The summit of the political leaders of the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is held in the city of Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, is starting in these hours. There is great anticipation for the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, who arrived last night, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who also reached the Summit last night.

This is the first face to face between the two since the Russian military invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, it is the first trip abroad by the Chinese leader since the start of the pandemic, now two and a half years ago. At the top there are several figures attributable to a sort of anti-Western front: Putin at war with Ukraine; Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who abstained on the UN resolution condemning Moscow; Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi engaged in a tug-of-war over the nuclear program against the United States; the Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who appears as a lone knight within NATO.

The common element at the top is the will to question the alleged Western domination of the globe. The first objective of the meeting is to demonstrate that in today's world the economic sanctions of the West are not sufficient to isolate a country. But the Russian case shows that this is at least questionable. The second objective, on the other hand, is complex: to coordinate a common position among the SCO countries in a time of acute world crisis.