What is the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation?

WESTERN LEADERS may cast a nervous glance at Samarkand, a city in Uzbekistan, where the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) gathers for a summit on September 15th and 16th. China’s president, Xi Jinping, on his first foreign trip since the outbreak of covid-19, is expected to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Others attending include Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi; his country is set to become a full member. Western leaders are pointedly not invited to the meeting, the organisation’s first summit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does the SCO do, and should it worry the West?

The SCO was founded in 2001, by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to discuss security and economic matters in Central Asia, with a focus on fighting terrorism and strengthening trade links. Although its members have conducted joint military exercises, the group is neither a formal defence alliance, like NATO, nor an official economic union like the EU. It was envisaged as a forum through which China and Russia could manage neighbourly relations. But the SCO’s recent expansion has complicated this mission. India and Pakistan were granted full membership in 2017, while the terms for Iran’s accession were established at a virtual summit in 2021. Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia have “observer” status. And the club has several “dialogue partners”, including Turkey.