MARCH 20 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has achieved remarkably little in its decade plus life.
Established formally in 2001, it grew out of a regional grouping aimed at seeking to define China’s borders with the former Soviet Union. Over time, it has expanded beyond its immediate neighbourhood to include countries as distant at Belarus and Sri Lanka as ‘dialogue partners’.
The current push to welcome both India and Pakistan is likely to further test the organisation’s already limited capability. The practical implications for Central Asia are unlikely to be dramatic, though in the longer term it may help bind Central and South Asia closer together and foster a greater sense of community across the Eurasian heartland.
In practical terms, the SCO has always been a fairly limited organisation. Seen initially by Russia as a way of controlling Chinese activity in Central Asia, for Beijing it has provided a useful umbrella under which to pursue their stealthy expansion in the region. For Central Asian powers, it provided another format in which to engage their larger neighbours. While the primary thrust of its activity has been in the security space, China has regularly sought to push it in an economic direction.
Yet, at the same time, all of the countries involved have largely pursued their own national interests through other pathways. The most recent demonstration was the establishment by Beijing of the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM). Focused on managing the security threats from Afghanistan, the QCCM in many ways replicates a function which one would have expected the SCO to deliver.
The addition of Pakistan and India to the grouping is unlikely to change this dynamic.
All of the nations involved in the SCO will continue to function through their own bilateral and other multilateral engagements. But it will offer another forum in which India and Pakistan are obliged to interact and will also help further tie Central and South Asia together. These ties have been growing for some time. Kazakhstan has expressed an interest in participating in the China- Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Indian President Narendra Modi visited Central Asia last year.
If India and Pakistan join the SCO, it will further help tie them together.
By Raffaello Pantucci, director of International Security Studies at the London-based Royal United Service Institute (RUSI).
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(News report from Issue No. 321, published on March 20 2017)