Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organization established by China and Russia in 2001. It is the world's largest regional organization in terms of geographic scope and population, covering approximately 80% of the area of Eurasia[4] and 40% of the world population. As of 2021, its combined GDP was around 20% of global GDP.[5]
Abbreviation
SCO
Shanghai Five
15 June 2001
Mutual security, political, and economic cooperation
Regional cooperation forum[1]
Observers:
Dialogue partners:
Guest attendees:
Inactive:
- Grigory Logvinov
- Sobirzoda Gulmakhmad
- Sohail Khan
- Shri Janesh Kain
- Nuran Niyazaliyev
- Nurlan Yermekbayev
Ruslan Mirzaev
The SCO is the successor to the Shanghai Five, formed in 1996 between the People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.[6] In June 2001, the leaders of these nations and Uzbekistan met in Shanghai to announce a new organization with deeper political and economic cooperation. In June 2017, it expanded to eight states, with India and Pakistan. Iran joined the group in July 2023. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners.
The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council (HSC), its supreme decision-making body, which meets once a year. The organization also contains the so-called Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS).
Origins[edit]
The Shanghai Five[edit]
The Shanghai Five group was created on 26 April 1996 when the heads of states of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan signed the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai.[7]
On 24 April 1997 the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow, Russia.[8] On 20 May 1997 Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin signed a declaration on a "multipolar world".[9]
Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 1998, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 1999, and in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in 2000. At the Dushanbe summit, members agreed to "oppose intervention in other countries' internal affairs on the reason of 'humanitarianism' and 'protecting human rights;' and support the efforts of one another in safeguarding the five countries' national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and social stability."[6] The Shanghai Five structure helped speed up the members' resolution of border disputes, agree on military deployments in border areas, and address security threats.[10]: 95
Developing institutional forms[edit]
In 2001, the annual summit returned to Shanghai and the group was institutionalized.[10]: 95 The five member nations first admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism.[10]: 95 On 15 June 2001, all six heads of state signed the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, praising the role played thus far by the Shanghai Five mechanism and aiming to transform it to a higher level of cooperation.[3] From 2001 to 2008, the SCO developed rapidly, establishing a number of permanent bodies and ad hoc initiatives dealing with economic and security matters.[10]: 95
In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in Saint Petersburg, Russia and signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organisation's purposes, principles, structures and forms of operation. It entered into force on 19 September 2003.[11]
In July 2005, at the summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, with representatives of India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan attending an SCO summit for the first time, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of the Kazakhstan, greeted the guests in words that had never been used before in any context: "The leaders of the states sitting at this negotiation table are representatives of half of humanity".[12]
By 2007 the SCO had initiated over twenty large-scale projects related to transportation, energy and telecommunications and held regular meetings of security, military, defence, foreign affairs, economic, cultural, banking, and other officials from its member states.[13]
In July 2015, in Ufa, Russia, the SCO decided to admit India and Pakistan as full members. In June 2016 in Tashkent, both signed the memorandum of obligations, thereby starting the process of joining the SCO.[14] In June 2017, at a summit in Kazakhstan, India and Pakistan officially joined SCO as full members.[15][16]
In 2004 the SCO established relations with the United Nations (where it is an observer in the General Assembly), the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2005, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2005, the Collective Security Treaty Organization in 2007, the Economic Cooperation Organization in 2007, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2011, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in 2014, and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in 2015.[17] in 2018, SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) has established relations with the African Union's African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT).[18]
As of 2020, the Council of Heads of State was the top decision-making body in the SCO, meeting at the annual SCO summits in one of the member states' capital cities. Because of their government structure, the prime ministers of the parliamentary democracies of India and Pakistan attend the SCO Council of Heads of State summits, as their responsibilities are similar to the presidents of other SCO nations.[19]
As of the 4 July 2023 meeting, the Council of Heads of State consists of:[20]
The Council of Heads of Government is the second-highest council in the organisation. This council also holds annual summits, at which time members discuss issues of multilateral cooperation and approves the organisation's budget.[21] As of the 1 November 2022 meeting, Council of Heads of Government consists of:[22]
As of 2007, the Council of Foreign Ministers also held regular meetings, where they discussed the current international situation and interaction with other international organisations.[24] As of 2021, the Council of National Coordinators coordinated the multilateral cooperation of member states within the framework of the SCO's charter.[25]
The Secretariat of the SCO, headquartered in Beijing, China, is the primary executive body of the organisation. It serves to implement organisational decisions and decrees, drafts proposed documents (such as declarations and agendas), function as a document depository for the organisation, arranges specific activities within the SCO framework, and promotes and disseminates information about the SCO. The SCO Secretary-General is elected to a three-year term.[26] Zhang Ming of China became the current Secretary-General on 1 January 2022.[26]
The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) Executive Committee, headquartered in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, is a permanent organ of the SCO which serves to promote cooperation of member states against the three evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism. The Director of SCO RATS Executive Committee is elected to a three-year term. Ruslan Mirzaev of Uzbekistan became the current Director on 1 January 2022. Each member state also sends a permanent representative to RATS.[27]
The official languages of the SCO are Chinese and Russian.[3]
Activities[edit]
Cooperation on security[edit]
As of 2023, the SCO is primarily centered on security-related concerns, describing the main threats it confronts as being terrorism, separatism and extremism. It has addressed regional human trafficking and weapons trafficking and created terrorist blacklists.[10]: 96
At SCO summit, held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on 16–17 June 2004, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) was established. On 21 April 2006, the SCO announced plans to fight cross-border drug crimes under the counter-terrorism rubric.[68]
In October 2007, the SCO signed an agreement with the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, to broaden cooperation on issues such as security, crime, and drug trafficking.[69]
As of 2010, the organisation was opposing cyberwarfare, saying that the dissemination of information "harmful to the spiritual, moral and cultural spheres of other states" should be considered a "security threat". An accord adopted in 2009 defined "information war", in part, as an effort by a state to undermine another's "political, economic, and social systems".[70] The Diplomat reported in 2017 that SCO has foiled 600 terror plots and extradited 500 terrorists through RATS.[71] The 36th meeting of the Council of the RATS decided to hold a joint anti-terror exercise, Pabbi-Antiterror-2021, in Pakistan in 2021.[72]
Analysis[edit]
Relations with the West[edit]
The United States applied for observer status in the SCO, but was rejected in 2005.[112]
At the Astana summit in July 2005, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq foreshadowing an indefinite presence of U.S. forces in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the SCO requested the U.S. to set a clear timetable for withdrawing its troops from SCO member states. Shortly afterwards, Uzbekistan requested the U.S. leave the K2 air base.[113]
A report in 2007 noted that the SCO has made no direct comments against the U.S. or its military presence in the region; however, some indirect statements at the past summits have been viewed by Western media outlets as "thinly veiled swipes at Washington".[114]
From 2001 to 2008, the Western reaction to the SCO was generally skepticism of the organization's goals.[10]: 95 By the 2010s, however, the West increasingly began to view the SCO as a potential contributor to stability in the region, particularly with regards to Afghanistan.[10]: 96
In September 2023, the United Nations approved United Nations resolution A/77/L.107, titled "Cooperation between the United Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization." The result of the vote was 80 in favour to 2 against with 47 abstentions.[115][116] The United States and Israel were the only countries to vote against the resolution.
Although the European Council on Foreign Relations dubbed the SCO an "anti NATO alliance" in 2022,[117] apparent inconsistencies among its member states have prevented it from becoming an effective geopolitical alliance.[118] As of July 2023, India and Central Asian countries maintained friendly cooperation with both the West and Russia, India has had fierce conflicts with Pakistan and its ally China at the same time, which has been limiting the possibility of China and Russia forming the group into an anti-Western bloc.[119] Academics Simon Curtis and Ian Klaus write that although SCO has sometimes been compared to NATO, unlike NATO, SCO does not create a collective security alliance.[120]
