By Muhammad Umair Bukhari
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a Eurasian based intergovernmental mutual security, political, and economic organization founded in June 2001 in Shanghai.
SCO has 8 permanent members namely; China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and India. It represents 40% of the world population and the 20% of world GDP. China, the world’s 2nd largest economy and an emerging power, Russia a resurgent power, and the energy rich Central Asian members of the organization gives an important dimension to this organization. It also has four nuclear powers namely; China, Russia, Pakistan, and India making it a largest grouping of nuclear weapons capable state. The organization has expanded its membership through offering observer status to Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan and Belarus, while admitted Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Nepal as dialogue partners. The Council of Heads of states is the top policy and decision-making body of the organization, and it meets every year.
The principal objective of the organization is to promote peace, security, and cooperation among the member states, and to eradicate separatist, extremist and terrorist movements and challenges, but recently it has expanded the cooperation in the domain of social, political, economic, strategic and cultural domains. Originally, the SCO members signed the Shanghai Convention against Terrorism, Separatism, and Extremism, Counter-Terrorism Convention, Extremism Convention, agreement on countering drug smuggling, and annual plans for cooperation among the defense departments and militaries.
The SCO has established its own anti-terrorism unit known as “Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure” (RATS) in 2004 to counter the emerging threat of terrorism, and compilation of data about terrorist groups and individuals. Under the umbrella of RATS, the SCO has carried out joint military exercises, shared intelligence information, and build anti-terrorist capabilities of member states. . The first was held in Kazakhstan in 2003. Another joint military exercise was held in Russia in which 4000 Chinese soldiers took part. To strengthen their aerial security, Russian and Chinese warplanes carried out joint air patrol for the first time in July 2019. Chinese army deployed in Tajikistan also carried out exercises there.
Economic cooperation is another pillar of the grouping, and it has received widespread recognition after the Chinese announcement to construct the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Initially, an agreement was signed to boost the economic cooperation by the SCO members on 23rd September 2003, furthermore, a free trade area agreement was signed in 2004 among the SCO states.
In 2005 Summit, the joint energy projects related to oil and gas sector and joint use of water resources were prioritized. For this purpose, an inter-bank SCO council was established to fund the joint projects. In 2009 amid the ongoing global financial crisis, China announced to provide loans of 10 billion USD to SCO members in order to support their economies. In 2012, trade between member states surpassed $4.9 trillion, and has more than quadrupled since 2003.
SCO Challenging American Globalization
Although, SCO declares to be an organization or alliance not directed against other states or regions, yet many political observers believe that SCO’s main objective is to counter the US and NATO’s influence in the Eurasian region and to contain them especially in the Central Asian region. SCO tends to promote regionalism by providing the members a platform to solve their matters with mutual cooperation keeping them away from the Western influence. To verify its pro regional stance we can look in the past when the US applied for Observer status in 2005 but was declined by the SCO.
After the dissolution of Soviet Union when Warsaw Pact was dissolved in the early 1990s the NATO not only remained intact, instead it kept on expanding Eastward by including East European states (previously Warsaw Pact countries) into its domain. When, the then American Secretary of State was asked regarding the NATO’s existence after the abolishment of Warsaw Pact, she replied, “NATO does not need any enemy for its existence”. This throws sufficient light on the position of SCO which takes into consideration the challenges posed by the NATO associating Russia and its Eastern states i.e. China and Central Asian states.
After the inclusion of Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into the NATO, the borders of NATO reached the borders of Russia. It was in this background that Russian President, with the backing of SCO, announced in 2008 that it would aim its nuclear warheads at Ukraine if it also joins NATO and becomes a part of the US missile defense system. In addition to this, SCO has also asked the US to set a timetable to withdraw its troops from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2005.
However, even with all these bold moves, SCO keeps a firm ‘no military intervention’ choice strategy to establish peace in the region and the world. In 2012, Beijing Summit SCO rejected the military intervention as a means to resolve the international disputes. It opposed the military intervention in Syria and criticized the idea of regime changes by means of force and violence. It also condemned NATO’s bombing of Libya to drive out the previous government. The leaders of SCO also regarded the overthrow of Afghan Taliban government with force as a failed strategy as it could not establish peace in Afghanistan even after the course of more than two decades; in fact it further destabilizes the country and the whole region.
With such non-violent policies, SCO appears to be a responsible, constructive and effective organization in terms of establishing peace as compared to NATO.
To observe the challenges SCO poses to other global organizations like UN, IMF and World Bank, Its 2018 Summit is enough to be investigated in this regard.
SCO’s 2018 summit laid out a plan of action 2018-2022 which was approved to implement the treaty on long term neighborliness, friendship and cooperation between SCO member states. This was especially devised to resolve matters between those members which constantly remain in conflicts like India and Pakistan. If SCO is able to successfully carry out this task, it will have a greater edge in the front of UN, which is unable to do so for such a long period of time. Furthermore, it also advised the settlement of crisis in Afghanistan, Syria, the Middle East, and the Korean Peninsula within the framework of agreed principles of international law. Which again is being ignored by the global peace keeping and conflict resolving organizations like UN.
Moreover, China as a leader of SCO provides easy access to loans to its economically weak neighbors like Pakistan and Iran which gives them a better alternative to the IMF and World Bank. Also with the latest economic investments in Iran, China is adding more and more countries into its BRI project which will provide them with long term financial support and prosperity. China in bilateral and multilateral manners is countering the US sanctions on Iran through offering huge amounts of investment. Russia on the other hand vowed to support Iran politically, and urged international community to respect the sovereignty of Iran.
Conclusion
Some geopolitical analysts believe that the SCO is expanding towards Persian Gulf by making Pakistan a permanent member and granting Afghanistan and Iran the status of observer states. With this move, SCO is trying to tackle the US’s long term presence in Japan and South Korea, and strong ties with the Philippines and Thailand in the outskirts of China.
Although, the SCO with its growing economic power and already established nuclear capability competes with other regional organizations in challenging the Westernized Global World, however its institutional weaknesses like; the lack of cohesion among states, lack of common financial funds to venture joint projects, and the conflicts between member states and national interests could prevent SCO from achieving a higher level of regional cooperation.
However, if the SCO were able to overcome these obstacles, it could become a suitable tool to counter and neutralize Western influence in Eurasia, particularly Central Asia, with serious implications for US-led globalization.
Author: Muhammad Umair Bukhari (BS International Relations Student in the University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan).
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy or views of World Geostrategic Insights).