Cover Story 
 

Cover Story

AIMING HIGH WITH SHANGHAI

As long as Pakistan’s leading issues remain unaddressed, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) cannot be the gateway to glory for the country.

By Dr. Moonis Ahmar | October 2024

As Pakistan is ready to host the 23rd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which is being held in Islamabad this month, one needs to examine how that significant regional organization established on April 26, 1996, called Shanghai Five expanded from 5 to 8 in 2017 and 9 in July 2024. Called the world’s top-ranking regional organization, composed of 40% of its population and area, it now has 32% of the global GDP.

The SCO stretches from the Baltic to the Pacific and Kazakhstan to India. Launched by core countries Russia and China and composed of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 1996, the SCO platform expanded by including India, Iran and Pakistan in 2017 and Belarus in 2024. In 2024, Pakistan will be the Chairman of the SCO, hosting a summit of heads of government, bringing to the forefront challenges this regional organization faces. Unlike the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the performance of the SCO is relatively better because the two core members, China and Russia, focus on promoting trade, security and connectivity. Composed of the enormous land mass of Eurasia, Central, West and South Asia, the SCO is next to the United Nations and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in terms of its population, area and resources. The structure of the SCO is composed of (i) Council of Heads of State, (ii) Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers), (iii) Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, (iv) Meetings of Heads of Ministries and/or Agencies; and (v) Council of National Coordinators.

Will the Islamabad meeting of SCO be a game changer and reflect a paradigm shift in promoting regional cooperation? Will the earlier focus of the SCO on combating terrorism, extremism and separatism shift towards trade and economic cooperation, tackling environmental challenges, fostering collaboration in technology and travel, and forging more excellent connectivity encompassing colossal land mass from Eurasia to India? Will the SCO Islamabad summit provide an opportunity for a relative breakthrough in India-Pakistan relations and how anti-Americanism, which is shared by China, Iran and Russia, will feature in the forthcoming event in Islamabad? These are the questions that are raised in the backdrop of the SCO Islamabad summit.

The benefits Pakistan derives from its SCO membership are not difficult to gauge. By joining a regional organization under the leadership of two Eurasian giants, Russia and China, Islamabad expects to deepen its connectivity in trade, commerce, travel and communications. Presently, Pakistan has cordial relations with Russia and China. Its ties with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus are normal, whereas the ups and downs in relations with Iran are noticeable. Only with India, Pakistan has had hostile relations, particularly since the proclamation of the Jammu & Kashmir Reorganization Act of August 5, 2019, which ended J&K’s special status as envisaged in Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. Polarized India-Pakistan relations will definitely be reflected in the SCO summit in Islamabad, which means other members will be disappointed to witness how the two countries push their age-old discords in a regional organization.

According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: “At the meeting of the Council of Heads of States (CHS) of SCO in Bishkek in 2019, the then Prime Minister of Pakistan proposed the creation of a Special Working Group (SWG) on Poverty Alleviation and the SCO Centre of Excellence on Poverty Reduction based in Islamabad. The SCO-CHS approved the SWG on Poverty Alleviation proposal on 16 September 2022. The SWG provides an impetus to the collective endeavors of the SCO States to eliminate poverty and improve the people’s living standards. Pakistan is the permanent Chair of the Special Working Group on Poverty Alleviation. In December 2022, Pakistan hosted the meeting of SCO Ministers of Justice. The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Law and Justice of Pakistan. In 2021, Pakistan hosted a Joint Anti-Terrorism Exercise (JATE) titled “PABBI - ANTITERROR - 2021” at its National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) in Pabbi under the framework of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS). It was the first-ever exercise with physical participation of counter-terrorism forces from two SCO member States - Pakistan and China.”

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan is also involved in other activities of SCO: “As Chair of SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG) since 26 October 2023, Pakistan has hosted “Conference on Transport Connectivity for Regional Prosperity” on 22 November 2023, and the expert-level meeting of the Special Working Group on Poverty Alleviation entitled “Leveraging Digital Technologies to Enhance Social Safety Nets in SCO Member States” on 06 December 2023.


During 2024, Pakistan will be hosting a Meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of the SCO Member States and a Meeting of Ministers of the SCO Member States Responsible for Foreign Economic and Foreign Trade Activities in Islamabad. In addition to these two high-level meetings, Pakistan will be coordinating several other meetings that fall under the mandate of SCO CHG. During 2025-26, Pakistan will chair the SCO Council of Regional Antiterrorism Structure (CRATS). Pakistan will assume the rotational Chair of the SCO Council of Heads of State (CHS) and the SCO Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) in 2026-27. With such an impressive list of Pakistan’s engagement in SCO since its admission to that regional organization in 2017, one can expect Islamabad’s leadership role in SCO to get a boost, provided it manages its domestic crises.

The surging economic crisis, corruption, nepotism, absence of the rule of law and crisis in governance are the fault lines that diminish Pakistan’s regional and international standing.

Recently, a 23rd meeting of SCO trade ministers held in Islamabad stressed the need to counter protectionist trade measures and called for strengthening a non-discriminatory, World Trade Organization-based multilateral trading system. The meeting also endorsed the launch of three significant initiatives by Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Russia to strengthen deeper cooperation among the SCO members. The Islamabad meeting approved Pakistan’s proposal to enhance cooperation between Trade Promotion Organisations (TPOs) to improve coordination, deepen trade integration and foster new economic opportunities. Likewise, the meeting also approved Kazakhstan’s proposal to establish a Database of Economic Preferences for the SCO region. The SCO trade ministers’ meeting also endorsed Russia’s proposal to promote a creative economy for innovation-driven economic growth.

Considering such facts, the Islamabad SCO summit of heads of government will have far-reaching implications. It will allow Russia and China, the two core members of SCO, to provide an alternate leadership to the U.S.-dominated world order. The war in Ukraine has already exposed the fragility of world order to prevent the outbreak of armed conflicts. SCO summit may take a stand for establishing a multipolar world and resisting the surge of NATO beyond its borders.

As far as SCO emerging as a gateway of glory for Pakistan is concerned, it depends on two primary conditions. First, as long as Pakistan is unable to put its own house in order, it cannot expect the world and, for that matter, SCO to take it seriously. When there were violent and deadly incidents in Balochistan in August, Pakistan’s federal interior minister stated that these acts were aimed at subverting the October SCO summit in Islamabad. The question is why the state of Pakistan is unable to control acts of violence and terrorism and why it has failed to ensure political stability. The surging economic crisis, corruption, nepotism, absence of the rule of law and crisis in governance are the fault lines that diminish Pakistan’s regional and international standing.

Yet, if Pakistan can take the SCO chairmanship by rotation, it should use such an opportunity. Furthermore, things are different in SCO than in SAARC. In 2016, when it was Pakistan’s turn to host the SAARC summit in Islamabad, the Modi regime managed to scuttle that summit by refusing to participate, along with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, for different reasons. However, New Delhi cannot manipulate things because India will not have support for such a move.

Second, Pakistan enjoys a unique geo-strategic location because it is at the crossroads of Central, South and West Asia and is a bridge between Central and South Asia. With China as a strategic partner of Pakistan and investing in its Built and Road Initiative (BRI) under the flagship initiative of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Russia having cordial ties with Pakistan, one can expect a better outcome from the Islamabad summit.

Again, armed conflicts in Balochistan and KPK, including erstwhile FATA, along with the government’s focus on crushing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), give a wrong message to the global community. Severe economic crisis, bad governance, absence of rule of law, corruption and nepotism are fault lines the state of Pakistan will have to deal with to have a reputable standing at the regional and international level. As long as the issues mentioned above remain unaddressed, reflecting the non-serious attitude of state actors, the SCO cannot be a gateway of glory for Pakistan.

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