In a relatively short period since its creation in June 2001, Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has surpassed Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in effectively serving the objective national needs and interests of its six members—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan—in an era of terrorism and globalisation. Pakistan, besides India, Iran and Mongolia, has an observer status in the SCO, however wishing to be its full member.
The SCO agenda covers cooperation in a whole range of economic, political and security fields, with principal emphasis on enhancing Central Asian security by combating terrorism and other threats to the region and fostering regional trade, investment and economic development. The comparative significance of SCO vis-à-vis ECO and CIS is due to the diversified nature of its agenda and membership, the constructive role China and Russia as great powers have played in its affairs, the organization’s growing importance for its Central Asian member-states, and its contribution towards improving Sino-Russian ties and projecting Central Asia’s distinctive regional identity.
The SCO is facing various economic, security and political challenges, such as achieving greater cohesion among its members, evolving effective strategies for counter-terrorism, dispute settlement and crisis management, enhancing its international image as a cooperative regional body not hostile to US/Western interests, and, more importantly, realizing mutually-beneficial cooperation in regional trade and economic development. How the organization has attempted to tackle these challenges and what more it needs to do for the purpose.
Areas of Achievement
A successor to Shanghai Five, which was established in 1996, SCO in the past over six-and-a-half years of its history attempted to realize the various political, economic and security goals set in its founding Shanghai Declaration by creating appropriate institutional mechanisms and undertaking various cooperative steps. The organization has so far achieved progress mainly in four areas: establishing mechanisms to deal with security issues, particularly terrorism, achieving progress in the economic sector, creating harmony among the member-states, and enhancing its international image.
As for progress in security cooperation, terrorism has been a high priority issue as all members face terrorist threats. SCO responded to this challenge by establishing a Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in 2004, which has helped member-states coordinate their counter-terrorism strategies, including intelligence sharing and joint operations. Several SCO anti-terrorism exercises have been conducted to enhance the organization’s capability and capacity to respond to the terrorist threat, including East-Anti-Terror-2006 exercise in Uzbekistan.
SCO has also attempted to manage non-traditional threats like smuggling of arms, narcotics and illegal migration. SCO has also attempted to foster military cooperation among its member-states by organizing several joint military exercises, including Peace Mission 2005 and Peace Mission 2007.
While the security aspect of SCO is generally exaggerated particularly by Western scholars and officials to make it appear as an emerging anti-Western bloc in Central Asia led by China and Russia, a closer look at the organization’s agenda preferences suggests that, like other regionalism setups, the organization is increasingly interested in harnessing the collective economic potential of its member-states, promoting regional economic development and trade, and developing communication linkages among the members to foster trade.
For the purpose, SCO has adopted different strategies and undertaken a host of initiatives, including a 2001 Memorandum of Regional Economic Cooperation, a 2003 Framework Agreement for multilateral economic and trade cooperation, a 2005 decision to prioritize joint energy projects in oil and gas sector, the exploration of new hydrocarbon reserves, and joint use of water resources, and several agreements leading to the establishment of a Business Council and movement towards an action plan of Inter-Bank Association for supporting economic cooperation.
SCO has enabled harmonize political ties among its member-states. It has become a principal platform where leaders of the member-states interact regularly, and try to build a consensus on issues of competing or conflicting interest. Consequently, even major players such as Russia and China, which have had serious issues of mutual conflict in the past, have become regional partners.
The reason Central Asian states have overtime started attaching greater importance with SCO is because neither extra-regional player such as the US nor any other regional initiative in Central Asia like the CIS or ECO has been so prompt in tackling the region’s security and economic problems. The resources-rich Central Asian states being landlocked need an outlet for economic development, and China and Russia have emerged as the most viable channels for them for the purpose. It is, therefore, the mutual compatibility of economic interests that has paved the way for greater harmonization of ties among SCO member-states.
Finally, with gradual improvement of bilateral relations of China and Russia with the United States, and with the emergence of SCO as a vibrant regional organization focusing mainly on security and economic cooperation which does not contradict US/Western interests, the latter’s hitherto negative perceptions of SCO have started to subside. For their part, SCO leaders have consistently assured the international community that their organization is not an alliance against any other state or organization, but rather a regional body based on the principles of multilateralism.
Challenges to Tackle
SCO may have emerged as the most prominent organization in Central Asia, but it is still faced with a number of challenges, including the lack of cohesion among member-states, continuing economic woes, lingering institutional issues and the never-ending image problem.
SCO has succeeded in harmonizing ties among its member-states—but only to an extent. These ties have not become cohesive enough to trigger full-scale state-to-state cooperation or to allow civil society of the member-states to make the required input in the regionalism process. China and Russia being overwhelmingly stronger members and the unstable Central Asian members represent a situation of unequal membership. Moreover, the interests of SCO member states continue to conflict with each other. In addition, the membership of almost all of the organizations working in Central Asia overlaps.
All of the Central Asian states are economically under-developed, despite being resource-rich. Consequently, they expect China and Russia to provide for their economic development. However, China and Russia can spare limited financial and economic resources, which means SCO has to operate within budgetary constraints. There is limited scope for trade expansion within the region as all of the five Central Asian states export similar range of products.
SCO has, indeed, progressively institutionalized, but several mechanisms dealing with issues like dispute settlement and membership still need to be established. There is no permanent body to settle disputes among the SCO member states. Moreover, the SCO Charter does not have any provision for accepting new members.
Despite repeated assurances by SCO leaders that their organization is not an anti-US/West security alliance, its future role in the region continues to be perceived or expressed negatively particularly by US/Western scholars and officials. This means the SCO leadership has to continue reassuring the international community that the organization is geared only towards achieving greater security and economic development of Central Asia
Concluding Remarks
In the past six and a half years, SCO has succeeded in creating basic structural and legal foundations for regional cooperation, enhancing security and defense ties, especially to counter terrorism, strengthening economic, trade, communication and transportation links, harmonizing ties between the member-states and enhancing the organization’s international image and standing.
Some of the drawbacks facing it are the same as confronted by other regional initiatives in Central Asia like overlapping membership, resources constraints, or the lack of cohesion; but there are other problems which are SCO’s own, such as the absence of legal/structural mechanisms for dispute settlement and accession process for new members, and the image problem.
Several economic cooperative projects have been identified, but without a follow-up agreement. Many agreements remain to be implemented. SCO members do need to reach a compromise on the remaining competitive or conflicting areas between them, and give even greater priority to the organisation’s collective developmental goals over their specific national interests. SCO has to tackle all of these challenges in order to enhance its international standing as a more credible and viable setup of formal regional integration in Central Asia.
-- This article is an abridged version of the paper the author presented at an international workshop on ‘Inter-Asian Connections’ in Dubai, UAE, organised jointly by the Dubai School of Government and Social Sciences Research Council.
