No acrimony as Pakistan and India join SCO

ASTANA: The Six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) formally admitted Pakistan and India as its full members as China had earlier hoped for “better ties” between the two neighbors after their inclusion in the SCO. For once no acrimony was witnessed between them as they pledged to adhere to the Shanghai spirit and SCO Charter that also calls for security cooperation and fight against terrorism and violent extremism, besides multiple levels of economic cooperation across continental Eurasia.

The decision to include Pakistan and India in the SCO was taken in July 2015 at Ufa, Russia, and this was the place where Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Modi had then signed a joint statement to revive the bilateral dialogue, which could not otherwise take off. The new entrants to SCO were careful not to wash their dirty linen in public at the Astana Summit. Although Prime Minister Sharif seemed to be not averse to talks with Prime Minister Modi, official from both sides remained in a denial mode, even though broad smiles were exchanged between the two premiers and speculation continued about their probable interaction.    

Formed originally in post-cold war period as a political, economic and military organization by the Shaghai-5 leaders from China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia, it was renamed as SCO with the inclusion of Uzbekistan on 15 July 2001 in Shanghai. In response to rising terrorism, these Eurasian countries joined hands in a multi-polar political world to seek a rebalancing of the world order as defined by globalization and information revolution. If economically rising China was too keen to utilize Central Asia’s natural resources, the reviving Russia was quite desperate to forge new alliances to secure southern Russia and Central Asia from the rise of violent religious extremism. Central Asia republics were also looking around for both security and economic linkages that were broken with the dismemberment of Soviet Union.

 With the addition of two South Asian joints in the SCO fold, the bridge between South Asia and Central Asia has been created as Iran awaits its inclusion, as being pleaded by President Putin, and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani profiled his country being at the “Heart of Asia. With Belarus, Mongolia, sitting with observer status, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey, contributing as dialogue partner, SCO is going to grow as the largest Eurasian economic and security arrangement. Unlike SARRC that remains a hostage to bilateral disputes between India and Pakistan, SCO has the flexibility of allowing bilateral and multilateral cooperative relationships.

While magnanimously welcoming India’s entry into the SCO, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called to “leave a legacy of peace for future generations—not toxic harvest of conflict and animosity”. And he appealed to “create shared spaces for all” i.e., without excluding or marginalizing anyone. Mindful of India’s mistake for having ignored Chinese President Xi Jinping’s great initiative of “One Belt, One Road”, Prime Minister Modi while acknowledging Chinese support for India’s membership emphasized “cooperation in connectivity projects between SCO members (as) a priority for India”. The question, thus, arises, is that will he be revisiting his hostile policy towards CPEC? Briefing journalists, Indian Foreign Secretary, Jaishankar, termed Mr Modi’s meeting with President Xi as “cordial and positive”. He ignored the questions of the Indian journalists about Masood Azhar and other divisive issues. 

The SCO is not SAARC, it allows India and Pakistan yet another regional avenue to explore possible avenues of cooperation, including against terrorism if they agree to bring mutually destructive proxy wars to an end.

The Chinese wants India to join CEPC, with the consent of Pakistan, and stop behaving as a “spoiled child”. There were indications, as indicated by the Commander of Southern Command of Pak Army, that civil and military leadership is willing to welcome India joining the game-changer for South and Central Asian regions. Similarly, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure and the statement on terrorism and extremism provide a mechanism to the member states to coordinate their efforts against terrorism.

Before the Summit started, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had a “productive and cordial” meeting with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani. The Afghan diplomatic sources were also upbeat about the meeting that lasted for an hour or so. As a follow-up the high officials are expected to meet to remove misunderstandings and evolve some monitoring and coordination mechanism to address each other’s complaints and improve border management and coordination against terrorism. In fact Prime Minister Sharif was too curious to explore some kind of a reliable mechanism to remove Afghanistan’s apprehensions and redressing of Pak complaints. On his way to Astana, he emphatically rejected the suspicions about the use of Pak territory against any country for terrorism. The issue that was quite worrying to his mind was the current row between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and other GCC members. While writing these lines, both Mr Sharif and Mr Modi are at the Expo-2017 in Astana, how far they will avoid each other? They cannot. They have to bring an end to this ‘no-war, no-peace situation’ and continuing bloodletting on the LoC and the proxy wars. SCO spirit and the huge attractions of One-Belt, One-Road demands otherwise.