ON Oct 15-16, Pakistan will host the heads of government meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It would be an occasion to review the SCO’s progress towards fulfilling the promise with which it started out 23 years ago. The SCO evolved from the Shanghai Five, which was established in 1996 by China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. It assumed its name when Uzbekistan joined in 2001. By 2017, India and Pakistan also joined it. Iran came along in 2023, and Belarus a year later.
Given that the SCO membership represents nearly 80 per cent of the Eurasian landmass, 40pc of the world population, nearly 30pc of global GDP, and a significant share of oil and gas reserves, euphoria surrounded it initially. It was conceived as a land bridge between Asia and Europe. This led to misgivings in the West, which started viewing it as a strategic push by China and Russia against the US-led West and West-dominated global institutions. Last month, the Council of SCO Heads of State in Astana, Kazakhstan, further stoked Western concerns by calling for a “new democratic and fair political and economic world order”. In 2022, the Samarkand meeting of SCO heads of state had called for a gradual increase in the share of national currencies in mutual settlement of SCO members, though this did not gain much traction.