SCO Summit: China’s ‘Davos’ of Dictators Should Spur Democracies Into Action --

Earlier this week, some of the world’s most brutal tyrants, responsible for mass atrocity crimes and egregious repression, gathered in Beijing in a macabre dictator-fest.

Xi Jinping hosted Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and Myanmar’s General Min Aung Hlaing, alongside the rulers of Iran, Belarus, and Vietnam, among twenty others, in a parade that ostensibly marked the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

In fact, it was an effort by China to showcase its weaponry and power, and galvanize an axis of authoritarianism to challenge democracies. It was a “Davos” of dictators.

That made the participation of a handful of democratically elected leaders, including Indonesia’s president, Prabowo Subianto, Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim, and the president of Serbia and prime minister of Slovakia, disappointing — although India’s prime minister Narendra Modi deserves some credit for deciding to skip the parade.

The presence of Australian politician and former premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews, and two former New Zealand prime ministers, Helen Clark and John Key, at this anti-democracy jamboree was particularly galling.

The parade in Beijing followed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin, a 10-member body that brings together the leaders of China, Russia, and India, alongside Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Dialogue partners, including Turkey, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, and others, were also in attendance.

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Xi and Putin were overheard discussing prolonging their lives through organ transplants, with the intention of living to 150 years old. Given allegations of the barbaric practice of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China — first investigated by former Canadian politician David Kilgour and lawyer David Matas two decades ago, then by American researcher Ethan Gutmann in The Slaughter just over ten years ago, and then in a collaborative report by the three together in 2016 — this was particularly grotesque.

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China stands accused — by the United States, several parliaments around the world, and another independent tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice — of the genocide of Uyghurs. It is also committing atrocities in Tibet, and has broken an international treaty by dismantling Hong Kong’s freedoms.

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Certainly, democracies around the world should not allow Xi’s show of force this week to weaken support for Taiwan. On the contrary, the United States, the European Union, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, together with Japan, South Korea, and others in the region, should strengthen their solidarity with Taiwan and send a clear message to deter Beijing. If Xi scents weakness, he will be emboldened, but if he thinks an invasion of Taiwan could be a miscalculation — because of the consequences that could follow for him and his regime — he may think twice.

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