Leaders and top officials from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met today in Islamabad, where they called for enhancing security and economic cooperation, boosting people-to-people contact and mitigating the effects of climate change. The SCO includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and four Central Asian states. (AP)
Our Take
Today’s SCO meeting highlights the way in which the role of regional organizations has changed over the past two decades or so. In the 2000s and early 2010s, in parallel with the resurgent emphasis on multilateralism, regional groupings were considered a practical tool for states to facilitate cooperation, ease tensions and amplify their influence on the global stage.
The SCO fit this bill perfectly. Founded in 2001, the organization’s original tacit purpose was to reduce friction between Moscow and Beijing in their respective engagement with Central Asia. At the time, China was seeking more economic inroads into the region, where Russia had historically been the hegemon. The trust-enhancing forum provided by the SCO prevented the ensuing competition between the two from generating tensions, while amplifying Central Asia’s strategic position.