Today, to the eight countries already members of the SCO (India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, China, Russia, Tajikistan), 10 more states have expressed their wish to join or raise their status. Officially, their list is not disclosed, but following numerous leaks, it was learned that they are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Nepal, India. Egypt, Cambodia, Myanmar, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In order to correctly assess the importance of each new meeting in the format of the SCO, it is worth referring to the speeches of the leaders of the state organization. And to the expressions they use in relation to the upcoming activities of the Shanghai Community.
Chinese President Xi Jinping: “In the new realities, the SCO, as one of the constructive factors in international and regional affairs, must find the strength to respond to the changing world situation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin: “The SCO does not stand still and continues to develop gradually.”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Mori: “By enhancing national potential and economic multilateralism, SCO countries can overcome the crisis caused by the pandemic.”
Such a demand for change from senior officials could not go unnoticed. A serious “push” took place in July 2022, when the foreign ministers of the SCO member countries prepared an impressive package of documents for the upcoming Samarkand summit. Then Sergei Lavrov during a press conference highlighted two key documents: “The concept of cooperation to create efficient transport corridors” and “Roadmap for a gradual increase in the share of national currencies in mutual settlements”. Both documents were then adopted at a meeting of SCO leaders.
The current meeting of G8 foreign ministers in Shanghai in the Indian state of Goa should, on the one hand, summarize the intermediate results of the implementation of previous decisions, which is quite natural. On the other hand, to answer the question, will the previous pace of organizational reform be maintained? Will new initiatives be proposed aimed at shaping a whole new international face of the SCO? Vladimir Putin recently spoke about one of these initiatives to be developed, proposing the creation of a sports association under the aegis of the SCO.
The upcoming SCO foreign ministers’ talks on Friday should be seen as part of a larger process of updating the entire international relations infrastructure. The reasons for the popularity of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, if such a term is in principle appropriate to be used in relation to international structures, according to Lavrov, lie in the prevailing geopolitical realities. “The same BRICS can rightly be called a kind of cooperative net thrown over the old North-South and West-East dividing lines. It is no coincidence that more and more states in the Global South strive to establish links with these associations, to become their full members,” the minister reportedly said. CASS . The SCO, whose rapid modernization has considerably increased the international attractiveness of this structure, is also part of these “networks”.
At the meeting of heads of diplomatic departments of SCO countries scheduled for Friday, it also seems inevitable to discuss Moscow’s plans to develop a new currency that can be used in foreign trade among BRICS countries. It is no longer a figure of speech, but a new reality. Former White House foreign policy adviser Joseph Sullivan even came up with a name for that money – “brick.” How true this inside information regarding the name and prospects of the new interstate currency is, time will tell. But what is much more important is whether SCO member countries will switch to this currency and to what extent they are interested in such a transition. It is possible that directly or indirectly these issues will be raised at the current ministerial meeting with the participation of Lavrov.
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p class=””>Another important aspect of the modernization of the SCO at the suggestion of the Chinese side will be the participation of the Shanghai Organization in the global geopolitical project “Community of Common Destiny”. In this regard, it is worth recalling the statement of the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Qin Gang, who affirmed that Beijing sees the world “as a community with a common future”. At this stage of the SCO’s development, this issue, although primarily ideological in nature, still serves to broaden the ideological base of the organization, giving clear guidelines on who is “our” and who is “stranger” for those who want to join it. . This is a very important factor, because decisions within the SCO are taken by consensus and the member states of the organization, even in cases where they do not act as a united front on the international scene, nevertheless respect the agreement not to oppose.
On Thursday, before the start of the main SCO events, the Russian Foreign Minister will hold bilateral meetings with the heads of the diplomatic departments of India, China and Pakistan. I will add that previous negotiations with colleagues from India and China took place in Delhi with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Then the media wrote that the head of India’s defense department, Rajnath Singh, Shoigu, saluted in Sanskrit “Namaste!”, Which literally translates as – “Bow”. But the Russian Foreign Minister, I am sure, will have to hear the expression “Boro mare” more than once. In the language of the Indian state of Goa, it means friendly: “How are you?”.
Four interesting facts about the SCO
- SCO member countries represent half of the world’s population and a quarter of the world’s GDP.
- The order of the SCO presidency is determined in accordance with the Russian alphabet.
- The SCO countries agreed that joint work will be guided only by unifying points, leaving differences “out of the box”.
4. There is no purely military component in the SCO and never has been. Therefore, it is fundamentally wrong to consider the SCO as “anti-NATO”.
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