Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Strategic Prospect of Central Asia.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a leading organization for political, economic and security concerns. Security problems of the Cold-war era necessitate new thinking of cooperation and security at state level. In 1990, China decided to undertake a more active role in developing a new forum to address security problems especially on its periphery. The converging policies of China and Russia found the forum of Shanghai Cooperation Organization. China and Russia are two major members of the organization. As the primary leader of the organization, China offers economic cooperation to Central Asian States whereas Russia offers political-military cooperation. The SCO brought together China, Russia and Central Asian States with six dialogue partners and four observers. The membership was extended further outwards with India and Pakistan as full members of the organization.

Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian state which is not a member of SCO and sends her resentative as a guest due to endless neutrality.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Members Dialogue Partners Observers Guests Attendance

China Armenia Afghanistan ASEAN

India Azerbaijan Belarus CIS

Kazakhstan Cambodia Iran Turkmenistan

Kyrgyzstan Nepal Magnolia UN

Pakistan Sri Lanka

Russia Turkey

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

The initial mandate of the organization was to promote regional security and protect member states from the non-state security threats. The SCO's policy makers always argue that the organization is not an alliance and not a balancing tool against West or any other state. In the region, China is a key player of Central Asian States economy especially after the development of One Belt One road and Russia is still acting as an elder in Eurasian politics and security.

By contrast the United States was being disengaged from the region under the Obama administration but under the administration of Trump, there are signs that US forces may stay in Afghanistan. The geographic reach of the organization expanded to India and Pakistan significantly. The security problems and the conflicts especially the issue of Kashmir became the extensive agenda of the organization. China was worried about he dilution of her role in SCO after inclusion of India while Russia understands that the inclusion of India as a full member of the organization would be a check on Chinese influence within the group, unlike India-Russian relations which have been cool since the last decade.

India understands...