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India is seeking membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO. Why? And what is the SCO? PM Modi attended the SCO summit in Ufa, Russia, the other day and was welcomed as a new member by the next year. Along with India, Pakistan will also join the SCO. The Organisation, headquartered in Beijing, is a creation by Russia and China and counts the Central Asian States of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan among its members. The Organisation provides a forum for multilateral cooperation in the field of security, meaning the fight against drug trafficking and terrorism. Compared with Europe, Asia is lacking comprehensive multilateral security arrangements such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE. The OSCE, Nato’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) and, for the promotion of the Rule of Law and Democracy, the Council of Europe, all of Western-European origin, embrace also Russia and former Soviet republics and provide the continent with a strong network of mutual obligations and opportunities serving the purpose of strengthening peace and stability in Europe for the benefit of the people. Asia has nothing of that quality. The SCO was a beginning, although limited to safeguarding primary interests of the Russian and the Chinese Governments. For member governments, safeguarding their interests is equivalent to stability. Often, stability of Government remains short of serving the direct interests of their populations. But at least, they provide stability. The people in the Middle East are experiencing these days what it means to lack even basic statehood structures. With India and Pakistan, two more nuclear powers will join the organisation. Russia and China hope, thus, to increase the Organisation’s influence in the region and in the world. In fact, for the Russian President Putin it is about replacing in his “backyard”, so to say, with political alternatives some of the prestige and influence he has lost in the world and in Europe due to Western sanctions because of his Ukraine policies. A few days before the SCO summit in Ufa, Putin had received the Heads of State of the BRICS countries at the same place. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South-Africa and unites in a group the major Emerging Economies. Together, they represent some twenty percent of world economy and some forty percent of the world’s population. The BRICS countries aim at promoting their influence in international affairs by building up a counterweight to the G-7, which is composed by the seven leading advanced economies of the world. By calling the group to gather in Ufa, the Russian leader wanted to demonstrate that for him and Russia, there is “life outside the G-8”, from which he has been excluded (and which has, consequently, become the “G-7” again). This was Putin’s purpose of hosting two major international events in his country, one shortly after the other. China may see the acquisition of two more members differently. Certainly, the SCO will take some weight by including four out of the eight or nine “official” nuclear powers. On the other hand, China and India will continue to see each other not only as political and economic competitors in Asia, but as potentially antagonistic neighbours separated by a long border which is still not mutually recognised. The Central Asian members of the SCO, all former Soviet republics and therefore autocratic regimes with little democratic legitimacy cannot feel at ease with a “club member” of the size of India and with deep rooted democratic pride. Finally, the SCO, once founded with a particular focus on fighting Islamist terrorism, will have to learn to interact institutionally with a country like Pakistan, which must be seen as one of the safest havens for leaders of international Islamist terrorism. In addition, Pakistan and India will carry with them their decade-long conflict, when they join the SCO as members. What is then India’s and PM Modi’s purpose of joining the SCO? For India and Modi it makes sense to add the SCO to their international strategic network. It is a move of diversification in order to multiply India’s international political options, one of Modi’s objectives. It is a smart strategy of better positioning India in international affairs; the basic requirement for an improved standing in the world, however, remains domestic reforms. They are more difficult than international diplomacy. Most of it still waits to be tackled. SCO membership will be of little help for that purpose.

13th July 2015 / Philippe Welti

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