SCO Media Summit Establishes Cooperation Framework
On July 23-27, 2024, in Zhengzhou, China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (上海合作组织) hosted a media and think tank summit featuring Dmitry Zhuk, director of Belarus’s “Belarus Today” publishing house, alongside Chinese officials and regional media representatives. The summit produced the “Zhengzhou Consensus” (郑州共识), with participants claiming the gathering would “explore optimal solutions to external challenges” and establish “more effective international information cooperation paradigms” (更加有效的国际信息合作新范式). Zhuk praised the summit’s “fruitful results” and emphasized combating disinformation while promoting “mutual respect principles” and “civilizational diversity” (文明多样性). The initiative positions itself as implementing “Shanghai Spirit” (上海精神) values in media cooperation, though the emphasis on geopolitics and strategic information coordination suggests soft power objectives rather than independent media and think tank collaboration.
