Piotr Opalinski

The 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin offered India both visibility and a reminder of the structural limits of its Eurasian engagement. Since joining the SCO in 2017, New Delhi has sought to navigate between Moscow and Beijing, strengthen its foothold in Central Asia, and hedge against encirclement through alternative partnerships. The Tianjin gathering—with leaders of China, Russia, and Central Asia present—confirmed that the SCO is a useful platform for dialogue, but hardly one where India can decisively shape outcomes. China and Russia continue to dominate, Pakistan remains disruptive, and Central Asian states defer to the larger powers. For India, the SCO is therefore less about influence and more about presence: being at the table without

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