The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), born as a border agreement among former Soviet republics and China, is accelerating its diplomatic agenda. On April 26 and 27, foreign ministers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan joined their Chinese and Russian colleagues in Moscow to prepare for a June 7 summit in St. Petersburg. The SCO's self-perception and its potential value to other nations have both sharpened since the US-led war on terrorism began in October 2001. While the organization appears some distance from a viable charter, its identity as a regional counterweight to American interests seems to be solidifying.
With both US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami touring the region, the SCO sought to become the region's authoritative voice. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan both promised reporters on April 26 that the June 7 summit would achieve international significance. Tang, according to Russian news agency RIA, explicitly assigned the group a strategic role in geopolitics: the SCO is not "a club for empty discussions," RIA quoted Tang, "but a viable institution capable to make an important contribution to the international war on terror."
Observers expect the summit to produce a charter, a joint statement, and an agreement to open a regional antiterrorism center in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. SCO members may want such a center to vet or offset American efforts to establish military bases around the region.
But a charter, which will have to precede any administrative work, remains elusive. Some expected the foreign ministers would sign a 30-page draft charter on April 26, but no signing took place. Following the meeting, Uzbek deputy foreign minister Ilkhom Nematov conceded that there were "some unresolved issues." Some have described the charter as "95 percent" complete. Even if that's accurate, the SCO needs firmer structures. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, member-states have to agree on some 30 multilateral agreements apart from the charter to get activities underway.
As the delegates described them, those activities might supplement or offset American-led efforts to secure oil sources and keep regional governments stable. For example, Tajik Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov told journalists that antiterrorist forces should crack down on illegal drug sales that occur at his nation's border with Afghanistan. [For further information, see the EurasiaNet Culture archives]. The chiefs of the SCO nations' border guard services met in Almaty on April 24 to coordinate approaches to regional problems like terrorism, drug trade and illegal migration. And on April 29, representatives of the SCO emergency situations ministries gathered in St. Petersburg to discuss emergency response in the region.
But because of the sometimes-conflicting alliances its members maintain, the organization will need a wider agenda than that of a police force. Russia's foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Interfax on April 29 that the SCO would not necessarily follow one country's lead. The SCO is based on the principles of equality and consensus, and so does not have "leading" members or nations to be "led," he claimed.
Nonetheless, one large member's concerns may resonate throughout the group when members approve the charter. In January, Chinese President Jiang Zemin enthused about the SCO's potential role in building "regional anti-terror mechanisms." This language hints at China's fears about separatist unrest growing among the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group in western China, near the border with Central Asia. Uzbek President Islam Karimov has long authorized the roundup and, according to human rights activists, the torture of members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a radical but nonviolent group that seeks to restore an Islamic caliphate in the region. [For more information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Kyrgyzstan's government has become increasingly strident about its insistence on quelling revolutionary movements. And Russia has long advocated collective security action to deal with perceived threats in Central Asia.
When the Uzbeks joined the group in 2001, the organization's emphasis on antiterrorism and on monitoring religious groups sharpened. The six governments signed a "Shanghai Convention to Combat Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism," which is supposed to outline the purposes of the joint anti-terrorism center in Bishkek. As Central Asia's most populous nation, Uzbekistan can amplify Chinese worries about separatism and can challenge Russia for dominance within the organization.
Some initiatives, such as a "Silk Road" transportation project that member states adopted after the West endorsed a separate transportation initiative called TRACECA, seem designed to compete with American interests. So whatever trade initiatives it pursues, the SCO is likely to oppose or at least differ from American-led security plans for the region. Uzbekistan, which has much to gain from regional trade, has welcomed American rivals such as Iran and would probably not try to upset SCO initiatives that could boost the Uzbek economy.
Ultimately, the SCO may fuse China's hope to weaken American influence with Russia's desire to create a "multi-polar world" in the generation after the Cold War. To that end, the SCO has mulled expanded membership. "Moscow does not rule out the SCO expansion in the future," Yakovenko announced on April 29. So far there are no new applications to join the SCO, though some have suggested that Mongolia or Iran might consider such a move. "We want the SCO to become a modern organization of a new type in line with the demands of multi-polar world," RIA quoted Ivanov as saying after the Moscow meeting.
In recent years, "multi-polar world" has been Moscow's mantra, and efforts to expand the SCO into a multi-nation compact suit it. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that in the wake of the Soviet collapse and Russia's withdrawal from Central Asia, "a sort of power vacuum" has emerged in the region. As SCO members prepare for their June summit, the Bishkek antiterrorism center may soon serve to block American efforts to fill that vacuum.
Editor's note:
Sergei Blagov is a Moscow-based specialist in CIS political affairs.
