The Limits and the Potential of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

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A meeting among leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states, during any other year in the past, would not make the news. This year’s meeting, however, should matters. Yet, it was hardly covered in Western media. There are important reasons for why the world should pay attention to this 21-year-old intergovernmental organization (IGO).

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Five years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, leaders from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia, the Shanghai Five, informally met to establish a framework for collaboration to maintain regional security. The fall of the powerful leader of the communist block was feared for leaving a vacuum of power that can be filled by outside forces or separatist movements; and it did to some extent. These leaders wanted to create some systems that would control the transition past the bipolar world order. The gathered leaders created two bodies: a General Secretariat, seated in Beijing; and the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, with its permanent office in Tashkent. Although the main concern was security, over time, these states wanted to expand their cooperation to cover other areas of mutual interest including education, economy, and transportation.

Looking to expand beyond the original collaborating member states, the organization created different categories that would allow the participation of other states. For instance, in 2000 Uzbekistan joined the 2000 meeting as an Observer State. A year later, it was accepted as a full member. Up to this point, the collective was not known by any official name. The purposes for which it was created defined it; but collectively, they were known as the Shangai bloc or the Shangai Five.

It was not until 2001 that the bloc formally adopted the name Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). During the same year, representatives of member states signed the Shanghai Convention on Strengthening Friendship and Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism. The documents signed during the leaders’ summit also covered political, economic and scientific matters.

Member states continued to develop the structure for this emerging body culminating in the signing of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter in 2002 in in St. Petersburg. Responding to the role and weight of this bloc of nations, the UN General Assembly granted the SCO Observer Status, which raised the profile and influence of the bloc.

By the turn of the year 2005, heads of member states welcomed Mongolia, India, Iran and Pakistan as an Observer States. By 2007, they signed an agreement on long-term good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation and created another path for welcoming new members–Dialogue Partner, which included Sri Lanka and Belarus.

To substantiate their cooperation and to improve education in the founding member states, Russia proposed the establishment of a university that would provide a system of interaction between universities. Representatives of the member states approved the proposal during the bloc’s meeting of 2008. Although the proposal was adopted by members states, this project integrated institution from non-member states as well. For example, the list of universities that was approved included about 80 institutions from Belarus, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

In 2012, SCO Member States adopted the Declaration on the Establishment of a Zone of Long-Term Peace and Common Prosperity. However, peace in the region cannot be achieved without finding ways to bring the two nuclear armed, and often hostile nations, India and Pakistan, into the fold. That was achieved when India and Pakistan were admitted at the same time as full members in 2017.

Adding the second most populous nation in the world, India, and its Muslim “adversary”, Pakistan, raised the profile of the bloc to new levels. Importantly, this development put China’s other global initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative, on firmer ground.

The power, utility, and still untapped potential of this grouping was on display during the most recent meeting, the Samarkand Summit of September 15-16, 2022.

During this gathering, two key events happened: the formal admission of Iran as full member of the SCO and the release of the Samarkand Declaration of the Council of Heads of State of Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The nearly 8000 words document did not include the word “Ukraine”. Given that the war in Ukraine is considered by many, especially Western nations, as the event du jour, the significance of the omission cannot be overstated.

Yes, some would argue that SCO is not a military alliance that can be contrasted to NATO; therefore, the omission is in line with the nature of the bloc’s founding documents. However, given the centrality of “security” and “anti-terrorism” to the bloc, the omission shows SCO member states’ lack of sympathy, or perhaps lack of urgency to the Ukrainian cause that has been championed by Western states. This omission alone, should be compelling enough to pay attention to this emerging bloc of nation-states.

However, there are other very important reasons for paying attention to SCO. In terms of representation, and with Iran being a full member, SCO now represents nearly 52% of Earth’s population; the bloc became the largest IGO in Eurasia covering 60% of the continent; its member states now account for 27% of the global economic output; four of the current nine member states are nuclear powers; and two of the nine member states rank 1st and 2nd in the world in natural gas reserves and being home to substantial amounts of oil and other critical natural resources.

Since it was initially a regional security-focused grouping of nation-states, the bloc consisted of countries that do not otherwise get along. Many of them, if not all of them have had some lateral or multilateral border disputes. However, since the purpose of the grouping was the reduction of security threats, including terrorist and separatist threats, the organization should not be judged by how many conflicts there are within the bloc, but how they are approaching these conflicts collectively. As if to make this very point more convincing, while leaders of the bloc were gathered in Samarkand, clashes between two member states, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, broke up, which proves, not disapproves, the need for such organization. After all, this is not a collective of like-minded countries or a cooperative uniting people who share religious, ethnic, or racial background. It is a grouping among people who have differences but who happen to be neighbors and share many of the natural resources including air, rivers, lakes, and mountain ranges.

Given the vast diversity and deep differences, the organization’s internal systems and mechanisms emphasized good-neighborliness, friendship, and cooperation. In 2014, representatives of member states signed a binding Intergovernmental Agreement on International Road Facilitation to strengthen regional cooperation. They reaffirmed the original agreement on Building Military Confidence and Reducing Military Forces in Border Areas.

As a sign of the high level of deliberation among members states, the expansion of the bloc was done in a way that creates dynamic balance and address regional sensitivities. For example, India was admitted as full member at the same time as Pakistan, two countries that are, for all intents and purposes, in unsettled, open war mode. Similarly, with Iran, a Shia state on the docket waiting for admission as full member, the organization invited Turkey, the seat of the last Sunni dynasty, to be a Dialogue Partner. Then, when Iran was admitted as full Member State, Saudi Arabia—the state with self-claimed role of representing “Sunni” Islam—was admitted as Dialogue Partner along with fellow Arab nation-states of Qatar and Egypt. However, the long-awaited ascent of Iran to full membership of SCO is noteworthy for many other reasons.

Iran has been on the bench, so to speak, since 2005. Approval for its requests for Member State status has been delayed (or denied) since Iran has been heavily sanctioned by Western governments for its nuclear program and for other geopolitical considerations. Now that Russia has surpassed Iran as the most sanctioned country in the world, further delay was not tenable; so, Russia made sure that Iran’s membership is approved this year, as it was made clear by President Putin when he met his Iranian counterpart, Ebrahim Raisi in Samarkand.

SCO will never become an Asian or Eurasian NATO. However, SCO as a platform for launching security, economic, and political systems to manage conflict, develop economic opportunities, and coordinate political action on cross border issues including climate change, migration, trade, energy, and shared resources will be useful and helpful in the long run. The Samarkand Declaration shows the utility of SCO and the speed with which this IGO is growing shows its potential.

Moreover, the recent developments around the globe show us the extent and the speed with which the world is changing. The global pandemic and the affluent nation-states’ reaction to it; the war in Ukraine and its impact on energy and food markets around the world; and the reaction of Western media and Western governments to the war in Ukraine revealed the deep, historical and ideological fissures that divide the rich and poor worlds and created room for new events. To be able to predict where the world will be ten years from now, one must understand how regional and global powers have responded to key events: the outcomes of the so-called Arab Spring, the results of and the response to spread of the covid-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. The SCO summit revealed how divided the world and how different countries with disparate priorities are collaborating to tackle shared challenges.

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