What is the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation?

WESTERN LEADERS may cast a nervous glance at Samarkand, a city in Uzbekistan, where the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) gathers for a summit on September 15th and 16th. China’s president, Xi Jinping, on his first foreign trip since the outbreak of covid-19, is expected to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Others attending include Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi; his country is set to become a full member. Western leaders are pointedly not invited to the meeting, the organisation’s first summit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does the SCO do, and should it worry the West?

The SCO was founded in 2001, by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to discuss security and economic matters in Central Asia, with a focus on fighting terrorism and strengthening trade links. Although its members have conducted joint military exercises, the group is neither a formal defence alliance, like NATO, nor an official economic union like the EU. It was envisaged as a forum through which China and Russia could manage neighbourly relations. But the SCO’s recent expansion has complicated this mission. India and Pakistan were granted full membership in 2017, while the terms for Iran’s accession were established at a virtual summit in 2021. Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia have “observer” status. And the club has several “dialogue partners”, including Turkey.

The SCO’s rapid growth reflects competing visions of what it might become. Russia’s isolation from the West makes it keen to trumpet its geopolitical importance elsewhere. It hopes a bigger SCO might offer a way for non- or anti-Western powers to collaborate, and a platform to espouse the benefits of what Mr Putin calls a “multipolar” world. Iran might feel the same way. The possible accession of Belarus, a Russian vassal, which is on the docket for discussion at this year’s summit, would pull in the same direction.

But China, the member with the most clout, is more pragmatic. Although it shares Russia’s anti-American sentiment, it is less bothered by grand notions of ideological alignment, says Yu Jie of Chatham House, a think-tank in London. China views the SCO as a means to ensure security in its neighbourhood and to protect its economic interests across Eurasia, where it has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Other members are sceptical about aligning themselves with Russia’s push for a new global order. India, for example, is unlikely to sign any statement hailing America’s imminent geopolitical demise. Countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan seek to attract investments from both China and the West while managing relations with Russia, historically the influential power in the region.

The SCO’s expansion highlights the often conflicting priorities of its membership. Any club that includes both India and Pakistan, for instance, is unlikely to achieve consensus easily. India also has a border spat with China. In 2021, meanwhile, more than 50 people were killed in clashes on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The persistence of such bilateral disputes has left the SCO with a reputation for ineffectiveness. As Temur Umarov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank headquartered in Washington, puts it, “bigger is not better” when co-operation is the goal.

If Mr Xi and Mr Putin meet in Samarkand, they may wax lyrical about their unorthodox visions of democracy, or the hypocrisy of America and its allies. That would match the tone of the joint statement they issued after their last meeting, in Beijing in February 2022. But the West has little reason to fret about a dynamic new Sino-Russian-led alliance emerging from the summit. Where brass tacks are concerned, the SCO will concentrate on more modest topics, such as the construction of two Chinese-backed railway lines in Central Asia. ■