China International Studies (English)
SCO Political Cooperation: Progress, Challenges and Approaches
Over the past two decades, political cooperation has been the priority of SCO cooperation, playing a decisive role in the formulation of significant SCO policies and leading the organization’s development. Amid challenges, the SCO should improve its top-level design from a strategic height and a long-term perspective, and establish common goals based on a shared identity while making cooperation more efficient.
The year 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). After 20 years of trials and tribulations, the SCO has developed a path of cooperation, responding to the call of the times while meeting both the region’s actual needs and the fundamental interests of its member states. It has become a stabilizer in the Eurasian region and represents a new type of responsible international organizations. The successful experience of the SCO is reflected in the Shanghai Spirit featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diverse civilizations, and pursuit of common development, which provides a strong impetus and fundamental guarantee for its development, contributes SCO wisdom and SCO solutions to global governance, and highlights the critical role of political cooperation. Over the past two decades, political cooperation has been the priority of SCO cooperation and part of its top-level design, playing a decisive role in the formulation of significant SCO policies and leading the organization’s development.
Today’s world is undergoing changes unseen in a century, and the SCO, standing at the starting point of its third decade, is facing new circumstances and tasks. By summarizing and analyzing the experience of SCO political cooperation, revealing its difficulties and challenges, and setting basic approaches for its future development, we will undoubtedly contribute to the long-term steady progress in building an SCO community with a shared future and establishing a fair and reasonable order both globally and regionally.
Major Achievements of SCO Political Cooperation
Since its establishment in 2001, the SCO has gone through two decades of great years. As one of the most effective areas of cooperation, SCO political cooperation has been constantly upgraded, leading the development of the SCO and shaping its new image as an innovative, cooperative and open organization. Significant achievements of SCO political cooperation include the following four aspects.
Advanced concepts
On June 15, 2001, the six founding members of the SCO, namely China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, signed the Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which solemnly introduced the Shanghai Spirit and made it a guideline for mutual relations among the member states.1 The Shanghai Spirit was proposed at the critical moment when the international order was in the process of transformation after the end of the Cold War. Based on the success of the Shanghai Five, a mechanism including the SCO original members except Uzbekistan, it provides member states with a type of cooperation utterly different from that of the Cold War, which rejects the Cold War mentality, the notion of a zero-sum game, and the clash of civilizations, while creating a new type of state-to-state relations which seeks dialogue instead of confrontation and teaming up instead of ganging up. The Shanghai Spirit contributes new concepts and ideas for a new path of regional cooperation consistent with the reality of the region and the member states, thus becoming the SCO’S core principle and guideline.
Over the past two decades, under the guidance of the Shanghai Spirit, the SCO has withstood the test of time and achieved common prosperity of its member states despite the complicated international situation and their
tremendous differences in terms of political systems, economic development and cultural traditions. As a highlight of SCO political cooperation, the Shanghai Spirit crystallizes the innovation of political ideas by SCO member states and serves as an essential reference for establishing a fair and reasonable new international order. As Chinese President Xi Jinping said, “The SCO enjoys strong vitality and momentum of cooperation. This, in the final analysis, is attributed to the Shanghai Spirit, a creative vision initiated and followed through by the SCO that champions mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversity of civilizations, and pursuit of common development.”2
The Shanghai Spirit epitomizes the advanced political concepts of the SCO and encourages its constant conceptual innovation. During the
past two decades, the SCO political concepts with the Shanghai Spirit as the core have been continuously enriched, thus providing up-to-date and trend-leading theoretical guidance for the development of the SCO. Guided by advanced theories over the years, the SCO has promoted and put into practice a series of new ideas which reflect the Shanghai Spirit and which have greatly enriched SCO values.
First, the SCO advocates and implements a new vision of security, rejects the Cold War mentality and confrontation of blocs, and upholds common security instead of absolute security which is achieved by sacrificing the security of other countries. At the SCO Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in early 2002, the foreign ministers called on the international community to “develop a new type of security concept based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation.”3 In June of the same year, leaders of SCO countries stated in the St. Petersburg Declaration that “The international community needs to elaborate a new type of security concept based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation, conducive to a radical weakening of the factors undermining security and to the eradication of sources of new threats.”4 This was the first time that the SCO summit document proposed and interpreted the new type of security concept. After that, it was written into SCO summit declarations several times and commonly recognized and followed by all member states. The Dushanbe Declaration of Heads of SCO Member States in 2014 called for “a world free from war, conflicts, violence and pressure, for the development of a comprehensive, equal and mutually beneficial cooperation of the international community, for the achievement of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security with due regard to the legitimate interests of all states.”5 The meeting of the SCO
Council of Heads of State in 2018 made it clear that “the SCO sets an example of close and fruitful cooperation in building a more equitable and balanced world order based on an equal, cooperative, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security, ensuring the interests of each and every state in accordance with the norms and principles of international law.”6 These documents represent the SCO’S security concept, making the idea more relevant in the new era and specifying the objectives and direction of SCO political and security cooperation under the new circumstances.
Second, the SCO advocates and practices a new vision of cooperation, values consultation on an equal footing among all large and small countries, and safeguards the core interests of member states in pursuing greater security, better development, and win-win cooperation. According to the SCO Charter in 2002, a primary goal of the SCO is “facilitating comprehensive and balanced economic growth, social and cultural development in the region through joint actions on the basis of equal partnership …” and its principles include respect for the “equality of all member states, search of common positions on the basis of mutual understanding and respect for opinions of each of them.”7 The 2006 Declaration on the Fifth Anniversary of the SCO emphasized the need to “respect the right of all countries to safeguard national unity and their national interests, pursue particular models of development and formulate domestic and foreign policies independently, and participate in international affairs on an equal basis.” The member states also vowed in the Declaration to enhance the organization’s role and work to “turn this region into one that is peaceful, coordinated in development, open, prosperous and harmonious.”8 Adopted in 2015, the SCO Development Strategy until 2025 clarified that “the equality of SCO member states remains an unchanged pillar
of the Organization’s activities,” which is “supported by a provision regarding a consensus-based decision-making.”9
Third, the SCO pursues a new vision of civilization, advocates pluralism and inclusiveness, fully respects the diversity of civilizations and their independent choices, seeks common ground while putting differences aside, and draws on each other’s strengths to facilitate dialogues among civilizations. The Declaration by the SCO Heads of Member States in 2003 noted that “[i]t is necessary to respect and promote the civilizational diversity of humankind. Various cultures should progress together, borrowing the best each of them has to offer, and strive for the common, putting differences aside.”10 Similar wording also appeared in the 2006 Declaration on the Fifth Anniversary of the SCO.11 In the 2012 Beijing Declaration of the SCO Heads of Member States on Building a Region of Lasting Peace and Common Prosperity, the member states further “call on the international community to work for the peaceful co-existence and dialogue between civilizations, seek consensus, promote coordinated and sustainable development, respect the cultural traditions and values of different countries, and build closer state-to-state relations on the basis of universally recognized rules and principles of the international law.”12
Fourth, the SCO proposes to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. The Astana Declaration of the Heads of State of the SCO in 2017 first mentioned building a community with a shared future for mankind.13 In 2018, the SCO Qingdao Declaration stated the necessity to “establish a new type of international relations characterized by mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win
cooperation, and to build a community with a shared future for mankind.”14 In 2019, the Bishkek Declaration of the SCO’S Heads of State Council stressed the importance of “building international relations of a new type based on the principles and standards of international law, primarily mutual respect, justice, equality, mutually beneficial cooperation, and a common vision of creating a community with a shared future for humankind.”15 The 2020 SCO Moscow Declaration reaffirmed the “importance of the initiatives to promote collaboration in building international relations of a new type in the spirit of mutual respect, fairness, equality and mutually beneficial cooperation and in shaping a common vision of the idea to create a community of common destiny for mankind.”16
Deepening institution-building
The SCO has always attached great importance to political institutionbuilding. It has inscribed the organization’s basic principles into legal documents and clarified the fundamental guidelines for political cooperation, ensuring that the SCO stays true to its founding mission.
In its early years, the SCO released two essential documents, the Shanghai Declaration on the Establishment of the SCO in 2001 and the SCO Charter in 2002, which declared its purposes, principles, goals, tasks, and directions of cooperation, determined its original aspiration, and laid the cornerstone of SCO political cooperation. According to the Declaration, the SCO aims at strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good neighborliness, encouraging effective cooperation in various fields, making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, and establishing a democratic, just and rational international political and economic order. It also proposed for the first time the Shanghai Spirit.17
The Charter emphasized the need to strengthen mutual trust and goodneighborliness, and adhere to principles such as mutual respect of sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of member states and inviolability of state borders, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, non-use of force or threat of its use in international relations, and seeking no unilateral military superiority in adjacent areas.
At the SCO Bishkek summit in 2007, leaders of SCO member states inked the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, another fundamental legal document after the fifth anniversary of the signing of the SCO Charter. As a milestone of SCO political cooperation, the Treaty reflected the new achievements in this regard, set the principles for relations between member states and between the SCO and the world, and formalized the member states’ political and cultural consensus on global issues, thus marking a new institutional level of SCO political cooperation. The Treaty further clarified the purposes and principles of SCO political cooperation, formalized the idea of friendship and peaceful development, and presented a new vision of long-term good neighborliness, friendship and cooperation that set an example of new-type state-to-state relations.18
The signing of the SCO’S first ten-year plan, the Development Strategy of the SCO until 2025, at the 2015 Ufa summit as part of its overall and institutional top-level design, marked a new strategic stage of SCO political cooperation. The Development Strategy emphasized that the Shanghai Spirit will continue to serve as the basis for the relations between member states, and that consensus-based decision-making will continue to be applied. Besides, the member states will settle their disputes through political and diplomatic means and the SCO activities will never be directed against third countries and their associations. In the document, the member states reiterated that the SCO is not envisaged as a military and political block or economic integration association with supernational governance bodies. Clarifying the
development direction and strategic goals up until 2025, the Development Strategy has made strategic planning for political, security, economic, cultural, and international cooperation, and defined the tasks and objectives of SCO political cooperation.19
The Qingdao Declaration of the SCO Heads of State in 2018 was the first strategic document after the organization’s enlargement that fully embodied the SCO’S new concepts and new tasks. The member states solemnly vowed to promote a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, justice, equality and mutually beneficial cooperation, and build a community for the shared future of mankind. The Qingdao Declaration indicated the SCO’S direction in the new era and gave a clear answer to the question of where the organization is heading. It also stressed that the SCO works on “building a more equitable and balanced world order based on an equal, cooperative, indivisible, comprehensive and sustainable security.”20 As the political consensus of member states based on their common needs, the Qingdao Declaration contributed SCO wisdom to global governance.
Successful first enlargement
Openness has always been a fundamental principle of the SCO. According to the Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, “the SCO is not an alliance directed against other states and regions, and it adheres to the principle of openness. It declares its readiness to develop dialogue, contacts and cooperation of all kinds with other states and relevant international and regional organizations, and on the basis of consensus admit as new members states that share the objectives and goals of cooperation in the framework of the organization, and the principles set forth in paragraph 6 and also other provisions of this Declaration and whose admission may contribute to such cooperation.”21 The SCO Charter made it
clear that “the SCO membership shall be open for other states in the region that undertake to respect the objectives and principles of this Charter and comply with the provisions of other international treaties and documents adopted in the SCO framework.”22
The abovementioned provisions demonstrate the SCO’S firm rejection of the old model of international organizations characterized by the Cold War mentality and zero-sum mentality. Instead, openness, inclusiveness and cooperation are the keywords of the SCO model. By upholding openness, the SCO has over the last 20 years always followed the trend of the times, and actively responded to countries’ demands to join the SCO family, thus making more friends. The first enlargement was completed on June 9, 2017. With the admission of India and Pakistan, a network of partnerships took shape, comprised of eight member states, four observer states and six dialogue partners. As a significant achievement of SCO political cooperation, the success of the first enlargement marked the start of integrated development of Central Asia and South Asia and pushed SCO political cooperation to a new height.
The first enlargement was the result of solidarity and mutual trust between SCO countries, and symbolized a new height of SCO political cooperation. For 13 years since 2004, the SCO had laid a solid legal foundation for the first enlargement with the adoption of a set of legal documents, including the Regulation on the Status of Observer to the SCO (2004), the Regulation on the Status of Dialogue Partner of the SCO (2008), the Model Memorandum of Commitments of a State Applying for the SCO Membership (2010), the Procedure for Granting the Status of the SCO Member State (2014), and the updated Model Memorandum of Commitments of a State Applying for the SCO Membership (2015). As a milestone event, the success of this enlargement highlighted the effectiveness of SCO political cooperation.
The first enlargement has numerous implications for the development
of the SCO. First, as an epitome of the organization’s strong appeal and the vitality and influence of the Shanghai Spirit, it contributes to the recognition of the Shanghai Spirit and the spread of the SCO’S progressive ideas on a broader scope. At the same time, the enlargement is a powerful rebuke to the groundless defamation from Western conservatives. Conservative forces in the West have always held self-imposed bias towards the SCO, calling it an “authoritarian alliance” or “NATO of the East.” However, the admission of India and Pakistan to the SCO shows that the organization has truly upheld the principle of non-alliance, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party, which is fundamentally different from NATO, a legacy of the Cold War. Second, the enlargement has significantly increased the overall strength and influence of the SCO, making it the world’s largest regional international organization. Among SCO member states, there are now four nuclear countries and three emerging powers. The SCO can play a more significant role in regional and global affairs and contribute more to regional and international stability. Last, the enlargement has expanded the organization’s economic space, creating a vast consumer market and more investment opportunities in regional connectivity. It enables mutual complementarity among SCO member states in a larger domain based on their respective strengths, thereby accelerating the integration of regional resources and promoting the region’s economic development.
Closer international cooperation
Closer international cooperation is one of the SCO’S original aspirations. According to the Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, SCO member states will strengthen consultation and coordinate actions in regional and international affairs, provide mutual support and develop close cooperation on major international and regional issues, and jointly promote peace and stability in the region and around the world.23 It is also stipulated in the SCO Charter that one main cooperation
area of the organization shall be “search of common positions on foreign policy issues of mutual interest, including issues arising within international organizations and international fora.”24 The closer and more profound cooperation within the SCO over the past two decades has significantly increased the organization’s influence and shaped its positive image as a responsible international organization.
An essential way that the SCO cooperates is by timely speaking out on major regional and international issues and defending the core interests of SCO member states. The SCO began to actively give its voice on important regional and international events in its infancy, which created a positive impact. For instance, soon after the September 11 attacks, the SCO Prime Ministers’ Meeting issued a special joint statement on September 14, expressing firm opposition to terrorism in all forms.25 In November 2005, the SCO and Afghanistan announced the establishment of the Sco-afghanistan Contact Group to jointly promote the Afghan peace process.26 The SCO summit in 2006 proposed to build a regional conflict prevention and emergency response mechanism within the SCO, to appropriately forestall and address irregular regime change like the one in Kyrgyzstan.27
With the basic completion of its internal structure, the SCO has been further strengthening mutual support and coordination among its member states on major regional and international issues. The 2010 Tashkent summit actively expressed solidarity with Kyrgyzstan, which was once again in political turmoil, and supported Kyrgyzstan’s independent political choice while providing necessary assistance.28 In 2009, the SCO issued a declaration at the Special Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan, which was convened under its auspices, and supported an intergovernmental dialogue between Afghanistan
and Pakistan to increase mutual trust and promote counter-terrorism cooperation.29 The 2012 Beijing summit declared its opposition to armed interventions and forced regime changes in the Middle East and North Africa, considered any attempt to resolve the Iranian issue by force unacceptable, and opposed the unilateral and unlimited build-up of missile defense systems by one state or a group of states.30 The 2014 Dushanbe summit expressed the member states’ common positions on Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, and other hotspot issues.31 Besides, the SCO has been energetically defending the United Nations’ leading role on global issues and supporting its reasonable and necessary reforms. For example, the SCO declaration at the 2010 Tashkent summit stated that “open and comprehensive consultations should continue with the view of drawing up a comprehensive draft enjoying the broadest possible consensus.”32
Since the 2017 enlargement, with the accession of India and Pakistan and as the SCO incorporated the building of a community with a shared future for mankind as a common vision of its member states, the SCO has participated more in global governance. The 2018 Qingdao summit notably issued a joint communique on simplifying trade procedures, sending a strong message in support of globalization and the multilateral trading system. At the same time, the Qingdao summit proposed to promote “the construction of international relations of a new type based on mutual respect, justice, equality, mutually beneficial cooperation, and the formation of a common vision of building a community for the shared future of humankind,” providing conceptual support and indicating the direction for SCO participation in regional and global governance.33 The Moscow Declaration in 2020
reaffirmed the significance of building a community with a shared future for mankind.34
Forging ties and strengthening coordination with the United Nations and other global and regional international organizations is an important way for the SCO to participate in international cooperation and global governance. In 2004, the SCO was granted observer status at the UN, marking the beginning of the SCO’S close cooperation with the UN and its subsidiary bodies, and the recognition from the world’s most authoritative organization on global governance. It also guaranteed a platform for SCO participation in global governance. In addition, the SCO has actively established cooperative relations with neighboring regional organizations, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), and the Conference on Interaction, and Confidence-building Measures in Asia (CICA).
Since 2018, the SCO has accelerated its cooperation with external partners. The SCO Secretariat and the SCO Regional Anti-terrorist Structure signed cooperation documents with the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Executive Directorate of the UN Security Council Counter-terrorism Committee, respectively. There are also exchanges and dialogue between the SCO and the UN Development Program (UNDP), the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank.
In 2020, the SCO Secretariat signed a memorandum of cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), the Secretariat of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the Eurasian Economic Commission. The increasingly close international cooperation has offered the SCO diverse platforms to participate in regional and global governance and present its positive image as a confident and open
organization.
Motivations for SCO Political Cooperation
The SCO’S significant progress in political cooperation over the past two decades is no accidental. There are multiple internal and external factors involved.
First, the Shanghai Five, as an important source of SCO concepts, has provided essential experience for the SCO. The successful practice of the Shanghai Five, the predecessor of the SCO operating from 1996 to 2001, was a vital reference for SCO political cooperation. In the Declaration on the Establishment of the SCO, the Shanghai Spirit, formed in the development of the Shanghai Five, was at the center.35 In July 2000, then Chinese President Jiang Zemin, in his speech at the last meeting of heads of state of the Shanghai Five, noted that “the development of the Shanghai Five reflects the characteristics of the times—the spirit of good-neighborliness and mutual trust, equality and mutual benefit, solidarity and cooperation, and common development.”36 This was the first summary of the Shanghai Spirit, whose content was later finalized after repeated deliberation and refinement by drawing on the experience of the Shanghai Five, the changing international relations, and the features of inter-state relations in the region.37
The abovementioned SCO security concept, which has been constantly developed since the SCO’S birth, is also derived from the successful practice of the Shanghai Five. With a concept completely different from the Cold War mentality, the Shanghai Five successfully resolved the border issues between China and its neighboring countries Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, setting an example for the settlement of similar cases, and engendering the new security concept. At the signing of the Shanghai Five
Agreement on Confidence-building in the Military Field along the Border Areas in 1996, President Jiang Zemin said, “The signing of this agreement is an inspiration and exploration for the development of regional relations, featuring mutual trust and good neighborliness in the Asia-pacific region.”38 Jiang highly praised the Shanghai Five’s Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions, saying it “provides a security approach for peace, security and stability in the Asia-pacific region and beyond, different from the Cold War mentality, and creates a practical model for strengthening mutual trust.”39 At the inaugural meeting of the SCO in June 2001, Jiang noted that “the Shanghai Five is an important diplomatic practice in contemporary international relations. It has pioneered a new security concept connoting mutual trust, disarmament, and cooperative security, enriched the new path of state-to-state relations initiated by China and Russia to seek teaming up instead of ganging up, and offered a new model of regional cooperation featuring joint advocacy by countries both large and small, security first, and win-win cooperation.”40
Second, the strategic coordination between China and Russia has provided a strong impetus. China and Russia are the well-recognized twin engines for the SCO’S development. Their growing cooperation is an example of and a primary driver for SCO political cooperation. In fact, the worldfamous SCO principle of non-alliance, non-confrontation, and not targeting any third party was initially drawn from the historical lessons of China-soviet relations. Following the principle, China and Russia have broken a new path of state-to-state relations featuring cooperation instead of confrontation and teaming up instead of ganging up. The innovative concept has offered an essential reference for SCO political cooperation and hence become a basic SCO principle. Besides, the Shanghai Five Treaty on Reduction of Military
Forces in Border Regions was also inspired by the approach of China and the Soviet Union to related issues. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the China-soviet negotiation over the issues turned into negotiations between China and the four countries of Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. As a result of the negotiations, a treaty was reached and the Shanghai Five mechanism was born. On this basis, the SCO was eventually established following Uzbekistan’s participation.
The signing of the China-russia Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation on July 16, 2001 was a milestone in the bilateral relations. The first of its kind between China and another SCO member state, the Treaty established the basic principles of China-russia relations and became a reference for the SCO Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation. Comparing the China-russia Treaty of Goodneighborliness and Friendly Cooperation with the SCO Charter (2002) and the SCO Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation (2007), it is clear that their political concepts and principles are consistent with each other, and that China-russia strategic coordination has played a vital role in SCO political cooperation. In recent years, closer ties between China and Russia have served to further deepen SCO political cooperation. Since 2015, the two countries have strengthened the synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), carried out feasibility study on the Eurasian Economic Partnership Agreement, and decided to coordinate the BRI and the Greater Eurasian Partnership. Besides, China and the EAEU signed the Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation. All this has helped upgrade the SCO political cooperation and put the SCO’S participation in global governance on a fast track.41
It should be noted that China, as the SCO’S birthplace, has been a pioneer, leader and contributor to SCO political cooperation over the past two decades, playing a unique and vital role. First, China has been putting
forward advanced concepts and actively building the SCO value system. It has proposed a new type of security concept, summarized and refined the Shanghai Spirit, initiated the idea of regional harmony, and promoted building an SCO community of common destiny with the connotations of new “Five Visions,” “Four Examples” and “Four Communities.”42 Second, China attaches great importance to the building of institutions and mechanisms for the orderly operation of SCO political cooperation. On July 5, 2000, then President Jiang Zemin, in his speech at the Shanghai Five meeting in Dushanbe, proposed to gradually upgrade the five-nation meeting mechanism to a cooperation mechanism.43 At the third SCO summit in 2003, then Chinese President Hu Jintao offered office premises to the SCO Secretariat free of charge.44 In 2017, President Xi Jinping announced at the 17th SCO summit in Astana that China “will make an additional contribution of RMB10 million to the Secretariat for it to improve working conditions and undertake more activities.”45 In terms of political institutionbuilding, then President Hu Jintao proposed at the 6th SCO summit in 2006 to conclude the SCO Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation to enhance mutual trust and solidarity and ensure the organization’s lasting vitality.46 To support SCO members’ national
efforts against extremism, in 2014, President Xi Jinping solemnly proposed signing the Convention on Countering Extremism at the 14th SCO summit in Dushanbe.47 Third, China actively works to set the SCO’S long-term development strategy and promote strategic cooperation among its member states. In 2012, China proposed formulating a strategic plan for the SCO’S development in the next decade. Thanks to China’s efforts, the 12th SCO summit approved the Main Directions of the SCO Mid-term Development Strategy, and in 2015 further launched the organization’s Development Strategy until 2025.
Third, the increasing mutual trust among member states has greatly helped boost SCO political cooperation. Since the establishment of the SCO, China-russia relations have been steadily growing and their strategic partnership of coordination been constantly enriched and enhanced. The Treaty of Good-neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation signed by the two sides in 2001 laid a solid legal foundation for the bilateral relations in the new era. The two countries upgraded their ties to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination” in 2011 and further to a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era” in 2019. China and the SCO member states in Central Asia have also enjoyed closer relations over the past two decades. In 2013, China’s relations with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan were upgraded from good-neighborly and friendly ties to a strategic partnership. Together with the China-kazakhstan comprehensive strategic partnership since 2011 and the China-uzbekistan strategic partnership since 2012, all SCO member states in Central Asia have become strategic partners with China. China and Kazakhstan now enjoy a permanent comprehensive strategic partnership, and China’s relations with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are upgraded to comprehensive strategic partnerships. Moreover, Russia has developed strategic partnerships with all SCO member states in Central Asia. Kazakhstan is also a strategic partner with other Central
Asian countries. The leaders of SCO member states in Central Asia met in 2018 after 13 years and again in 2019, which was a demonstration of their increasing mutual trust. The enhanced political mutual trust, solidarity and closer cooperation have created a favorable atmosphere and boosted SCO political cooperation.
Fourth, the changing regional situation has placed realistic demands for political cooperation. Since the SCO’S establishment, the international and regional situation has been treacherous and unpredictable with growing uncertain and unstable factors, posing a severe test for SCO member states and highlighting the importance and urgency of greater SCO political cooperation. In recent years, major-power competition in the SCO region has intensified at a rate never seen before. The US has imposed containment on both China and Russia and significantly increased strategic encirclement of the two countries in the SCO region to win over or divide the member states, rebuild new mechanisms and order that exclude China and Russia, and weaken the SCO’S foundation. Meanwhile, with increasing uncertainty of the regional situation, the regional security risk has been at an all-time high, and the transition of Eurasian countries has encountered serious difficulties since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The harsh reality requires the SCO to strengthen political cooperation, assume the role of a responsible international organization, and add greater momentum to the region. “The SCO should always stand with multilateralism, fairness, and justice, and move in the direction of history,” said Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers in 2020, “The SCO should firmly defend the core position of the UN, protect the authority of international law, prevent power politics from dragging the world back to ’the law of the jungle,’ and resist unilateral bullying that hinders the democratization of international relations.”48 This is the lofty mission thrust upon the SCO by the times and the earnest expectation of the international community.
Major Challenges
After two decades of rapid development and continuous expansion, the SCO is now entering a pivotal stage, with political cooperation facing multiple bottlenecks and pressures.
Growing heterogeneity within the SCO
Heterogeneity has always been a significant problem for SCO political cooperation. With the organization’s enlargement, heterogeneity is even more apparent. SCO member states have diverse interests and policy orientations, making coordination even harder and posing a steep challenge to SCO political cooperation. At present, SCO member states include small and medium-sized countries and emerging powers such as China, Russia and India. The diversity, heterogeneity, and territorial disputes among individual countries cast a shadow on solidarity and mutual trust within the SCO and lead to difficulties in resolving conflicts, forming consensus, and taking unanimous actions. With the accession of India and Pakistan, the SCO covers the South Asian region apart from Central Asia. India and Pakistan also joined the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). India has even joined the Us-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue which includes the United States, Japan and Australia, adding even more difficulties for SCO political cooperation and the organization’s cohesiveness.
Weak sense of SCO community
All SCO member states are developing countries. Notably, all Central Asian member states are newly independent countries after the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, who cherish their hard-won independence and sovereignty, put national interests first, and are unwilling to cede more rights to the SCO. These are not conducive to building a common SCO identity and identifying shared goals. The SCO upholds the principles of consensus building and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries
large and small, to ensure equality and full respect for the interests of member states. However, the principle of consensus-building has largely failed to adapt to the changing situation and meet the SCO’S development needs, and resulted in constraining SCO cooperation. The efficiency and mobility of SCO decision-making has been greatly limited, making it difficult to respond in a timely and decisive manner to major political events, and thus undermining its authority and prestige.
It is also tricky for the SCO to adopt binding cooperation documents and truly transform from a meeting mechanism to a cooperation mechanism. Among all SCO documents about political cooperation, very few of them are binding on the member states. Most include only soft restraints with zero or limited binding force, leading to the lack of effective implementation. Even those legally binding treaties can be in limbo due to the lack of implementation and supervision mechanisms. According to the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, SCO member states shall uphold the principle of mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity, increase mutual trust between their militaries in the border areas, and make active efforts in building the borders into a place where ever-lasting peace and friendship prevail. However, acts that violate the spirit occur from time to time, for which the SCO lacks warning and punitive measures. The dysfunction of the treaty has seriously affected the authority of SCO political and legal system. Balancing equity and efficiency, or responsibilities and obligations, is a significant challenge that SCO political cooperation cannot avoid.
Increasing external pressures
In recent years, the United States has launched the Indo-pacific strategy, formulated new strategies for Afghanistan and for Central Asia, and promoted the “8+1” arrangement in the Caspian Sea region, while upgrading the Uscentral Asia (C5+1) mechanism. It has been intensifying containment of and competition with China and Russia, particularly on the front of ideology and international order. At the same time, the US has been smearing and blocking
China’s BRI and promoting its own version of infrastructure and connectivity initiative, while working with the European Union to divide or win over regional countries. It has also repeatedly stirred up issues related to Xinjiang, discredited China’s image under the pretext of democracy and human rights, and attempted to distance China from Central Asian countries. The US is bent on great-power competition in the SCO region, and its actions have dramatically worsened the SCO’S external environment and put SCO political cooperation under unprecedented geopolitical pressure.
In addition, situated in the junction of global turmoil, the SCO region is affected not only by the civil unrest in Afghanistan and the irreconcilable conflicts between the United States and Iran, but also by chaos in the Middle East and increased instability in CIS countries. Coupled with the fragmentation of regional governance, SCO political cooperation is facing a risky environment, and much remains to be done.
Basic Approaches of Future Political Cooperation
Despite the challenges mentioned above, the next 5-10 years will be overall still a period of opportunity for the SCO’S development, with positive factors outweighing negative ones. The SCO should strengthen its top-level design from a strategic height and a long-term perspective, establish common goals based on a shared SCO identity, improve the efficiency of cooperation, and steadily promote the building of an SCO community with a shared future.
Actively cultivating an SCO identity
Common identity is a primary condition for the SCO’S sustainable development and concerns its cohesion. Shaping an SCO identity with the Shanghai Spirit as its core should be a priority of future SCO political cooperation.
First, clarifying the organization’s positioning and fostering stronger collective recognition are the prerequisite for cultivating the SCO identity. Geographically speaking, with the enlargement, the SCO has expanded to
South Asia and can be now positioned as a Eurasian organization with Central Asia as the center. Such a positioning is beneficial to the formation of the SCO identity because it aligns with the current situation and leaves room for further enlargement. The SCO always puts security first and focuses on the building of consensus. Looking to the future, it should continue this securitycentered approach as it is the area where member states can most easily reach consensus and take common action. Economic and people-to-people cooperation should also first serve to guarantee overall security and stability.
Meanwhile, although SCO member states have different political systems, they are geographically close, historically connected and culturally intertwined. As developing countries and emerging economies, they share similar positions on many international and regional issues, which is an inherent advantage in carrying out political cooperation. In building an SCO community with a shared future, political cooperation is as vital as security cooperation to keep the SCO on the right track.
Second, extracting a set of common values with the Shanghai Spirit as the core would provide conceptual support for the SCO identity. Following the principle of seeking common ground and setting aside differences, adhering to consensus-based decision-making, and keeping the vision of building a community with a shared future in mind, the SCO countries should carefully summarize their common values, and then develop them into a system with inherent consistency, complete structure, sound logic and clear expressions, which would serve as a guideline for shaping the SCO identity. Right now, the organization needs to integrate the ideas of building a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind into its value system, and enrich the connotations of the Shanghai Spirit with the new “Five Visions,” as a step to build a common value system widely recognized by member states.
Third, institutionalizing the common values can lay a legal foundation for the SCO identity. According to the new situation and demands after the enlargement, the SCO should conduct a timely renovation of its foundational legal architecture, and specifically incorporate those well-recognized
common values into its official treaties with logical and concise wording, to show its due seriousness and authority. Also, it should clarify penalties and punishments for violations of the shared values to advance their binding force, thus making the SCO identity legally valid and become a standard code of conduct and collective consciousness strictly followed by member states.
Fourth, efforts to popularize and implement the SCO common values with the Shanghai Spirit as the core would facilitate the formation of an SCO identity. The SCO must more actively promote its common values to the member states, and turn them into collective consciousness. Apart from the national level, these values should also be introduced at more grassroots levels, thus leading to broad recognition by a diversity of sectors and social groups in the member states and helping the SCO identity firmly take root.
Setting common goals
Common goals are related to the SCO’S positioning and direction of cooperation. Specifically, the SCO should more vigorously promote the major initiative of building an SCO community with a shared future, and work to make it a common goal of the organization.
On the one hand, based on a complete study of members states’ perceptions of the SCO’S goals, and following the principle of equality and consensus, the SCO should seek the greatest common denominator on cooperation while reserving differences among member states through more political coordination. First, China and Russia, as the SCO’S well-recognized dual engine, should step up their political coordination. The release of the Joint Statement on the China-russia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for a New Era is an opportunity to make Russia more active in recognizing the vision of an SCO community with a shared future as the organization’s common goal. Second, China, Russia and India are in need of more political alignment. A trilateral consultation mechanism on SCO cooperation can be considered, which would serve to advance strategic exchanges, seek consensus to the maximum, and promote India’s alignment with China and Russia on SCO common goals. Lastly, the major powers in
the SCO should increase communication and coordination with small and medium-sized member states, to mobilize all parties’ joint participation in building an SCO community with a shared future.
On the other hand, to make its common goals legally binding, the SCO needs to formulate a special document on building an SCO community with a shared future, which would clarify the purposes, principles, goals, tasks, methods and mechanisms of such a community, highlight its inherent connection with the Shanghai Spirit, and make phased and sectoral plans as a roadmap of implementation. At the same time, it is necessary to sort out existing SCO legal documents, flesh out the concept and goal of building an SCO community in the SCO Charter and the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation, and make recognition of and compliance with the concept a vital criterion for the admission of new members.
Improving cooperation efficiency
The efficiency of cooperation is the SCO’S lifeline. With risk awareness in mind, the SCO should make the improvement of cooperation efficiency a priority of its political cooperation, to realize its true transformation from a meeting mechanism to a cooperation mechanism.
First, the SCO needs to keep abreast of the times and revise relevant legal documents to make them more binding and operational. For example, considering the new situation after enlargement, the SCO could make appropriate amendments to the SCO Charter and the Treaty on Long-term Good-neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation. Political consensus and common perceptions reached in recent years could be incorporated in formal treaties, together with more explicit definitions of member states’ due responsibilities and obligations.
Second, the SCO should advance its institution-building and enhance the operability of its institutions and mechanisms. From improving the way of decision-making and voting, to establishing supervision and dispute settlement mechanisms, much work could be done to equip the SCO with
a complete organizational system covering decision-making, implementation, supervision and dispute settlement. The organization can also consider a withdrawal mechanism and introduce penalties for violations of its values to strengthen the binding nature of these mechanisms.
Third, the SCO should sum up the experience of its first enlargement and further improve relevant procedures. It needs to establish a more rigorous, standardized, consistent and operational enlargement system, and appropriately revise the regulations on observer states and dialogue partners to increase their flexibility.
Fourth, the SCO must in due time introduce legal documents concerning its different aspects of cooperation. These documents should clearly stipulate the principles, purposes, tasks, goals and guidelines of cooperation. Considering the broad consensus among member states on many regional and international issues, it is recommended to start from developing documents on international cooperation and agree on a common SCO position.
Fifth, the SCO principle of consensus can be more innovatively applied. The principle could continue to be upheld at the meetings of heads of state, heads of government, foreign ministers, and the Council of the Regional Anti-terrorist Structure, where member states decide the direction of development on an equal footing. Otherwise, majority rule could be applied at the meetings of senior officials in specific areas and national coordinators to avoid overly rigid and dogmatic use of consensus-building and be most flexible in decision-making.
Last but not least, the SCO should upgrade and more clearly define the authority of the Secretary-general. For an efficient operation, the Secretarygeneral could be given greater authority as the organization’s executive leader, not just the leader of the SCO Secretariat. If no agreement could be reached on this in the short term, member states may negotiate to amend the SCO Charter and stipulate the authorization of the Secretary-general’s external representation, so that the SCO will be timelier and more effective in handling external affairs.