The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members consensually made Pakistan a full permanent member of the organization during the 15th Summit of SCO held in the city of Ufa in Russian Federation on July 9-10, 2015. Indeed, it is an impressive diplomatic cum substantial breakthrough for Islamabad. The full membership of the SCO not only advances Pakistan’s positive image internationally, but also be having tangible political, security and economic dividends.

Importantly, the SCO was expanded for the first time in Ufa since its creation in 2001. President Vladimir Putin, President of Russian Federation opened the annual SCO summit by announcing the acceptance of Pakistan and India as members. He also declared that Belarus would obtain observer status, joining Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia, while Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia and Nepal would be welcomed as “dialogue partners”. The expansion of SCO is an outcome of President Putin’s endeavour to integrate the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) to enhance the scope of economic outreach of SCO member-states.

Pakistan has the potential to become a gateway to the landlocked Central Asian Republics (CARs) with historical and cultural links spanning over centuries. Anything disturbing in this region would undermine Pakistan’s future economic opportunities. For instance, the Russian Federation, China and Central Asian States could seek a link-up with Gwadar via the north-south trade/energy corridor. Similarly, the recently announced China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) creates economic opportunities for both Pakistan and SCO members. The CPEC would bridge the gap between the continents. Once the CPEC starts functioning, it will connect China, Pakistan, Central Asia, Caucasus and Russia.

The full permanent membership of the SCO is a promising development for Pakistan. It has dramatically improved the political atmosphere of Islamabad’s relations with its regional neighbours and partners. On July 9, 2015, while speaking at the forum of SCO summit, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pointed out that the SCO partners have an ambitious agenda to achieve, i.e. preventing extremism, terrorism and drug-trafficking. He also added, “We must ensure regional stability and further economic integration to realize our goals. We must work together to mitigate differences, resolve outstanding disputes and create a favourable environment for the betterment of our peoples. This is how the true Shanghai spirit will be fully realized.” For understanding the true Shanghai spirit one needs to familiarize with the SCO’s primary objective and operational apparatus. The SCO is an intergovernmental mutual-security Eurasian organization, which was founded on June 15, 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. These six states are the original and full permanent members of the SCO. The organization also invites the observers and guest states in its meetings. For instance, Afghanistan, prior to 2012 SCO Summit participated in some activities through the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group. The SCO’s basic bureaucratic structure consists of two standing bodies: ‘the Secretariat based in Beijing and overseen by a Secretary General who serves a three-year term, and the Regional Anti Terror Structure (RATS) with a staff based in Tashkent. The declared objectives of the SCO are to strengthen mutual trust, friendship and good-neighbourly relations among the member states; encouraging effective cooperation among them in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, education, energy, transportation, ecology and other areas; joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region, to create a new democratic, just and rational political and economic international order. Nevertheless, the prime focus of the SCO has been on terrorism, separatism and extremism. The SCO completed its fourteen years of existence in 2015. Since its formation, every year, it brings together heads of states to discuss regional security issues and inter-regional cooperation, to determine strategies and goals to promote development. Though it refrained from enrolling a new full member of the organization until 2014, yet it was systematically engaging the neighbouring countries through various means such as, official observer, contact groups, dialogue partners to pursue its objective. Nonetheless, on July 09-10, 2015, the SCO expanded by making India and Pakistan as its full permanent members.

Presently, the SCO has successfully been pursuing various objectives for the peace and stability of the Eurasian region without compromising on its primary focus, i.e. working cooperatively against the three evils, i.e. terrorism, separatism and extremism since its creation in 2001. Indeed, the resolution of these three evils would result in regional stability. The driving philosophy of the SCO is the so-called “Shanghai Spirit,” which emphasizes harmony, working via consensus, respect for other cultures, noninterference in others’ internal affairs, and nonalignment. These five principals of coexistence, certainly, minimize enmity and encourage amity among the regional political entities. Furthermore, the SCO operates on a consensus basis, which facilitates the member states to harmonize their policies by rising above their bilateral differences. It also provides a forum to the belligerent neighbours to deliberate on their conflicting issues during the sideline leaders‘ meetings. The SCO’s primary common objective is to counter terrorism, separatism, and extremism, which aligns closely with Pakistan’s objectives against terrorism and concerns about extremist militancy undermining country’s national security. Beyond this primary shared concern of terrorism are a few other important Pakistan’s foreign policy interests — sustaining strategic partnership with China, a resetting cordial bilateral relation with Russia, augmenting economic activities with Central Asian states, work closely with Afghanistan’s neighbours for latter stability in the post-2014 — that might be better understood and pursued through an enhanced relationship with the SCO members.

The SCO has been evolving as an important Eurasian alliance. Whether, the SCO could emerge as a counterweight to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the near future is a debatable subject. Many security observers seem convinced that SCO would gradually mature to counterbalance NATO expansion in the Asian region. In spite of the frequent denials by the members of the organization about the military nature of the SCO and the differences between members on military and security cooperation, five initiatives of the SCO reveal that it has been gradually moving towards a full-grown security organization. These developments are: combination of military and political events; second, military assistance concept; third, cooperation between SCO and the Russian-led military alliance, Collective Security Treaty Organization of the CIS (CSTO); fourth, maturing joint manoeuvres, and fifth, security response mechanisms.

The SCO, certainly, has been providing a forum to its parties and other associating states to deliberate and chalk out a consensus based strategy to combat the menace of transnational security threats emanating from the non-state actors or from terrorist-criminal networks in the region. Furthermore, the leaders participating in SCO summit do express collective concern on subjects, which in their opinion may destabilize the global and regional strategic environment. For instance on June 7, 2012, the heads of state pointed out that “the strengthening of missile defence by a country or group of countries in a unilateral and unrestrained manner in disregard of the legitimate interests of other countries will cause harm to international security and global strategic stability.” The missile defence system is an important military technology, which gives immense defensive cum offensive capability to its possessors. Theoretically speaking, it is an established variable that introduction of a new weapon system in one state’s arsenal intensifies security dilemma puzzle in the regional and global strategic environment, which always unleashes arms race between/among the strategic competitors. The arms race contains an inbuilt characteristic to destabilize the regional as well as global strategic stability.

The cooperative framework of SCO certainly provides a useful platform to involve regional powers of South Asia in permanent consultation and cooperation, on the basis of shared principles. Its consensus approach to decision making barricades hegemonic or coerced cooperation, which is imperative to check the bigger members’ interference in the smaller members’ internal affairs as well as to prevent the forum to be hijacked from the bilateral disputes of the belligerent neighbours.

Another important development on the sidelines of the 15th SCO Summit was a meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the latter’s invitation. It has generated optimism about the lowering of current tension between nuclear armed rivals of South Asia. In reality, it’s only a minor diplomatic step in the right direction. It was reported that “The two leaders agreed India and Pakistan have a collective responsibility to ensure peace and promote development. To do so, they are prepared to discuss all outstanding issues.” Theoretically, it seems possible that both sides are ready to discuss all outstanding issues, but practically it seems impossible. The track record of the current BJP government manifests that it is only interested to engage Pakistan on a few selective issues. The joint statement also confirms this assertion. That’s why; despite the government’s clarification many analysts expressed serious reservations on the joint statement. Ironically, “both sides agreed to discuss ways and means to expedite Mumbai case trial,” but refrained to utter a word on Samjhauta Express tragedy or RAW sponsored terrorist activities in Balochistan. Moreover, Kashmir issue was not specifically mentioned or documented in the Joint Statement made by Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India at the Joint Press Conference in Ufa on July 10, 2015.

Although Indian Premier accepted his Pakistani counterpart’s invitation to visit Islamabad during the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in 2016, yet many unsettled issues demand a serious analysis before jumping to a conclusion. The biggest hurdle in restarting a sustainable dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad is Prime Minister Modi’s mindset. His year-long aggressive and irrational posture towards Pakistan is not ignorable at this juncture. He seems convinced that without maintaining anti-Pakistan rhetoric, he could not bet on the continuous support of extremist Hindu lobby to his government in India. It is pertinent to mention here that his government has been endeavouring to define new rules of engagement with Pakistan. The deterministic determinant in this context is to compel Islamabad to distance from the Kashmiri leadership residing in the Indian held Kashmir. Perhaps, this demand of New Delhi is not acceptable for Islamabad.

The SCO’s full membership of India and Pakistan has assured a new phase of Eurasian regionalism in July 2015. Both SCO heavyweights — China and Russia and the leading actors of South Asia – India and Pakistan favour regional cooperation as the framework within which to resolve three evils, i.e. terrorism, separatism and extremism and economic cooperation. SCO has developed during the last decade a distinctive style of regional cooperation based on “Shanghai spirit.” The cooperative framework of SCO certainly provides a useful platform to involve regional powers of South Asia in permanent consultation and cooperation, on the basis of shared principles. Its consensus approach to decision making barricades hegemonic or coerced cooperation, which is imperative to check the bigger members’ interference in the smaller members’ internal affairs as well as to prevent the forum to be hijacked from the bilateral disputes of the belligerent neighbours. Furthermore, the smaller countries play an appropriate role in the organization and maximize their advantages in the globalized and interconnected, economic and security environment of today. To conclude, the expansion of the SCO in Ufa is not only advantageous for Pakistan, but it is also in the greatest interest of all the founding members of the organization. The SCO membership of Pakistan, certainly, contributes constructively in combating the menace of radicalized transnational terrorism and Pakistan’s security and economic stability.

The writer is Director and Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He contributes for print and electronic media regularly. [email protected]