The “Shanghai Organization of Realists” Forms a New Pole of Attraction for Eurasia

While at one end of Eurasia, the British public was deciding whether or not they wanted to remain part of the European Union, at the other end of the continent, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Tashkent was taking a step closer to forming a new pole of international relations.

When Pakistan and India are granted full membership, the SCO will unite over 60% of the territory of Eurasia, over 40% of the planet’s population and around a third of the world’s GDP. To be sure, the accession of these two countries to the SCO will be a political achievement first and foremost, especially considering the nature of relations between India and Pakistan and the complexity of the dialogue between Beijing and New Delhi. It is fraught with potential difficulties for the functioning of the SCO. Nevertheless, it is hard to argue that the expansion of the SCO is a testament to the relevance of and prospects for the work of this international structure. And this is not surprising. The SCO has already proved its effectiveness through the clear and consistent implementation of its original goals of resolving the relatively complex border problems that existed between China and the four former Soviet States that are members of the organization. Now the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is looking to expand further, and interest from such countries as India, Pakistan, Iran and, according to recent reports, Israel, Syria and Egypt, will no doubt further the horizons in terms of goal setting (link in Russian).

EPA/MICHAEL KLIMENTYEV/Vostock Photo

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during their meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 24 June 2016

The priorities that the SCO set in Tashkent for its continued work give us grounds to call the organization a club of Eurasian realists. The participants in the summit identified the fight against terrorism and extremism as one of its priority tasks (link in Russian). Specifically, the Russian President talked about the need to strengthen the capabilities of the regional SCO anti-terrorist structure, despite the fact that the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is one of the more effective branches of the organization. Given the SCO region, it is clear why so much attention was paid to this question. The problem is all the more acute following the collapse of the international anti-terrorist coalition in 2014, despite the fact that the terrorist threat has not lessened since then, but rather has grown even stronger in Asia, Europe and the United States (link in Russian).

Of course, this will mean new infrastructure formed by a new conglomerate of countries. But the need for such efforts in today’s world is obvious, and this is where the SCO has found its niche. During the discussions on terrorism and extremism, the participants called for fighting the causes of this malady as well as the symptoms: the heads of the organization stressed the need to stabilize the situation in the Middle East and North Africa as soon as possible through the political regulation of the crises, and called for the preservation of the territorial integrity, unity, sovereignty and stability of Syria.

At the same time, the SCO is not getting fixated on the Middle East question. Those who attended the summit understand the growth of geopolitical tension in the world as a whole and the role of the United States in this process, and this was reflected in the Tashkent declaration. For example, the statement within the declaration that the SCO member states are against the unilateral strengthening of missile defence systems was a clear signal to Washington. In May 2016, the United States put into operation their missile defence system in Romania (link in Russian). The next stage is Poland. This position is another demonstration of the SCO’s realism. The threat to international security is not seen by these countries as a move away from the “values of democracy and freedom”, but rather as concrete steps towards the unjustified militarization of a region.

The focus on security issues in setting the priority tasks of the SCO is quite understandable, given the specifics of the region and the history of the organization’s formation. However, it is possible that work on economic cooperation could be intensified in the near future. The next SCO summit will take place in Kazakhstan in June 2017, to coincide with the beginning of work on the EXPO-2017 major international exhibition on energy development. Positioning the summit this way brings more attention to the economic aspect of the meeting’s agenda. What is more, Astana traditionally makes economics a priority in its participation in international organizations and in bilateral relations with Moscow and Beijing. Lobbying the economic agenda within the SCO, while remaining sensitive to the issues of security, should benefit the organization, transforming it from a regional platform for dialogue into a key decision-making centre for the Eurasian continent.