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The Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation: the NATO of the East?
When faced with a significant external threat,
states either go into alliance with the source of
the danger or ally themselves with other states
similarly threatened. An example of the latter is
the NATO military alliance. The treaty, signed in
1949 by the USA, Canada and ten West European
states was a response to the perceived threat from
the USSR and its allies. It provided that an
attack on one member state would be regarded as an
attack on them all. However, one military alliance
can beget another when the original threat
perceives itself to be threatened. Thus, the
Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955 comprising the USSR
and its seven east European allies which bound its
signatories to come to the aid of the others,
should any one of them be the victim of foreign
aggression. As the power of the Soviet Union
diminished and Communism fell, the treaty became
redundant and was officially dissolved in 1991,
after successive governments withdrew their
support of the treaty. Thus the USA became the
sole superpower and NATO survives, albeit with a
changing and uncertain role. Inevitably, some
states feel threatened by US hegemony and seek
alliances to act as a countervailing force on the
international scene, preferring a multipolar to a
unipolar world.
Some observers believe the Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) is one such alliance. What
exactly is the SCO? The organisation owes its
origins to the creation of the Shanghai Five group
in 1996 whose main purpose was to resolve border
disputes between its members: China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. A year later
these countries signed a treaty to reduce military
forces in border areas. The Shanghai Five became
six in 2001 when Uzbekistan was admitted. Renamed
the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a formal
charter was signed in St Petersburg in 2002
setting out the organisation's purposes,
principles, structures and form of operation.
www.sectsco.org
The SCO comprises a Council of Heads of State, the
top decision making body, as well as a Council of
Heads of Government ie prime ministers and a
Council of Foreign Ministers. Both hold annual
summits in the different capitals of the member
states. There is also a Council of National
Coordinators whose function is to coordinate
multilateral cooperation of member states. The SCO
Secretariat is the main executive body of the
organisation.
The main goals and tasks of the SCO are set out in
the charter.
www.google.com
These include strengthening mutual trust,
friendship and good neighbourliness between the
members, cooperation in the maintenance and
strengthening of peace, security and stability in
the region and promotion of a new democratic, fair
and rational political and economic international
order. Another major goal is to jointly counteract
terrorism, separatism and extremism in all their
manifestations. There is also provision for
regional cooperation in politics, trade and
economy, defence, law enforcement, environment
protection, culture, science and technology,
education, energy, transport, credit and finance,
and other spheres of common interest.
A number of non-member states have observer
status. India and Mongolia are observers but show
no interest in becoming full members, unlike Iran
and Pakistan who do. Iran’s application for
membership has so far been resisted. In 2005 the
US was refused observer status, ostensibly because
it has no geographical contiguity with any of the
member states.
Recently the status of ‘dialogue partner’ has been
developed to apply to states or organisations that
share the goals and principles of the SCO and wish
to establish relations of equal mutually
beneficial partnership. Sri Lanka and Belarus this
year became dialogue partners – the latter having
been turned down as an observer.
The SCO has declared that it is not an alliance
directed against other states and regions. Its
goals of regional security, economic links and
cultural exchange appear much the same as those of
the OSCE and EU. However, in the larger context of
international power politics in Central Asia (the
New Great Game, as it is now called) there is a
widespread belief that Russia and China, whatever
their differences, are using the SCO to argue for
a multi-polar world based on regional security
blocs that would counterbalance American global
ascendancy. At the ninth annual summit of the SCO
in Yekaterinburg in June ‘09, the final
declaration emphasised multipolarity and the
growing importance of regional mechanisms in
settling global problems.
However, the US believes it has good strategic,
economic and political reasons to be involved in
Central Asia and has joined Russia and China in
the struggle for influence in the area. All three
powers are competing to control Central Asia’s
rich supplies of oil and gas reserves. SCO members
Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan
have astutely played off one power against the
other. For example, Kyrgyzstan is host to both
Russian and US military bases. The USA also needed
a military base in the region to support the NATO
mission in Afghanistan, now that supply routes
through Pakistan are uncertain and dangerous.
Kyrgyzstan stated in February that it was closing
down the US air base after receiving a promise of
$2 billion in crisis aid from Russia. Washington
responded with a payment of $180 million to keep
the base open and agreed to rename its base a
‘transit center’ to meet Kyrgyz sensitivities. The
base is the refuelling point for coalition
military operations in Afghanistan. Russia regards
its former territory as its back yard and its base
serves as a symbol of that. Kyrgyzstan has now
allowed the Russians to open a second military
base in the south of the country.
This second base is clearly meant to project
Russian power and to check US influence in the
area but as our recent update on the country
shows, Uzbekistan is unhappy at the prospect of
another Russian military base in Kyrgyzstan which
would be located near its border.
www.newnations.com
Kazakhstan, the largest of the Central Asian
republics is rich in petroleum, natural gas and
mineral resources and has also been playing the
balancing game between the competing powers. It
supplies Russia with petroleum and natural gas at
artificially low prices and assists the U.S. in
security and counter-terrorism. Meanwhile China’s
National Petroleum Company has become majority
shareholder in Kazakhstan’s fourth biggest oil
company in exchange for a $10 billion loan to help
the faltering Kazakh economy, weakened by the
global financial crisis.
China’s booming economy makes the energy wealth
and developing markets of Central Asia very
attractive, the more so as the Russian economy
contracts, thanks to the fall in energy prices.
China also has stakes in the Kazakhstan-China oil
pipeline and is exploring energy assets in
Uzbekistan. Chinese entrepreneurs are setting up
in the region and Chinese goods flood into the
region’s markets.
The governments of the Central Asian member
states, whatever their reservations at growing
Chinese power, welcome Beijing’s supply of huge
amounts of credit and loans. These unsavoury,
autocratic regimes do not have to impress Beijing
with their democratic or human rights credentials,
as they do when the West offers financial
assistance. They also prefer two regional powers
competing for their oil and gas rather than the
old Soviet monopoly. As energy growth slows in
Europe, Russia also welcomes China as a customer
for its oil.
Apart from Kazakhstan, the Central Asian republics
do not have strong military forces and have
concerns about security. Russia’s military support
in the region is not new, but China has recently
become more involved in supplying training,
equipment and financial support to these republics
and this gives them welcome reassurance. Russia
and China in turn fear the resurgence of Islamist
movements within their borders and in Central
Asia, fed by the chaos in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. The SCO is the only forum in which all
these states can come together and cooperate on
security issues and related concerns. The point
was made in the Yekaterinburg Declaration at the
SCO heads of state summit in June:
“The SCO member states express grave concern
over the complicated situation in Afghanistan
related to illicit drug trafficking, terrorism and
transnational organised crime which pose a threat
to the whole international community.
In this regard the parties acknowledged the need
to increase interaction with the SCO observer
states, Afghanistan and other states concerned, as
well as with regional and international
organisations, first and foremost, the UN and its
specialised institutions.
The SCO member states in close interaction with
other states and international organisations
concerned intend to establish anti-narcotic and
financial security belts in the region”.
The SCO’s wish to interact more with observer
states is fully reciprocated by India. To
emphasise the point the Prime Minister, Manmohan
Singh, rather than a ministerial subordinate,
attended this year’s Yekaterinburg summit. India
has many reasons to engage with SCO: its close
relations with Russia, its military presence in
Central Asia (it has a base in Tajikistan), its
interest in the region’s energy resources, the
security problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan and
the need to keep an eye on the growing influence
of China in the organisation. At the summit the
Prime Minister also identified terrorism,
extremist ideologies and illicit drug trafficking
as matters for common concern and cooperation. He
also stressed the importance of interaction
between India and the SCO on matters of trade and
investment, science and technology and for greater
economic cooperation.
India’s enthusiasm for engaging with the SCO does
not extend to the desire for the constraints of
full membership. Pakistan does want to join. It
has long had close relations with China, a major
trading partner and supplier of arms and
technology. However, there is a wariness among
other members of Pakistan’s political instability
and its connections with the Taliban and other
extremist Islamic groups
www.eurasianet.org
Iran’s membership is also regarded as a liability.
Its application to join has not so far been
accepted because of its continuing dispute with
the international community over its nuclear
programme. The US opposes Iranian membership and
objects to Iran’s observer status at the SCO being
used as a platform for anti-US rhetoric. Its
current political upheavals are no doubt an
additional obstacle.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the region’s
stability is the Afghanistan/Pakistan problem.
Religious extremism, terrorism, and drug
trafficking give SCO member nations a vested
interest in the stability of the area. Involvement
in the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in
Afghanistan has been minimal but President Hamid
Karzai has backed greater SCO participation in
rebuilding efforts. China is a big investor in
Afghanistan. It has invested $3 billion in a
contract to develop the Aynak copper mine,
hitherto one of the largest foreign investments in
the country to date. Kazakhstan has made
significant investments there as well.
www.afghanistan-un.org
In March the SCO invited the US to attend a summit
in Moscow to discuss the Taleban insurgency in
Afghanistan.
So how is the SCO regarded in the West? The SCO
professes to advance cooperation between its
members in various social, cultural, security, and
economic matters and stresses combating the ‘three
evils’ of terrorism, extremism, and separatism. It
declares it is not aligned against any nation or
grouping such as the US and NATO. But are these
its real intentions?
Unsurprisingly, opinions differ between relaxed
and wary. Some derive comfort from the strategic
and energy rivalry between the group’s two big
rivals, China and Russia. Historic mistrust will
always cause tensions between them, it is said,
and this means the SCO will always be divided.
Russia wants to continue dominating the Central
Asian Republics as it did in Soviet times, whereas
China wants markets and energy supplies, and the
strategic influence that accompanies its growing
economic power. Furthermore, there are rivalries
and struggles for primacy between the Central
Asian republics themselves – especially the two
largest, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Nonetheless,
all members, sometimes for different reasons, need
to have good relations with the U.S. and the West.
The SCO is surely no different from other
alliances where all the members have a complex mix
of parallel and competing interests. An example of
a relaxed view attitude towards the SCO was the
testimony given by Martha Brill Olcott to the US
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
She commented:
“Today, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
does not pose any direct threat to U.S. interests
in Central Asia or in the region more generally,
although its annual meetings have, most
particularly in 2005, become an opportunity for
member states of that organization to vent their
frustration with the U.S. in general and U.S.
critiques of their non-democratic political
systems in particular”.
www.carnegieendowment.org
Whatever its future the SCO at the very
least, is an indicator of the gradual shift
eastwards in global economic power. This is
something that the West, preoccupied with other
concerns seems slow to realize, and to which it
will have to come to terms in the very near
future.
Peter Crisell
New Nations
Comments are invited
at our Blog www.geopolemics.com
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