Key takeaways
- The
SCO is expanding beyond its Central Asian heartland southwards and westwards
across Asia, reaching the Middle East and North Africa. As a “talking shop”, it
has achieved relatively peaceful and cooperative relations between its
ever-expanding club of members.
- In
2024, Turkey, a NATO member, applied for membership of the SCO, indicating a
probable shift by President Erdogan away from a frustrated bid for EU
membership to closer ties with China and Russia.
- SCO
dialogue partners include Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait,
Bahrain and Qatar. This suggests that these oil- and gas-producing Middle
Eastern states are interested in enhancing ties with China and Russia rather
than being reliant on political and economic ties with the US and the EU.
- The
SCO should be seen as a sister organization of BRICS, enhancing Chinese and
Russian influence in the global South, with a particular focus on Asia and the
Middle East. As such, it should be taken seriously as a counter to the
influence of legacy organisations of the US-led “liberal international order”
such as the G7 and NATO.
Introduction
The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is well known among foreign policy
analysts as a platform for China-Russia cooperation in Central Asia. With roots
in the post-Cold War era and a precursor called the Shanghai Five dating from 1996, the
SCO served initially to boost Sino-Russian cooperation while dampening down
possible regional tensions. The role of the SCO included the aim of building
understandings which would transcend ongoing territorial disputes between the Central
Asian states which had emerged as national entities from the ashes of the
Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Reclusive Turkmenistan is not a member but
attends summits as a guest.
In
2017, the SCO expanded its sphere of influence into South Asia with the addition of India and Pakistan. Iran joined in 2023 and Belarus in 2024. This gave the
SCO not only new footholds in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, but also meant
that the organisation contained nations with around 80 per cent of the Eurasian
landmass, 43 per cent of the world’s population and a quarter of global GDP.
Apart
from its ten members, the influence of the SCO extends further. A number of
states from the global South have the status of either observers or dialogue
partners. The two observers are Mongolia and Afghanistan. The
dialogue partners include all the major Persian Gulf fossil fuel exporters:
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. The
other dialogue partners are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Egypt, Sri Lanka,
Myanmar, the Maldives, Nepal, and Turkey. So the SCO has a considerable impact
given that leaders from all these economically developing countries can
personally attend summits at which Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are the
central figures. It also seems intended to expand to include more nations. This
stands in marked contrast to the G7, which is a club with fixed membership for
developed nations only: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the
US, plus the EU as a “non-enumerated member.” While the G7
pointedly excludes global South nations, the SCO seeks to bring them into the
fold.
It
is surprising, then, that the SCO is not much acknowledged in the Western
public sphere. It is more-or-less unknown to the general public in Europe and
North America. As an organisation which is obviously a framework for the spread
of Chinese and Russian influence through Asia, but also towards other parts of
the global South such as the Middle East and Africa, the SCO is clearly a key
part of a conscious attempt to construct an alternative to the US-led so-called
liberal international order (LIO). The LIO is
represented by institutions such as the G7, NATO and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF). The SCO, alongside the better-known BRICS platform and the Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI), is an attempt to construct an alternative set of
institutions and arrangements through which to establish, maintain and extend Sino-Russian
influence southwards and westwards across the Eurasian landmass. The constant addition of new members,
observers and dialogue
partners
from South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa attests to
this.
The SCO as a cooperation facilitation mechanism
Some
observers claim that the SCO lacks a clear purpose,
leading to the accusation that it is “ineffective and irrelevant”. For instance, is it
intended to promote security cooperation or economic integration between the
member states? In fact, as with most Chinese-led institutions and initiatives,
the SCO has a multi-purpose function. Even against the backdrop of its
institutionalised structure, its remit is loose and vague enough to allow
evolution over time rather than having a single fixed aim. The SCO’s fairly broad
remit arguably allows for flexibility and dynamism instead of it being a static
framework which is not able to change as circumstances demand.
Within
its remit, the SCO includes the promotion of cooperation on security, economic
and political issues within an expansive envelope for policy discussion and
formation. It is intended to smooth the way towards increased collaboration and
reduced conflict between its members. The aim is to strengthen interstate ties
by persuading members that working together is more profitable than arguing
over issues such as disputed borders. The SCO is a multilateral platform upon
which the members can build consensus and group together in a new framework
outside the Western-dominated LIO.
Although
not at first sight obvious because they mostly refer to an absence of events
rather than occurrences, there are three clear examples of what the SCO has
achieved. First, the mechanism has smoothed out potential troubles in relations
between China and Russia in Central Asia. The states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were all part of the former Soviet
Union. As such, they can be seen as part of the Russian rather than Chinese
sphere of influence. Thus, it might have been expected that increasing Chinese
investments in the region would have generated tensions with Russia since they
would be seen as competition for influence and resources. Yet even as bilateral
trade between China and Central Asia has increased exponentially in the 21st
century, rising from US$1.5 billion in the year 2000 to US$94.8 billion in 2024, no such tensions have arisen.
This
negative outcome – an absence of conflict – supplies evidence that discussions
between the leading members of the framework have averted possible
misunderstandings by easing Russian fears about a potential Chinese takeover.
Russian and Chinese perspectives on the region are certainly not identical:
China’s involvement in Central Asia leans towards economics, while Russia focuses
above all on geopolitics and security. Be this
as it may, the two sides have managed to find ways to overcome their
differences and promote “win-win” outcomes. As a
European Parliamentary briefing puts it, “The SCO's
main achievement thus far is to have offered its members a cooperative forum to
balance their conflicting interests and to ease bilateral tensions.”
The
second achievement is that relations between the Central Asian states that were
formerly part of the Soviet Union have been somewhat fraught since they
obtained independence. Borders have been continuously disputed, with armed
clashes between border guards breaking out on a number of occasions. For instance,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have exclaves inside each other’s
territory. But, presumably partly due to regular discussions at the SCO under
Chinese and Russian guidance, minor clashes have never escalated into larger
conflicts. The SCO has played at least a contributory role in easing tensions between
the Central Asian states.
Third,
and most important from China’s point of view, bringing the Central Asian
leaders onside has reduced the risk of Uyghur separatist movements gaining
traction in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Since 2014, when separatist violence appeared to be
increasing amid attacks on Han Chinese by members of the East Turkestan
Independence Movement (ETIM), the Chinese
government has cracked down. And a major part of
China’s intensified security efforts has been focused on ensuring that ETIM and
other separatist factions lack support from the territory of Xinjiang’s Western
neighbours. Due to discussions at the leadership level, China has been able to
secure its borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Chinese troops have even been deployed
inside its neighbours’ borders without creating much rancour or drawing much
attention.
Of
course, the addition of India and Pakistan intensifies the security headaches
facing SCO leaders, leading some to opine that admitting the nuclear
arch-rivals was a mistake on China’s part.
Nevertheless, seeking to overcome entrenched territorial disputes and security
issues through diplomatic means adheres to the core goals of the organisation –
and to China’s long-term goal of establishing a global Pax Sinica. This effort at “harmonisation” is to bebased
on the spread of purportedly benevolent Chinese influence outwards from its
Chinese core, through Central Asia, and then southwards and westwards across
the global South.
Complex interdependence: economics and institutions
Of
course, beyond security goals there is the aim of enhancing economic
cooperation between the member states. In particular, from China’s point of
view, Central Asian resources such as oil and natural gas are crucial for
China’s continued rise. Oil and gas pipelines constructed over the
last two decades snake their way from Turkmenistan across Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan through Xinjiang to the main industrial and population centres in
eastern China. China is now Turkmenistan’s main export market for its natural gas. Chinese
state energy companies have invested in the exploitation of fossil fuels across
the region, and also in mining operations such as gold and silver
mines in Kyrgyzstan.
Institutional
arrangements and cooperation platforms are also important. Economic cooperation
is conducted within the overarching umbrella of the BRI, which is supposed to
connect to Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU has Armenia,
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as members. Even if Russia’s version of the
BRI lacks substance, it is still an indication of the economic and political
synergies intended to be achieved between China and Russia. In this context,
the SCO acts as an annual talking shop for resolving
difficulties and smoothing out relations.
In
this task, the SCO – which is essentially a forum for national leaders in which
they can discuss cooperation and resolve problems – complements a range of
other Chinese-initiated institutions and platforms. These include of course other
summit-based forums such as BRICS and broad initiatives such as the BRI, but
also institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), whose aim is to build
infrastructure projects in global South countries. Alongside the SCO in Central
and South Asia, other regions have their own multilateral cooperation
platforms: for instance, there are the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF) and the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).
Overarching
all of these are three loftily-framed global initiatives: Xi Jinping’s Global
Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI), and Global
Civilisation Initiative (GCI). These were introduced
in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively. The GDI, GSI and GCI are indicative of the
Chinese government’s aims in the Xi era: like a three-pronged instrument, they
aim at achieving economic and security cooperation within a framework of
peaceful cooperation based on economics (development), military power
(security), and harmony of interests between states with distinct historical
and cultural traditions (which is what is intended to be inferred from the word
“civilisation”). Cooperation is to be achieved through economic, security and
institutional cooperation, facilitating a form of complex interdependence
within which relations between participating countries become steadily less
confrontational and more intertwined. In this sense, the SCO, which preceded
everything else, is one of the earliest manifestations of the Chinese vision of
globalisation, as well as a standard-bearer for that vision going forward.
Turkey, Indonesia, and other fence-sitters
It
is not surprising that Iran and Belarus joined the SCO. Iran is seen as a rogue
state
by the US and Europe, while Belarus is obviously aligned with Russia, not least
in its war with Ukraine. However, nothing similar can be said about others who
are flirting with the organisation such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and
Qatar.
Turkey
is an interesting case in that it has long been a NATO member. It has also been
seeking EU membership for about two decades. Since the foundation of the Turkish
Republic
under the reformer Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the nation has leaned to the West.
Now, however, seemingly frustrated at the lack of attention from the EU, it
seems that current president Recep Tayipp Erdoğan may be turning his Republic of Türkiyeeastwards – or at least hedging his bets. In an interview with Newsweek, Erdoğan stated that he does not consider the question of Turkey’s
simultaneous membership of NATO and SCO to be problematic.
In 2023, oil titan Saudi Arabia joined the SCO as a “dialogue partner”, suggesting that it may be moving away from the West,
while still retaining ties with the US and Europe. The same kind of
fence-sitting behaviour may be observed in other Persian Gulf fossil fuel
exporters such as Kuwait, the UAE, and Qatar, all of whom are also dialogue
partners. However, the simple fact that the whole Persian Gulf group is edging eastwards is indicative of the impact of meetings with Chinese
representatives in the CASCF and of growing ties with China and Russia rather
than just the West.
Lastly,
it should be mentioned that Indonesia
joined BRICS on 6 January 2025. Indonesia, unlike its Southeast Asian
neighbours Cambodia and Myanmar, is not an SCO dialogue partner. Yet its
growing economic
ties
with China and the BRICS membership explain why another long-term hedger now
has one foot in the Sino-Russian camp. Time will tell if Jakarta decides to
become a dialogue partner of the SCO – but it would not be much of a shock if
it did.
Conclusion
The
SCO has been in existence for almost three decades. In that time, it has served
as a talking shop to promote cooperation and resolve conflicts between China,
Russia and the Central Asian states. Its relative success needs to be measured
in terms of what has not happened (the possibility of armed conflicts or
at least notable tensions between the members has been averted) as much as what
has happened (for instance, increased Chinese investments and security
cooperation in Central Asian states). Latterly, the SCO has expanded to include
India, Pakistan, Iran and Belarus, indicating that participating in it is
attractive to other potential members.
The
intention seems to be to expand even further. The list of dialogue partners and
potential members is ever-increasing. Whether this is going to dilute or
enhance the effectiveness of the platform as a cooperation builder remains to
be seen. Nevertheless, despite the reservations of some observers, the
SCO seems to have a major role to play as part of China’s alternative
international architecture of institutions, platforms and initiatives. As an
institution promoting global South cooperation, the SCO complements BRICS, the
BRI, the EAEU and other regional cooperation platforms such as the CASCF and
FOCAC. In fact, the SCO preceded all of them, even serving as a model for their
creation.
In
short, it would be dangerous to discount or underestimate an organisation
containing nations whose populations and territory dominate the Asian landmass.
The fact that the organisation seems to stand as a counter to the influence of
the US-led liberal international order and its legacy organisations such as the
G7 and NATO means that it needs to be studied and taken seriously, whatever weaknesses are apparent to its
critics.
Photo Credit: SCO
|
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
|
