SEPT. 16 2010 (The Conway Bulletin) — Created in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has a broad remit to promote economic, cultural and military cooperation between its 6 members; China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Certainly, the SCO has initiated a handful of economic and infrastructure projects but its roots are in military cooperation beginning in the mid-1990s. Some Western observers say the SCO could one day act as a counterbalance to NATO.
For now, though, SCO is politically too fractured to rival NATO and acts more as a regional forum to discuss anti-terrorist measures and energy policy than coordinate defence policies. Its regional anti-terrorist headquarters are based in Tashkent.
Notably, the SCO did not act during Kyrgyzstan’s revolution in April or in June during ethnic violence in the south of the country when hundreds died.
In 2008, the SCO and its members chose not to back Russia and recognise the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
Still, the large scale and highly publicised war games are the SCO’s most eye catching activity. Peace Mission 2010, the SCO military exercise which started on Sept. 13 in Kazakhstan, is the biggest military exercise since Russia hosted it in 2007.
The SCO does appear to have wider geographic ambitions. India, Iran, Pakistan and Mongolia have SCO observer status, Sri Lanka and Belarus are dialogue partners and Afghanistan has been invited to SCO summits as a guest.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 7, published on Sept. 16 2010)