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By APD writer Wang Peng
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic, and military organization, was initially founded in 1996 in Shanghai by the leaders of the “Shanghai Five” states, namely, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. After the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organization.
June 9 is a milestone of SCO. Two years ago, the SCO decided to admit two observer states, India and Pakistan, as full members. They signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 in Tashkent, thereby started the formal process of joining the SCO as full members.
Now both India and Pakistan enjoy the full membership of SCO on 9 June 2017 in Astana, Kazakhstan summit.
What is the function of SCO in peace-making and economic growth? In the discipline of international relations (IR), experts often separate two kinds of security cooperation: the passive and active. The passive security cooperation has a relatively low barrier to entry, which aims to ease the crisis between the member states and provide a platform of mutual negotiation to resolve potential conflicts. In this sense, SCO, as a pragmatic conflict-mediator, has successfully resolved the territory disputes between China and Russia, as well as other five central Asian countries since its founding, hence has made great contributions to the regional and world peace.
By contrast, the SCO also runs as an active security cooperation platform. Since all the members of SCO share a fundamental consensus on “keeping partnership, rather than alliance” that was proposed by China. The SCO never aims to become a military coalition such as the “Oriental NATO” or “New Communist or Authoritarian Axis” as some western media misunderstood.
Considering the essence and identity of SCO, it never goes against any sovereign states as the “targeted third party”. However, if so, how can it be “active”? The targets are three major threats - the terrorism, the separatism, and the (religious) extremism – that all the SCO members and all world’s peace-loving people are facing. People in central Asia, Russia, and China are all suffering from the increasing threat of terrorists, separatist factions, and the extremist fanatics. So are India and Pakistan.
As China and its SCO brothers once promised, the SCO never fight or threat any third party. It is always open-minded and inclusive, rather than arrogant or exclusive. Now they have fulfilled their promises. When the two most significant countries in South Asia joined this big family, the SCO will cover one third of the world’s land: from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean, from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, where lived nearly half of the population on the earth. There is nothing more important than the peace and prosperity enjoyed by billions of people. So we are confident that political leaders of SCO members have wisdom enough to resolve the potential conflicts and problems and make a peaceful and prosperous world for Eurasia and for the world.
Dr. Wang Peng, Research Fellow at Charhar Institute, Lecturer at the China Institute of Fudan University.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
