During his latest state visit to Russia, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Putin agreed to bring the two countries’ relationship to a “new era of greater development at a higher level”. Given this, the two core member states and the driving force of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), China and Russia, will be expected to facilitate a broader prospect for the cooperation among the SCO member states in accordance with the “Shanghai spirit” during the 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the SCO that was scheduled on June 4in Bishkek.
Founded in 2001, the original six-states of the SCO—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan—signed “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Charter”. It puts the priorities on mutual trust and neighborliness among the member states; and joint efforts to ensure peace, security and stability in the region; and to build up a democratic, fair and rational international order. Since then, these are enshrined into the “Shanghai Spirit” that upholds internally mutual trust, reciprocal consultations, respect for cultural diversity and common development and externally non-alignment, non-targeting any third party, and inclusiveness. From the very beginning, it has been an important mission for the organization to fight against the “three evils”, which refer to terrorism, separatism, and extremism. The concept was first defined in June 2001 during the first SCO summit. Since then, taking regional security and stability as a priority, the SCO has been making unremitting efforts to crack down on the “three evils” in joint efforts to advance the cooperation and development.
True, the SCO has undergone a substantial development since its inception and now becomes a comprehensive regional organization with the profound dimensions beyond the region. Looking into the geographical locations of the eight SCO member states, it is surely the largest regional security organization in the world, accounting for nearly half of the world’s population and over 1/5 of global GDP, not to mention two permanent members of UN Security Council—China and Russia; and two most populous nations on the Earth—China and India. During the previous 17 years, the SCO has developed into a vigorous platform with upholding the Shanghai Spirit based on the inclusiveness and common development. According to the current SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov, the SCO will continue close cooperation with the aim of implementing the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy including joint activities and recommendations of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. For sure, with its all full members alongside four observer states and six dialogue partners, the SCO has acted actively as an international cooperation organization. Considering the uncertain circumstances of the world, the 19thSCO summit will focus on security and development among other cooperative tasks.
Here, security involves a much broader spectrum. In effect, the SCO has highlighted joint efforts to ensure peace, security and stability in the region. During the latest summit between Xi and Putin, they assured that the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination of the two countries has not only benefited the two peoples, but has also become an important force for safeguarding global security and strategic stability. To that end, China and Russia would continue to strengthen coordination on major international and regional issues, jointly deal with the challenges of unilateralism and protectionism, and maintain global peace and stability. As Putin put it, since Russia is ready to provide China with sufficient oil and gas, including more soybeans and other farm produce exported to China, the two sides expect a faster alignment between the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative. This requires security cooperation involving all member states of the SCO.
If we take a close look into the Qingdao summit of the SCO which was held in 2018, it highlighted the security cooperation in the fields such as cross-border organized crime, gun smuggling, drug trafficking and internet security as they have become the new security challenges for the region and beyond. , now all the SCO member states agree to expand the fields of security cooperation to drug trafficking and organized crime. To that end, China and Russia have closely worked alongside all other members with a view to building an efficient intelligence-sharing system among SCO member states. Now as a highly integrated security organization, the SCO needs to collectively deal with the common challenges according to their shared responsibilities.
In an era of globalization, which is full of challenges and opportunities as well, all member states of the SCO are aware that while security acts the condition for development, the latter is the insurance of long-term stability. Due to this, one of the Shanghai Spirit’s original goals is to seek common development. Since 2013, Xi has urged the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) taken deep roots and substantially benefit the SCO member states and beyond. As the BRI is the basic path to realizing common wealth, the SCO has not only continued to sublimate the Shanghai Spirit, but also to serve the interests of all the member states and the whole region as well.
During the meeting at the presidential residence in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, right after Xi Jinping and his entourage arrived on June 13, Chinese President Xi and his Kyrgyz counterpart, Sooronbay Jeenbekov discussed joint efforts to promote bilateral ties. Xi also stated that China is ready to share experience in state governance with Kyrgyzstan to achieve common development and prosperity, hailing the solid outcomes in the joint construction of the Belt and Road. The two sides agreed to step up coordination within multilateral frameworks, including the SCO and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, stick to multilateralism, and oppose protectionism and unilateralism, so as to contribute to building a community with a shared future for humanity.
Now the SCO Summit takes place in Kyrgyz located in central Asia and aims to synchronize its position towards Eurasian unity. The SCO serves a platform for jointly upholding multilateralism and the free trade system and opposing unilateralism and bullying tactics. To that end, the SCO and BRI would like to be integrated with the pace of the security and development in which a new vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable path would suit Asia and boost the common interests of all. For China, Xi is obviously looking forward to receiving the firm and frank supports from the SCO to take further measures by Beijing in safeguarding peace and stability and cracking down three evils in China’s borders areas, such as Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Tibet.