India and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)

[LETHALFORCE]

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article446071.ece

India weighs options on SCO

The Prime Minister's Office and the External Affairs Ministry are weighing the options of India joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), if the grouping decides to admit more members at its Tashkent summit scheduled for next week.

An internal assessment favours India becoming a member, but senior officers point to a number of external factors that will have a bearing on the decision. The first and foremost among the external factors is that many countries have reservations about giving membership to Iran which, along with India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is keen on joining the SCO.

Second, the SCO is still to overcome opposition by some smaller countries which fear dilution of their role and the existing agenda if countries not intrinsic to the current composition are given membership.

From the Indian point of view, however, there are few doubts. India feels it will immediately gain economically by becoming a part of the trans-Asian infrastructure linkages and energy delivery systems being planned by China, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

With Russia and Kazakhstan announcing plans for a common customs union, India feels its trade initiatives could be more fruitful, especially with some other countries expected to join the initiative.

India is keen that Afghanistan also join the SCO. Instead of "looking down" for inspiration, Kabul will be looking up to the Central Asian countries which are secular Muslim nations that do not call themselves Islamic and, like Afghanistan, are struggling to develop.

India will also gain access to membership of the SCO panel on Afghanistan and another counter-terrorism structure — the SCO's Regional Counter Terrorism Centre in Tashkent. Besides being the node for exchange of information among the SCO members, the centre conducts analytical work. India feels this centre is ideally placed to comprehensively analyse and track violent movements in the region as the belt of unrest does not begin from Afghanistan, but further up from the Fergana Valley which was artificially divided between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan during the Soviet times.

Western counter-terrorism experts have limited access to the Fergana Valley, and little at all to the Tashkent centre. The Valley has seen frequent overspills of the trouble in Afghanistan, and the region's fighters have fought alongside the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, having been inspired by the Hizb ut-Tahrir which operates in the region. Diplomats feel the centre would get a "complete look," with Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan joining it, along with India.

Politically, the SCO will give India a fuller Asian identity than is the case at present. Most of the regional groupings of which it is a member are inclined eastward. Politically and economically, India (along with Pak and Afghanistan) can serve as a second bridge between east and the central parts of Asia, with the first bridge being China.

The SCO membership will also enable India to diversify its relationship with China by extending cooperation to anti-terrorism and security-related issues.

On the negative side, officials fear it will become yet another forum where India and Pakistan will sit across the table. However, their exposure to wide Asian geopolitics could help them narrow down their differences.

 

[ajtr]

^^member of all allied with none....

 

[civfanatic]

India should definitely join the SCO, but I doubt our politicians have the foresight to make such a move.

 

[SHASH2K2]

India should definitely join the SCO, but I doubt our politicians have the foresight to make such a move.

any idea about benifits of it?

 

[civfanatic]

Better relations with Russia, better relations with China (will help solve border disputes), formal security arrangements for India, and will make Pakis think twice about starting something (they cannot expect China to help them if China and India are on the same side)

 

[Triton]

Shanghai Cooperation Organization to hold anti-terror drills in Sept.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will conduct a series of anti-terror drills from September 9 - 25 in Kazakhstan, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday.

More...

 

[nia]

The six member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will begin joint anti-terror exercises, Peace Mission-2010, at the Matybulak training ground in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

More...

 

[ajtr]

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Heading Toward Strategic Redundancy?

Shanghai Cooperation Organization Heading Toward Strategic Redundancy?​

Subhash Kapila

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SC0) came into existence in 2001 and was founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.. From this core group, the SCO stands expanded to include India, Iran, Mongolia as Observer States, and Belarus and Sri Lanka as Dialogue Partners. Guest Attendance Status has been extended to Afghanistan, ASEAN, CIS, and Turkmenistan.

China more specifically, and Russia were the prime movers who brought about the emergence of SCO and even today they dominate the deliberations and strategic policy formulations of the SCO besides providing the budgetary support.

Geopolitically and geostrategically, Russia and China as the prime movers of the SCO can be said as two major powers that on the global stage are contending powers with the United States. The other core group members are former breakaway republics of the former Soviet Union and still have considerable interdependent political, economic and military linkages with Russia, than with China.

The SCO basically emerged as a regional security organization though after the Astana Summit Declaration in 2005 it has sought to extend its role in economic cooperation and cooperation with other regional organizations.

The point to note in its emergence is that the SCO as a security organization was not a left-over of the Cold War era but emerged as a fresh security organization encompassing Eurasia and in response to the changed global geostrategic calculus that emerged in the wake of the post-Cold War era.

Nearly a decade is about to finish since the SCO came into existence and hence it is an opportune time to analyze whether the SCO has emerged as a strong security organization to countervail the United States strategic predominance globally and in Eurasia or whether it is heading towards strategic redundancy as a result of no visible decline in global predominance of the United States or United States strategic predominance on the peripheries of Russia and China. Furthermore the differing long-term strategic perceptions between China and Russia may themselves contribute to the strategic redundancy of the SCO, besides their mutual strategic misgivings.

This Paper accordingly sets out to analyze the following related issues:




Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Ineffective as Counterweight to NATO and the United States Strategic Predominance
United States as a Threat: Differing Perceptions of China and Russia
China and Russia: The Mutual Strategic Misgivings
China –United States Military Showdown: Would the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Institutionally Confront the United States?

Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Ineffective Counterweight to NATO and the United States

The SCO on inception was designed as a counterweight to NATO's Eastward creep towards the peripheries of Russia and China. The founding impulses also had their origins in arresting unbridled United States unilateralism in global strategic affairs after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

China also figured that the SCO as a security organization would be a strategic pressure point available to it against the United States in East Asia to play Chinese power- play mind-games.

China had more stronger strategic imperatives to pre-empt any unilateral military interventions on humanitarian grounds by the United States in China's outlying regions of Xingjiang and possibly Tibet. China was also impelled by considerations of energy security pertaining to the pipelines grid that it was configuring for spreading over the Central Asian landmass.

At the end of ten years of its existence it can be analyzed that the SCO has not lived up to its intended objectives as the following would indicate:


NATO continues as an effective and strong military alliance which has added former breakaway constituents of the former Soviet Union to its enlarged membership.
NATO stands embedded in Afghanistan on the doorsteps of China and outflanking China's strategic nexus with Pakistan
The United States has footholds in the Central Asian Republics despite Russian and Chinese countermoves to the contrary.
The United States reigns supreme in East Asia provoking China to incendiary confrontations with the United States and its allies like South Korea and Japan.
China stands encircled by the United Sates with its bilateral security alliances with South Korea, Japan, Philippines and Thailand. To this needs to be added the United States'-India Strategic Partnership which if properly handled by USA could prove a substantial game-changer in Asian security. Vietnam and the United Sates are currently engaged in exploring strategic cooperation options.
China and Russia as the prime constituents of the SCO are divided by their differing perceptions of the US-threat and their own mutual strategic misgivings.

The SCO for reasons best known to China and Russia has shied away from adding firm contours of a military alliance on the pattern of NATO. Even sizeable Joint Military Exercises are said to be designed to meet terrorism, extremism and separatist threats.

In this context it needs to be noted that China comparatively stands strategically isolated as opposed to Russia, the other founding member of SCO, which enjoys wider international multilateral linkages. To that extent this itself may create problems in concerted strategic policy formulations of the SCO.

United States as a Threat: Differing Perceptions of China and Russia

Contextually, the SCO came into existence when both China and Russia had strategic concerns of United States unilateralism in global strategic affairs, NATO's Eastward creep towards the peripheries of both China and Russia and when Russia's strategic resurgence under President Putin had not fully taken off. The United States figured overwhelmingly in the threat perceptions of both China and Russia then and provided a strategic convergence to both to set up the SCO to countervail the United States in Eurasia and the Asia Pacific.

Ten years down the line while a number of short-term convergences exist between China and Russia pertaining to Central Asia but it appears that China and Russia do not share the same long –term perceptions of the United States threat, which was the prime consideration that stimulated the formation of the SCO.

China all along has considered the United States as its prime strategic threat despite any peace rhetoric that flowed between Beijing and Washington all these years. In the last decade China accuses the United States of thwarting its strategic rise as a great power if not a superpower. The Chinese Grand Strategy in the last ten years to defeat its perceived US-Threat has been to gear up the speedy build-up and modernization of its Armed Forces and its Strategic Forces, promote strategic nuisance value of rogue states like North Korea and Pakistan by equipping them with nuclear arsenals and create counter pressure-points against the United States in the Islamic World.

As the year 2010 is heading towards a close China seems to be locked in a strategic confrontation and military brinkmanship bordering on the extreme with the United States in East Asia. The sequence of events in2010 most vividly illustrate that China has not strategically restrained itself in creating potential flashpoints with the United States. It seems somehow that China is on a collision course with the United States.

When it comes to Russia the strategic setting in relation to the United States differs vastly from that of China. Russia in 2010 cannot be said to be on a collision course with the United States. The United States may be a strategic concern for Russia but realistically it cannot be said that the United States is a military threat to Russia.

The United Sates is presently engaged in 'resetting" relations with Russia and reorient the Cold War mindsets on Russia. There is hope that United States would realize that it would be better to craft a bipolar global power structure by co-opting Russia as a partner to manage China's strategic rise and what it entails in China's propensity for conflict to resolve conflictual issues.

Consequently, the differing perceptions of the United States as a threat between China and Russia are likely to arrest the growth of SCO as a potent security organization for countervailing the United States.

China and Russia: The Mutual Strategic Misgivings

Notwithstanding the rhetoric that flows between Beijing and Moscow on the institutional viability and strengths of the SCO, what cannot be swept under the carpet are the mutual strategic misgivings that abound between China and Russia. These are over and above the divergent perceptions on the US-threat and center on the respective strategic interests of China and Russia in Central Asia.

China and Russia can both be said to have strategic misgivings about each other and have competing strategic interests in Central Asia. The Central Asian Republics even after breaking away from the former Soviet Union enjoy close and interdependent political, economic and military cooperation linkages with Russia. What needs to be recorded here is the fact that the Central Asian Republics unlike the others did not wish the Soviet Union to disintegrate.

Other than the commonality of SCO membership these Central Asian Republics are also members of Moscow-centric security organizations like the CIS and the CSTO. Their natural tilt therefore is towards Russia than China.

Russia therefore views the Central Asian strategic space as its 'area of natural influence and interest'. It views with suspicion Chinese efforts to muscle-in in this region on the strength of its economic strengths and energy security considerations. Russia has even been successful in limiting and regaining military influence in this region in the face of United States moves in the region especially after its military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001.

In terms of strategic focus, Russia looks more towards Europe whereas China focuses on the Asia Pacific and East Asia more specifically. Nothing epitomizes this more than Russia's differing approaches than those of China to North Korea and Japan

Lastly while on this subject it needs to be stressed that Russia too is fearful of China's increasing strategic assertiveness in its trajectory to grab superpower status. Here the Russian and United States strategic interests enjoy convergence. Russia fears that China has the potential to marginalize Russia and arrive at compromises independent of SCO linkages to grab superpower status.

China-United States Military Showdown: Would the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Institutionally Confront the United States?

This is a crucial determinant of the strategic viability of the SCO and whether the SCO has strategically matured to the point where it can be safely asserted that it has now become strategically integrated to meet its founding objectives.

Keeping in mind the differing threat perceptions of China and Russia on the US-Threat, and the mutual strategic misgivings that divide China and Russia it seems unlikely that the SCO would institutionally confront the United States in the eventuality of a China- United States military showdown.

A potential China-United States military showdown would have global implications and since it is more likely to arise from Chinese belligerency, it is unlikely that the other SCO members would be inclined to enter a military conflict to back-up China.

More pointedly, any future China-US military conflict is likely to arise over any US military intervention in Pakistan or North Korea as Chinese satellites and that too as rogue Chinese satellites, it seems that in the interests of overall regional stability in heartland Asia, any siding with China by the SCO institutionally is unlikely.

Concluding Observations

The strategic impulses that stimulated China and Russia to establish the SCO as a countervailing platform to NATO and the United States stand replaced by newer geostrategic and geopolitical realities. These do not portend the maturing of the SCO as a substantial regional security organization on the lines of NATO despite its internal differences.

The sum total of the strategic relevance of the SCO as a strong and effective regional security organization would have been dependant on the strategic cohesiveness and strategic convergences of China and Russia. In 2010 no portents are available for analysis to suggest that SCO can evolve as a countervailing heavyweight to the United Sates and NATO.

On the contrary, the pointers available suggest that the SCO may metamorphize into a regional economic organization with strategic redundancy in attendance.

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email: [email protected])

 

[Minghegy]

Middle Asian countries want stable.
Russia doesn't want US politic into middle Asia, for example, colour revolution or US agent.
China doesn't want US economy into middle Asia. China also has a dream to rebuild a new silk road to Europe, it's a long-term target.

 

[LurkerBaba]

Photo: RIA Novosti

Russia hails Pakistan's engagement in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and supports its intent to become a full-fledged member in the SCO.

A statement to this effect was made by Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Asif Ali Zardari after their talks in Moscow on Thursday.

Separately, the two men called for the cultivation of ties between Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Stressing the importance of maintaining stable peace in Afghanistan, they also urged more efforts to tackle terrorism and drug trafficking in the region.

The SCO brings together Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Is Russia giving an ultimatum to India? Is SCO redundant and belongs to the cold war times (like the NATO).

Or has India again made a blunder : no strategic partner ship with America and left out of the SCO too

 

[Singh]

An Indian summer in Moscow for Zardari
​

Vladimir Radyuhin


Russian-Pakistani relations have recently acquired breathtaking dynamics. When Mr. Zardari meets Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday it will be their fifth meeting in the past three years, even if the four previous interactions were on the sidelines of multilateral forums.

The current summit was prepared in record time: it was only last August that Mr. Medvedev extended an invitation to his Pakistani counterpart to come to Moscow. By comparison, it took the then President, Pervez Musharraf, years to get the Kremlin to act on its formal invitation to him. Russia then was still looking at Pakistan through India's eyes, and Mr. Musharraf's visit to Moscow in 2003 failed to break the ice. The current summit is different if only because the Kremlin has since de-hyphenated its relations with New Delhi and Islamabad.

Pakistan has now taken centre stage in Russia's efforts to play a more active role in Central and South Asia as Moscow braces for the drawdown of U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.

At a summit in Sochi last August, Russia institutionalised a quadripartite forum with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan to counter the spread of drugs, terrorism and instability via Central Asia towards Russian borders. The four countries agreed to undertake joint economic projects in power generation, transport infrastructure and mining. At a follow-up meeting of economic Ministers in Moscow last October, the four discussed in greater detail plans to rebuild a trade Silk Route from former Soviet Central Asia via Afghanistan to Pakistan and export electricity from Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Russia confirmed its readiness to invest in the oil, gas and hydropower sectors of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan.

Energising economic ties

In the past few months Moscow and Islamabad have prepared the ground for energising their flagging economic ties. The Inter-governmental Commission on Trade and Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation met for the first time in Moscow last September. Two months later Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting in Dushanbe that Russia was willing to help fund and build the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, to which Moscow was earlier opposed. During Mr. Zardari's visit the sides are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding for the modernisation and expansion of the Pakistan Steel Mills in Karachi, which the Soviet Union built in the 1970s, as well as five other MoUs for the supply of Russian rail tracks, cooperation in the oil and gas sector, power generation, coal mining and agriculture.

The Pakistani President is arriving in Russia ten days after U.S. commandoes killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where he had enjoyed safe haven for years. However, Moscow made it clear this fact will not affect relations with Islamabad.

"Russia fully recognises and appreciates the substantial contribution made by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the efforts of world community" in countering international terrorism, Russian Ambassador to Pakistan Andrey Budnik said in an article he penned several days after the operation in Abbottabad.

The reason why Russia refused to join the U.S. in ostracising Islamabad is Afghanistan.

"Russia attaches great importance to cooperation with Pakistan in the sphere of Afghan settlement," Mr. Budnik wrote. He explained that this cooperation was based on a shared understanding that the quest for peace in Afghanistan "must not become the prerogative of solely external players", an obvious reference to the U.S.

Russia's veteran diplomat and orientalist Zamir Kabulov, appointed two months ago to the newly instituted post of the Kremlin representative for Afghanistan, immediately stated that Moscow is "open to dialogue" with those in the Taliban who are prepared to cut ties with al-Qaeda. Russia clearly counts on Pakistan to facilitate such dialogue. In return it promises to support Pakistan's bid to join the SCO.

Pakistan, along with the other observer nations in the SCO, "has all the chances to become a full member of the organisation", according to the Russia envoy to Islamabad.

Mr. Zardari in return has offered to provide for Russia "access to warm seas".

All the settings are there that the current summit may be a momentous event not only for Russian-Pakistani relations, but for the entire region.


The Hindu : Opinion / Op-Ed : An Indian summer in Moscow for Zardari



Clearly Russia has dangled a lollipop to the Pakistanis to ensure their interests are looked after in Astan once the Americans leave.

 

[SpArK]

Huh.. soon they will remove brazil from BRICS and maybe even introduce KSA / saudi arabia and call it PRICKS

 

[Singh]

Pakistans vicious circle
​

Russian-Pakistani relations, historically somewhat frosty, have recently improved. Little wonder then, that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's visit to Moscow has attracted so much media attention. He met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev twice during a four-party summit also attended by the presidents of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The intrigue surrounding his current Moscow meeting lies in the crisis in relations between Pakistan and its main patron, the United States.

When al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's hideout was located 800 yards away from Pakistan's Military Academy, Washington accused the country of double dealing. Pakistan's leaders refuted the accusation, responding that U.S. Special Forces had conducted operations in their country without even notifying them.

Pakistan itself is mired in political crisis and mutual (mis?)trust, which was already running low, has been dealt a heavy blow.

Moscow's interest in Pakistan has a certain logic to it, as the situation around Afghanistan, which determines the atmosphere in Central Asia, is becoming increasingly unpredictable. U.S. strategy there is vague, the situation inside Afghanistan is unstable, and the possibility of coordinating efforts with neighboring states remains unclear.

The killing of the world's most wanted man has only deepened uncertainty in the region. President Barack Obama now has a solid reason for pulling U.S. troops out, as the mission set a decade ago has been accomplished. But even if the pullout decision is taken (not everyone in Washington supports it), the United States will need Pakistan's assistance to maintain control in Afghanistan, something that now looks increasingly unlikely.

Afghanistan's position is also shrouded in ambiguity. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly said that Afghans must assume responsibility. After the operation in Abbottabad, 75 miles from Pakistan's capital Islamabad, he said it is no longer Afghanistan that is at the epicenter of the threat.
But these are politically motivated statements. From a security standpoint, no one is confident that the Afghan authorities are capable of maintaining law and order without NATO and U.S. assistance. Afghans don't want to see a repetition of what happened in 1992-1996, when the Soviet departure and the removal of the pro-Moscow Najibullah government left the country at the mercy of the Taliban. It became the scene of a bloody war in which everyone, including Pakistan, had some involvement.

To Afghans, this is a worse option than continued occupation. This is why the idea of maintaining a reduced U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, as Washington is considering, has engendered both disappointment(?) and a sense of relief in the country.
Neighboring countries don't want U.S. bases permanently deployed in Afghanistan. Russia, China, India and Iran have all supported a vague "regional" solution, advocating a reliance on Kabul rather than on Western troops.

Zardari's Moscow trip, made immediately after the strategic China-Pakistan consultations in late April and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi's visit to Moscow last week, is expected to boost the discussions.

One of Moscow's ideas for a regional solution involves an enhanced role for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the most representative organization in the region. During the upcoming SCO summit in Astana in June 2011, SCO states are expected to lift the unofficial moratorium on the admission of new members that was imposed in 2006. India and Pakistan are the most likely candidates. The group has refused to consider Iran's admission request because the country is shackled by international sanctions.

The possible admission of India and Pakistan is a delicate issue because of their tense bilateral relations. Russia would like to see India become a full member, while China prefers Pakistan. However, Moscow will only agree to that if India is also admitted.

The Afghan question is perceived as something that has the potential to unite the SCO member states. The interests of India and Pakistan in the region are unlikely to coincide, but a multilateral format could ease their bilateral tensions by introducing external factors. Besides, if relations between Pakistan and the United States continue to deteriorate, Islamabad could be forced to be more active in diversifying its contacts.

The interests of the army, religious and ethnic groups, and political leaders are all different pieces in one puzzle. They can fit together only if all sides join forces to create a sense of balance in Pakistan. But ever more people in Washington are urging that more pressure be put on Islamabad to force it to up the ante in its fight against the radicals.

The United States has good reason to mistrust its Asian partner. At the same time, their policy toward Pakistan since fall 2001, when former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the United States would bomb Pakistan "back to the stone ages" unless it joined the fight against al Qaeda, has only served to undermine traditional ties and deepen instability in Pakistan.

The Pakistani leadership's efforts to reduce external pressure by diversifying its international contacts have provoked ire in Washington. At the same time, the United States has not offered it any other option and so Pakistan needs a fundamentally new paradigm to help it escape from this vicious circle.


Uncertain World: Pakistan's vicious circle | Columnists | RIA Novosti

 

[LETHALFORCE]

India should join SCO there are better reasons than because Pakistan is joining. 2 good reasons are regional security and energy security. For regional security if USA does a cut and run in Afghanistan as it appears to be doing it will be in India's interests to join SCO. The strategic partnership hailed under Bush is gone under Obama, nothing seems to be on the horizon in terms of partnership with USA ;when USA has Pakistan as favorite non-NATO ally and China as the #1 trade partner it has been a fruitless effort upto now to expand the strategic partnership. USA 's influence has weakened allowing a Pak-China nuclear deal , Indian interests were never a priority for USA and with the MRCA humiliation and improving relations with Iran relations will flatline. The second energy security being better access and terms for gas Central Asian gas and possible better routes or pipelines??

 

[civfanatic]

We should have joined SCO long ago.

I agree with LFs post.

 

[Blackwater]

Sab bakwas ha, zardari went for his personnel business deal for oil and coal. As he deals in oil and coal through his company based in Bermuda, West indies

 

[Virendra]

Russians have asked both India and Pakistan.
Can China make it tougher for India?

Regards,
Virendra

 

[Blackwater]

How can russia forget that if this diseased pak land joined SCO. There will be more bomb attacks in Russia and moreover pak army suppports chehniyan and dagistan rebels which create trouble in russia

 

[cw2005]

I fully support the notion of India joining SCO. It would provide a platform for China and India to iron out problems when both countries belong to the same organization and channel of dialogue would be always open. It might even pave the way for peace talk between India and Pakistan.

 

[Blackwater]

I fully support the notion of India joining SCO. It would provide a platform for China and India to iron out problems when both countries belong to the same organization and channel of dialogue would be always open. It might even pave the way for peace talk between India and Pakistan.

It's a wrong notion .....