For a person, turning 18 means the coming of a new stage in life and more responsibilities.

After 18 years of growth, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has also come to a new stage of development.

At the 19th SCO summit here on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed building it into a model organization of international relations against changing international situations.

SHANGHAI SPIRIT - FOUNTAINHEAD OF SCO

After 18 years of development, the SCO has evolved into one of the major mechanisms promoting stability and prosperity in this very important patch of land.

Covering over 60 percent of the Eurasian landmass, the SCO is well-known for close cooperation among its member states, and the key to its high effectiveness lies in the Shanghai Spirit, a core value and philosophy shared by those countries.

Addressing leaders from across Eurasia and representatives of international organizations at the summit, Xi highlighted the Shanghai Spirit in building the SCO into a paradigm of unity and mutual trust among countries.

He urged the SCO members to have a keen appreciation of the trend toward world multi-polarization and economic globalization, search for wisdom in the Shanghai Spirit, which features mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and pursuit of common development, and draw strength from unity and cooperation so as to build a closer community with a shared future for the organization.

Kubanychbek Taabaldiev, director of Kyrgyzstan's Kabar News Agency, said the Shanghai Spirit is the ideological unity of the member countries when "everyone is interested in equal relations."

Within the SCO, the Shanghai Spirit has been effective in bridging the gap among countries with various and even conflicting interests, according to Taabaldiev.

Against the increasing tendency toward unilateralism, many structures and intergovernmental institutions are losing their former effectiveness, observed Sergei Sanakoyev, president of the Russian-Chinese Analytical Center.

Yet, "the SCO demonstrates a different type of international relations that is very attractive for many countries," Sanakoyev said.

Relations within the SCO are built upon the basis of mutual respect, while problems are solved on a compromise basis of working out suitable solutions for all, he said, adding that the very existence of the SCO has "serious influence on the development of world processes."