The Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO) marked its 10th anniversary at
the summit meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, on
Wednesday. Anniversaries divisible by five or 10
are almost sacrosanct occasions in international
politics - especially for Central Asian countries
and the adjacent capitals of Moscow and Beijing
that have been weaned on the formalism of
Marxism-Leninism. Much expectation was placed on
the occasion at Astana.
In the event, it
turned out to be a sober, introspective occasion
for charting out a course rather than an excuse
for grandstanding. No tall claims were made. There
was sombre stocktaking that security threats
remained and economic cooperation could be a lot
better.
There is quiet satisfaction that
the organization - comprising
China, Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - is
becoming increasingly influential and its
multi-tiered consultative mechanisms have become
operational, especially the Tashkent-based
regional anti-terrorism center, which has
succeeded in foiling over 500 terrorist plots.
Several new trends stand out as the SCO
steps out of its infancy and adolescence. From a
regional organization limited to Central Asia and
its environs, SCO may well become the leading
integration process over the entire Eurasian
landmass, of which 40% still stands outside the
ambit of the organization. Prior to his arrival in
Astana to attend the summit, Chinese President Hu
Jintao visited Ukraine. Equally, Belarus has been
admitted as a "dialogue partner".
Most
certainly, SCO realizes that Central Asian and
South Asian security are indivisible. Integration
of two major South Asian countries - India and
Pakistan - is in the cards - the summit finalized
their membership norms and negotiations. Indian
officials exude optimism. As and when the process
is completed, SCO will have transformed beyond all
recognition from its humble beginnings.
Mind-boggling South Asian amity
Put differently, for India and Pakistan,
too, which have traditionally had strong strategic
ties with the United States, this process becomes
a leap of faith. They are quite aware that they
are joining an organization that implicitly aims
at keeping the US and North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) from establishing a permanent
military presence in the region.
They
should also be aware that the SCO they join, by
the time they sign on, will also have acquired new
orientations through its continuing evolution. For
example, successive SCO security drills are
beginning to acquire the nature of enhancing the
"inter-operability" of militaries (ironically,
US/NATO jargon) and law-enforcement agencies.
Again, the military chiefs of the SCO countries
commenced a new forum of interaction when they met
for the first time in April in Shanghai and
pledged to boost defense and security cooperation.
For the two South Asian adversaries,
suffice to say, such experiences as and when their
SCO membership materializes, would be not only
novel but unthinkable so far in their troubled
64-year history. It boggles the mind that Indian
and Pakistani army chiefs may someday chat up
under a SCO canopy - and that too, without the
ubiquitous American facilitator-cum-mediator. The
strategic significance of the SCO fostering
India-Pakistan amity cannot be underestimated.
In short, SCO has not only borrowed the
US's brilliant idea of a "Great Central Asia"
strategy - aimed at fostering links between
Central and South Asian regions and thereby
weakening Russia and China's SCO bonds - but is
doing a one up by bringing the organization to the
waters of the Indian Ocean. Incidentally, the
Astana summit also admitted Sri Lanka as a
"dialogue partner".
In sum, the SCO
continues to insist that it does not aspire to be
a "NATO of the East" or a military alliance. On
the other hand, it is set on making NATO (and Pax
Americana) simply irrelevant to an entire
landmass, which with the induction of India and
Pakistan will account for more than half of
mankind. NATO may face a piquant situation when it
aspires to claim that it is the only global
security organization available in the 21st
century.
A related aspect to be noted in
this connection is that SCO is strengthening its
formal links with the Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO). A protocol was signed in
Astana regarding "mutual understanding to step up
efforts to counter terrorism". Present at the
ceremony were CSTO secretary general Nikolai
Bordyuzha and the director of the SCO's
anti-terrorist structure at Tashkent, Dzhenisbek
Dzhumanbekov. CSTO comprises Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan.
Bordyuzha was quoted as
saying, "The protocol [with SCO] offers an
opportunity to coordinate our efforts in
countering extremism more effectively. Cooperating
on a regular basis and securing the normative
foundation of this task will allow us to improve
the effectiveness of our efforts in general."
He added that the two blocs proposed to
enhance the effectiveness of special services in
their law-enforcement agencies. The developing
CSTO-SCO ties have introduced a new template.
Russia has been facing problems in
strengthening CSTO's activities in Central Asia.
The CSTO's impotence became quite apparent during
the crisis in Kyrgyzstan last June when
large-scale ethnic disturbances broke out and a
serious possibility existed of religious
extremists and terrorist elements exploiting the
anarchy.
In this connection, the fact that
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev traveled to
Tashkent first and held talks with his Uzbek
counterpart Islam Karimov en route to Astana needs
to be noted.
Uzbekistan is no doubt a key
country in Central Asia and its apprehensions
regarding the implications of "collective
security" - where the border lines are to be drawn
for the sacrosanct limits of national sovereignty
- proved to be major factor for the evolution of
CSTO. All indications were that Tashkent
disfavored any CSTO intervention in Kyrgyzstan
last year.
Security cooperation along with
economic development have been described as the
"two wheels" of the SCO by Zhang Deguang, the
organization's first secretary general.
China's trade with SCO member countries
shot up from US$12.1 billion to around $90 billion
during the past 10 years, but if the $60 billion
Sino-Russian trade volume is kept out, what
emerges is that the track record on trade and
economic cooperation has been far below its
potential. The SCO plans to have a free-trade area
by 2020.
China's People's Daily noted,
"Among other concrete moves is the construction of
a railway, highway and pipeline network linking
landlocked Central Asia and its rich natural
resources to the global economy." If these
materialize and if the membership of India and
Pakistan also were to be realized in the coming
two to three years, the SCO may emerge by the time
it celebrates its 20th anniversary as a grouping
of immense consequence to the world economy.
Nyet to US military bases
The Astana summit has continued with the
trend of recent years of the SCO articulating a
common position on regional and international
issues. The summit's virtual endorsement of the
Russian position with regard to missile defense
and the SCO stance on the upheaval in the Middle
East and the Afghan situation are of interest.
Interestingly, Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov later claimed that the SCO members
were unanimous in their criticism of the missile
shield that the US is setting up not only in
Europe but also in the Asia-Pacific and South
Asia.
The Astana summit has virtually
endorsed the common stance of Russia and China
with regard to Middle East developments. The
accent is on regional stability; the importance of
leaving it to the countries of the region to
foster democratization in terms of their national
conditions and in accordance with their historical
and cultural traditions; the resolution of
differences through dialogue; the role of the
international community being limited to
contributing to national reconciliation; and most
important, the imperative of the international
community abiding by international laws and
non-interference in the internal affairs of
sovereign states and respecting the territorial
integrity of independent states.
The SCO
stance is patently critical of the Western
intervention in Libya and anticipates likely
interventions in other Middle Eastern countries.
But the SCO stance has another connotation insofar
as there is rising apprehension that it is a
matter of time before the Arab Spring arrives in
the Central Asian steppes.
Russian experts
have been openly hinting at such a strong
possibility and some of them even anticipate that
despite the few "European" features of its own
political system, even Russia may be vulnerable to
a popular rising for democratization. Both Russia
and China would also estimate that any such wave
of popular unrest would be almost certain to be
exploited by the US to force "regime changes" in
the Central Asia region and expand its own
geopolitical influence.
The Astana
summit's call for a "neutral" Afghanistan is a
major development. It now becomes the common
position of Russia, China and the Central Asian
states that they disfavor the establishment of any
permanent US and/or NATO military presence in
Afghanistan.
The SCO declaration comes at
a time when the US is actively discussing a
strategic partnership agreement with the
government headed by President Hamid Karzai. Thus,
it is a point of interest that Karzai himself was
at Astana when the SCO declaration was formally
approved.
Obviously, detailed discussions
have been held behind the curtain between Karzai
and the SCO leaders on the big questions of the
post-2014 scenario in Afghanistan. Kazakh
President Nurusultan Nazarbayev gave a valuable
clue to SCO thought processes when he openly
anticipated, "It is possible that the SCO will
assume responsibility for many issues in
Afghanistan after the withdrawal of coalition
forces in 2014."
The US is indeed coming
across a major problem by way of the hardening of
regional opinion with regard to its hidden agenda
to establish permanent military bases in
Afghanistan beyond 2014. South Asian opinion is
already weighed against any US military bases in
Afghanistan. The discord lies at the core of
US-Pakistan tensions. Iran has never minced words
on the issue. India has quietly indicated its
aversion to "new cold war" tensions appearing in
the region.
The implications are serious
for the US's "containment strategy" toward China
and Russia. Clearly, Russia and China are
convinced that the US game plan is to deploy
components of the missile defense system in
Afghanistan. The Astana summit has reiterated its
basic ideology that the countries of the region
possess the genius and resources to solve their
problems of development and security and outside
intervention is unwarranted. Historically,
though, the summit may have signified China's
entry into the Eurasian landmass. As happened over
Central Asia, China will take the utmost care to
coordinate with Russia.
Any eventual SCO
expansion into the Eurasian landmass to bring
Belarus and Ukraine into its fold as partners can
only be based on commonality of interests between
Russia and China, which are today helped in large
measure by the steady dissipation of the US-Russia
"reset", the impasse over the US's missile defense
deployments on Russia's "near abroad" and the
challenges posed by the US's growing strategic
presence in the Black Sea region.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His
assignments included the Soviet Union, South
Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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