powerful nations do not simply end up replicating initiatives and institutions that already exist, with similar flaws, fresh efforts to achieve lofty objectives will in the end also fail to achieve them.