Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) held its ninth summit on June15 -16, 2009 in Yekaterinburg. The Heads of the SCO member states, observer states and guests of the host state - President of Afghanistan, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Executive Secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Secretary-General of the Eurasian Economic Community, and Secretary-General of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, participated in the meeting.

• Meena Singh Roy
• June 24, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is attending a slew of Russian hosted high profile meetings including those of the SCO and BRIC in Yekaterinburg which would be viewed keenly by most international watchers. The SCO, keenly nurtured by Russia and China as an exclusive nucleus, had hitherto excluded those with observer status from its core deliberations. The forum became popular as an embryonic counterpoise to the United States after 2005 when it bluntly issued a quit notice to the US from Central Asia and decided to salvage an assortment of autocrats being ostracized by the West.

• P. Stobdan
• June 16, 2009
• IDSA Comments

Sri Lanka has achieved military victory over Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). This fight against the LTTE has had different connotations for both India and China. In the current scenario India had to be neutral as this definitely would have had repercussions on Indian soil. The involvement of Tamil’s had put to test the Indian internal security. And thus the Indian government had to decide not to supply arms and ammunitions to the Sri Lankan government in its fight against the LTTE.

• Gunjan Singh
• June 08, 2009
• IDSA Comments

The two recent glorious achievements - the Olympics and spacewalk mission – seem to have transcended China to a new global height with wide implications for the world’s strategic balance. From all accounts, analysts suggest that China will not only survive but has also gained from the recent global financial meltdown.

• P. Stobdan
• October 27, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The August 28 SCO summit in Dushanbe will be viewed with keen concern by most international watchers. It comes on the heels of China’s successful conduct of the Olympics and Russia’s military assertion in Georgia. Both Russia and China have been keenly nurturing the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation as an exclusive nucleus to undercut the US strategic outreach.

• P. Stobdan
• August 26, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is no more a curiosity and has become an important element of contemporary international relations. Since 2005, it has emerged as an influential regional body in Eurasia impacting the political, security and economic developments in this region. The last SCO summit, held in Bishkek on August 16, 2007 focused on issues of countering terrorist threats, boosting security cooperation and developing energy resources within the SCO framework. The summit concluded by signing a treaty on “good-neighbourly relations, friendship and cooperation.”

• Meena Singh Roy
• August 22, 2008
• IDSA Comments

The SCO— a linchpin of China's Eurasia policy is viewed ominously by most international watchers. China is nurturing the SCO as an exclusive nucleus to undercut the US strategic outreach. But, Central Asia, the main nucleus, suffers from strategic ambiguity and the states there seek varied goals and play major power off each other. There is also an ostensible mismatch between Russia's liberal and China's expansionist approach. Will the SCO emerge as a distinct pole or will it remain an opportunistic alliance of desperate states?

• P. Stobdan
• July 2008
• Strategic Analysis

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is gradually gaining clout and influence in the Central Asian region, which is increasingly attracting international attention. Dramatic events during the course of 2005 in Uzbekistan, including the US withdrawal from the Manas base, and in Kyrgyzstan significantly changed the regional security architecture and provided a new geopolitical role for the SCO in the region. Russia and China have especially benefited from these changes and have increased their profiles in the region.

• Meena Singh Roy
• August 21, 2007
• IDSA Comments

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental international organization founded in Shanghai on June 15, 2001 by six countries: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its member states cover an area of over 30 million square km or about three fifths of Eurasia, with a population of 1.455 billion, about a quarter of the world's total.

• Nivedita Das Kundu
• November 07, 2006
• IDSA Comments

Over the last three years, the Central Asian Republics (CARs) have witnessed significant geopolitical shifts in the region - the resurgence of Russia, China's increasing influence, a colour revolution in Kyrgyzstan, unrest and shift in Uzbekistan's foreign policy, and the growing prominence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Since 2004, the SCO's influence and role has been growing in the Central Asian region and the last two summits of the SCO are significant in terms of making the international community take notice of this regional grouping.

• Meena Singh Roy
• July 04, 2006
• IDSA Comments