Assessing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s first five years, it appears that the group will not become an "Eastern NATO" as it attempts to find unity in diversity.
By Elizabeth Wishnick in Beijing and Washington, DC for ISN Security Watch (25/07/06)
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) on 15 June celebrated its five-year anniversary during its annual meeting held in Shanghai, as China holds the chairmanship in 2006. To commemorate the occasion, member-states - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - sent their presidents. The presidents of four of five observer nations - Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia - also attended, while India sent its Minister of Petroleum and Energy.
Unusually, given its traditional wariness about multilateralism, China has been the driving force behind the organization and much noise has been made in the Chinese media regarding the “Shanghai spirit.” As tensions have increased with the US in the past year, Russia has shown more interest in the SCO, despite its primary emphasis on developing security institutions within Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) institutions. But there is some question as to how much life is left in the Shanghai spirit, and there are obstacles to the organization's emergence as an "Eastern NATO."
Originating in an April 1996 meeting in Shanghai on confidence-building organization for China, Russia and the Central Asian states bordering on China - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - the Shanghai Five gradually adopted a broader economic, political and security agenda. Just three months before 9/11, the group became a formal regional security organization, known as the SCO, and expanded to include Uzbekistan.
The US military intervention in Afghanistan and agreements to use bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as corresponding Russian efforts to revive military cooperation within the CIS, eclipsed the SCO’s security role at first. Consequently, US officials initially downplayed the importance of the organization, but after Uzbekistan decided on the strength of last year’s annual meeting to request that US forces leave their base in Karshi Khanabad, Washington has begun to pay closer attention to the impact of the SCO on US interests in Central Asia.
It was the Iranian presence at the June 2006 that stole the show, however, since the group’s fifth anniversary celebration coincided with the international crisis over Iran’s secret nuclear program in violation of commitments to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear watchdog. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took advantage of the forum to announce that Iran was considering an international proposal to resolve the nuclear crisis, but also urged the SCO to help his country resist US pressure.
Speaking at a meeting of defense experts in Singapore in early June, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had criticized the SCO for inviting the Iranian president. “It strikes me as passing strange that one would want to bring into an organization that says it is against terrorism one of the leading terrorist nations in the world,” said Rumsfeld.
The current outbreak of hostilities in Lebanon, between Israel and Hizbollah, a recipient of Iranian weapons, will make Iran’s role in the SCO even more controversial.
SCO Secretary General Zhang Deguang, China’s former ambassador to Russia, denied that Iran sponsored terrorism and asserted that there was consensus within the SCO to invite Iran as an observer. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that the SCO would increase ties with observers, and a contact group with Afghanistan had already been set up, there was little support among permanent members, with the possible exception of Uzbekistan, for admitting new members.
According to Chinese experts, the SCO lacks specific membership rules and, therefore, was not in a position to consider any new members. Moreover, the admission of members involved in conflicts with each other, such as Pakistan and India, or embroiled in global conflicts, like Iran, would only serve to distract from the SCO’s primary agenda, as the Iranian president's presence in Shanghai amply attested.
Another controversial figure, Belarusian President Aleksandar Lukashenko, is also seeking membership.
Although both the Russian and Chinese leaders held side-line meetings with the Iranian leaders, the Chinese Foreign Ministry insisted that the Iranian nuclear issue should not determine the relevance of the SCO meeting.
The meeting's final communiqué asserts that the SCO is seeking to establish “a new global security structure of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and mutual respect.” While denying that the SCO constitutes any sort of alliance or is targeted against any third party, the communiqué took issue, albeit obliquely, with US policies towards Central Asia.
Although the US is never cited by name, members asserted that they rejected “double standards” in approaches to conflict resolution, repudiated the tendency to use political, cultural or social differences as pretexts for intervention, and plainly stated that “models of social development should not be ‘exported.’”
Concretely, the SCO reaffirmed its commitment to combating terrorism, extremism and separatism, and announced some new counter-terrorism measures, including efforts to enhance information security, expand cooperation in thwarting cross-border infiltration and drug-trafficking and counter-terrorism exercises. New initiatives included establishing an SCO Business Council and an inter-bank association to promote joint economic projects. The organization also urged that the next United Nations Secretary General come from Asia.
For the Chinese hosts, the emergence of the “Shanghai spirit” was the central achievement, and one that finds resonance with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s appeals for a harmonious world order, based on the fundamental equality of states that may differ economically, politically and culturally.
According to Chinese officials, during its five years of operation, the SCO had succeeded in outlining a new code of conduct in international relations, based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, respect for cultural diversity and a desire for common development. Reminiscent of the spirit of Bandung - referring to the appeal for peaceful coexistence and opposition to colonialism at the 1955 meeting in Bandung, Indonesia of 29 African and Asian states against the background of Cold War polarization - the spirit of Shanghai is meant to provide an alternative to 21st century great power politics and perceived US hegemony.
Nevertheless, 21st century power politics have proven just as nettlesome for SCO members as the Cold War for the non-aligned movement. Indeed, there is considerably more spirit than action in the five-year history of the SCO, largely due to the unresolved problems between Uzbekistan and its Central Asian neighbors, as well as competing great power interests in the region.
Despite ambitious road-building plans connecting Central Asia to Europe, it is difficult to conceive of a multilateral economic space emerging in a region where states mine their borders with one another, as is the case with Uzbekistan’s borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Energy would seem to be another logical area for cooperation, but here again it is unclear whether proposals in this area reflect SCO goals or those of individual member states. Together, SCO members and observers account for 20 percent of global oil production and 50 percent of global gas output. Nonetheless, concern over the establishment of an “Eastern OPEC” may be premature.
President Putin proposed creating an energy club within the auspices of the SCO, not coincidently just weeks after China began receiving its first pipeline oil from Kazakhstan in May.
Although Russia and China have had a strategic partnership for the past decade and have been discussing a variety of energy pipeline projects since then, the first one, an oil pipeline from Taishet in Eastern Siberia to Skovorodino along the Chinese border, only began construction in April.
If Russia’s reaction to the post-9/11 expansion of US influence in the region was to reinvigorate Russian cooperation with Central Asian states within CIS institutions, then China’s response has been to expand bilateral economic cooperation with these countries. China’s energy strategy is based on diversification, but its recent successes in building a pipeline and making a US$4.5 billion investment in PetroKazakhstan in October 2005 also may provide some leverage in frustratingly dilatory negotiations with Russia over energy cooperation.
Despite the public enthusiasm the Chinese authorities display for the SCO, privately some Chinese experts acknowledge that Russia’s “old thinking” - viewing the organization as a vehicle for the expansion of Chinese economic interests in Moscow’s traditional sphere of influence - has been an obstacle.
Now that tensions in US-Russian relations have become more prominent, Russia has become more interested in the SCO, though not necessarily in China’s assuming a leading role in it. The two countries now appear to be competing to fund the organization, with China pledging US$920 million, and Russia countering with US$500 million.
The SCO, unlike NATO, which is based on common values, is seeking to find unity in diversity. This is a tall order, especially in the post-9/11 world, where inter-state conflicts and the growing influence of non-state actors and transnational threats mix in particularly pernicious ways.
What the SCO has achieved in its five-year history is greater security and confidence-building for China and many of its neighbors - Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and, most recently, India. If India has been one of the less enthusiastic of the observer states this is partly because of its history of conflict with China, particularly over Tibet, and consequent divergent definition of “separatism,” a key piece of the SCO platform.
Afghanistan continues to present major challenges for regional stability for SCO members and the international community as a whole. Although SCO members have sought the retrenchment of US influence in Central Asia and there has been some speculation about the SCO as an “Eastern NATO,” the SCO and NATO actually share many common interests, particularly in preventing the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and in limiting associated criminality, such as drug-trafficking. Unlikely to be able to replace NATO in the short term, the SCO may have little choice but to coexist with it.
Elizabeth Wishnick is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Montclair State University and a Research Associate at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University.
