The recently concluded summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chinese city of Tianjin brings to the fore the question of whether the Eurasian region can constitute a credible alternative to the West in both economic and security terms.
The SCO is an intergovernmental organisation established in 2001 in Shanghai by six countries: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The SCO Charter was signed in St Petersburg, Russia, in 2002 and entered into force on September 19, 2003. Later, Pakistan, Iran, India and Belarus joined, bringing the total membership to 10. Afghanistan and Mongolia have observer status in the organisation.
To understand the raison d’etre of the SCO, we need to go back to the end of the cold war in the late 1980s. The conclusion of the half-century era saw the US emerge as the sole superpower both economically and militarily. The 1991 Operation Desert Storm, in which a UN-mandated multilateral coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraq, left no one in doubt that Washington was the sole master of the world.
The 1990s witnessed China’s quiet economic rise, which had already established it as a nuclear power and commanded the largest armed forces in the world. China’s rise continued into the new millennium. Although Beijing restructured a socialist and largely closed economy to a market-oriented and open one, it put its foot down on any attempts to change its patriarchal political system in which the Communist Party calls all the shots.
In addition to democracy and human rights, a strong American military presence in East Asia has been a major point of friction between Beijing and Washington. The US has its military bases in Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, and is the de facto guarantor of the autonomy of Taiwan, which China claims to be part of. A glance at the map of East Asia will reveal that China is encircled by US allies, which Beijing sees as ‘proxies, in the region.
China, otherwise a remarkably stable country, had to cope with one major problem in its backyard at the turn of the century: grave unrest in Xinjiang. Located in Western China and bordering Pakistan, India, Russia and the Central Asian States, Xinjiang is the largest of China’s autonomous regions or provinces. Its majority ethnic group is Uighur Muslims. The onvolvement of non-state actors from China’s western Muslim-majority neighbours in the Xinjiang unrest was suspected at a time when the Taliban were at the helm in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, three important developments were taking place on the European stage. One was the eastward expansion of the European Union (EU), taking several constituent republics or allies of the former Soviet Union into its membership. A similar expansion was made by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato).
The third was the resurgence of Russia under Vladimir Putin, having passed through the painful process of transformation from a socialist to a quasi-market economy. Moscow had inherited most of the nuclear capability of the erstwhile USSR. Once its economy was back in shape, it was eager to regain its lost Russian glory. The unipolar global order was beginning to give way to a multipolar world.
It is in this context that the establishment and expansion of the SCO may be seen. The membership of the SCO is drawn from Eastern Europe, East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. Including four nuclear powers, it has the distinction of being the world’s largest regional organisation both by area and population and one of the most important strategically. The member countries collectively constitute a quarter of global economic output, and control one-fifth of the world’s oil and nearly half of its natural gas reserves.
The organisation’s goals encompass economic and cultural cooperation; maintaining regional peace, security and stability; and promoting a democratic and fair political and economic international order. The last-mentioned goal is avowedly in contrast with the US-led global order, which heavily relies on sanctions as an element of national power.
In attaining its goals, the SCO is guided by four principles: Mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilisations and pursuit of common development (collectively called the ‘Shanghai Spirit’).
Supporting stability and security in the region and beyond remains at the forefront of the SCO. The organisation was established to ensure stability and maintain security in the vast Eurasian region, addressing the challenges and threats that could lead to insecurity and instability. These range from poverty and backwardness to confrontations and conflicts and from violation of international law with regard to state sovereignty and territorial integrity to transnational organised crime and drug trafficking. If such political and socio-economic factors underpin insecurity, the disruptive use of technologies, particularly the internet (cyberterrorism), serves as the most lethal agent of proliferation of extremism, separatism and terrorism, while drug production and trafficking bankroll these evils.
Over time, the SCO has established itself as the primary security organisation in the region. For security-related collaboration, which includes the fight against terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking and the disruptive use of the internet, the SCO has a dedicated standing body named the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The broad instruments of collaboration are joint exercises and training, exchange of information and development of common strategies
Islamabad joined the SCO in June 2017. From 2005 to 2017, it held the status of an observer state. Pakistan is among the countries which have been most severely hit (more than 80,000 casualties and over $150 billion economic losses) by extremism and terrorism. Participation in the RATS enables Pakistan to be part of the exchange of key information and intelligence on the activities of terrorists and extremists. Participation in the SCO’s counterterrorism exercises and military drills provides an opportunity for our armed forces to understand and draw upon the operational tactics of their counterparts in other member countries.
Afghanistan, which shares borders with six SCO countries including Pakistan, is a key to regional stability. The continuing presence of militant organisations in Afghanistan, particularly close to its borders with Pakistan, is a persistent threat to regional peace, security and prosperity. In the 2020 Doha Accord with the US, the Afghan Taliban had committed not to allow the Afghan territory to be used by terrorists against other countries. The Taliban regime has failed to keep its word. It continues to harbour the outlawed TTP, which has masterminded hundreds of cross-border attacks inside Pakistan. Of all SCO members, Pakistan has the highest stakes in Afghanistan’s stability.
The SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group can play a crucial role in this regard and assist Kabul in overcoming its economic challenges and strengthening its counterterrorism capabilities. The SCO can also provide an integrated platform for all countries in the region to discuss issues related to Afghanistan.
A fair and balanced international order is among the watchwords of the SCO. World orders are not only a political and economic contrivance, but they also have cultural and civilisational underpinnings. Therefore, a multipolar world in which no single country, bloc, political system or economic doctrine has the uncontestable claim to supremacy is far better than a unipolar international order.
The SCO is neither an economic union (unlike the EU) nor a mutual security pact (unlike Nato). Therefore, given its present architecture, it doesn’t constitute a security or economic bloc in its own right. SCO members, such as China and Russia, are, however, significant constituents of an emerging multipolar order, while the organisation can synergise the efforts towards this end.
The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist. He tweets/posts hussainhzaidi and can be reached at: hussainhzaidigmail.com