Page 1 of 3 China and Russia tussle over SCO's future
By Yu Bin
The summer of 2011 marked two anniversaries for China and Russia. In June, the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) celebrated its 10th anniversary at the
annual SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. Over the past 10 years, the regional
security group has grown, fed by its "twin engines" of Russia and China.
Immediately following the SCO summit, President Hu Jintao traveled to Moscow,
marking the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Friendship Treaty between
Russia and China. There was much to celebrate as Moscow, Beijing, and the SCO
have achieved stability, security, and sustained economic development in a
world riddled with revolutions, chaos, crises, and another
major economic downturn. The two anniversaries were also a time to pause and
think about "next steps".
While the SCO is having "growing pains", China and Russia have elevated their
"strategic partnership relations" to a "comprehensive strategic cooperation and
partnership".
SCO 10 years on
On June 14-15 in the Kazakh capital of Astana, the SCO celebrated its 10th
anniversary while holding its 11th annual summit. There are plenty of reasons
for the SCO to celebrate at this moment. Starting with six original members
(China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan) in June
2001, the regional organization has reached out to include four observer states
(Mongolia, Iran, India, and Pakistan), two "dialogue partners" (Belarus and Sri
Lanka) and an Afghan "liaison group."
The formal SCO member states occupy a territory of around 30 million square
kilometers, which makes up three-fifths of the Eurasian continent, and have a
population of 1.5 billion, which makes up a quarter of the planet’s population.
If observer and dialogue members are included, the SCO represents about half
the world’s population on the bulk of the Eurasian continent. Physical setting
aside, the SCO has been well entrenched with growing influence in the region.
In Astana, the heads of state of its member states reportedly held "in-depth
exchanges" regarding the past, present, and future of the SCO, as well as key
regional and global issues. They believe the SCO has passed its infancy and
will further mature. Specifically, it has become an effective mechanism for
maintaining security and promoting socio-economic development, despite sea
changes in the region.
The leaders pledged to continue fortifying their time-honored bond as "Silk
Road partners," to bring more benefits to their people and to make new
contributions to world peace and development. Still, security and economics
topped the agenda in Astana, against the backdrop of a general state of
instability and chaos in both North Africa and Western Asia. The
much-anticipated phased withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan also was seen as
influencing the security outlook for the region. There was a consensus in the
SCO that what is happening in North Africa and Western Asia should not occur in
Central Asia.
Several secondary documents were inked in Astana in the areas of health care
cooperation and combating drugs; the most important document signed was the
10-part Astana Declaration. The Declaration provides a general assessment of
the SCO's performance in its first decade (Parts 1 and 2) and its prospects for
the next decade. Parts 3-6 deal with global and intra-regional issues.
While reiterating the SCO's traditional functions of combating terrorism,
separatism, and extremism, Part 7 identifies drug-related crimes, Internet
security, Afghanistan, and socio-economic conditions as giving rise to
terrorism and extremism. The last three parts are devoted to economic, social,
and cultural development of the SCO. The general tone is rather sober in
assessing the first 10 years. The bulk of the document focuses on current
challenges and future trajectory of the organization.
Beijing's newfound interest in security
For quite some time, there seems to have been a tacit division of labor between
Moscow and Beijing. While the former has had more leverage in the area of
security, the latter has been expected to do more in the economic area. This
general pattern of behavior, however, may not continue. In Astana, China took
the SCO presidency for 2011-12 and while suggesting this would be the SCO's
"Year of Good-Neighborliness and Friendship," there are strong signs that China
is ready to prioritize security and stability.
In his speech at the summit, Hu called for strengthening the SCO's ability to
defend against real threats and ensure lasting peace and stability. "We should
grasp core issues and key factors affecting the region's security, and we
should build a more perfect security cooperation system. We should improve the
organization's operational capability and its ability to make rapid response,"
said Hu. "We should relentlessly crack down on the 'three forces' of drug
smuggling, and transnational organized crimes. We should hold joint anti-terror
military exercises on a regular basis."
Hu's emphasis on security issues is not just rhetoric. In early May, China,
Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan conducted a joint anti-terror drill, codenamed
Tianshan-II, in Kashi (Kashgar) located in China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
The last time such a drill was held was in 2006. China hosted the first-ever
meeting of SCO military chiefs in late April.
When Vice President Xi Jinping met them in Beijing, he used the phrase "defense
and security cooperation," which is a significant departure from the more
frequently used term "security" by Chinese officials. Although the two terms
are related, "security" largely means internal affairs, while "defense" is
externally oriented.
In late May, China's military reiterated that it was ready to further
strengthen the SCO against terrorism and other security threats. At a regular
press conference, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng said that
"China is willing to continue stepping up its exchange and cooperation with the
other [SCO] member countries in terms of defense and security, on the basis of
mutual trust and reciprocity, and make joint efforts with them to improve our
ability to combat the 'three evil forces' [of terrorism, separatism and
extremism] and other new threats and challenges and create peaceful and stable
environment for the country's development and people's livelihoods."
During the SCO Summit, China's official Xinhua News Agency published an article
titled "SCO's 10-year Path: Defense and Security Are Crucial." The writer
attributed the origins, evolution, and success of the SCO to the devotion of
the organization to the security issues confronting its members and the region
in the previous decade. The Xinhua piece said.
The origins of the SCO
were the common need for security . With the huge impact resulting from the
collapse of the bipolarity of the world, the issue of security and cooperation
badly needed new institutions and perspectives. In both Eurasia and the world,
there has been a huge increase of nontraditional and cross-border crimes such
as terrorism, separatism and extremism, drug trafficking, illegal immigration
and cross-border crimes. Under these circumstances, the SCO, which makes
regional peace and stability its priority, came to the forefront.
It just so happened that 9/11 occurred three months after the SCO's founding,
which testified to the timely and precise decision to create the SCO.
In the next few years, the SCO adopted a charter (2002) with a clear dedication
to safeguarding regional security, set up a Secretariat in Beijing and its
Regional Counter-Terrorism Structure (RCTS) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (2004) to
coordinate anti-terrorist activities, and signed the "Treaty on Long-Term
good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation" for the SCO states (2007).
Perhaps the most significant security-related achievement of the SCO was the
complete resolution of disputes along its 3,000 kilometers of borders, which
had been the main source of centuries-long instability and conflict in the
region. Over the years, the SCO conducted seven large bilateral or multilateral
military exercises.
It successfully provided security services to international events including
the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, 2010 Shanghai Expo, 2010 Guangzhou Asian
Game, 2010 Moscow V-E Day and the 2011 Astana-Almaty Asian Winter Games. "The
SCO has significantly narrowed the space of terrorism, which is more important
than catching and eliminating a few terrorists or terror groups," argued Zhang
Deguang, the SCO's first secretary general.
Beijing's newfound interest in SCO defense and security issues should not be a
surprise for several reasons. One is the pending withdrawal from Afghanistan by
the US military. Though "phased," it is unlikely to stabilize the war-torn
country, and the growing insurgency in Afghanistan is sure to have a spillover
effect on its neighbors. A more proactive approach is needed.
Moreover, the past decade has witnessed China's growing economic presence in
Central Asia, where thousands of kilometers of oil and gas pipelines are
vulnerable to sabotage. Since early 2011, Beijing has watched as its economic
holdings evaporated in many parts of the Arab world and North Africa. If the
SCO is to avoid such a consequence, its member states must improve the current
security mechanism.
Last but not least, Russia seems more interested in maintaining its own
security assets in the region through occasional unilateral actions as seen in
its decision to provide transit routes for US and NATO supplies. In addition,
the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which has overlapping
membership with the SCO (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and
Uzbekistan), has proven to be ineffective despite the creation of its
Collective Rapid Reaction Forces in early 2009.
In October 2007, the SCO and CSTO signed an agreement to broaden cooperation on
security issues, however, their interaction remains ad hoc. In other words,
CSTO cannot be counted on for the security needs of the SCO. Given these
developments in the midst of the "Arab Spring," China's concern regarding
security and defense is also shared by other SCO members.
Beijing's growing interest in SCO defense and security issues is still in
transition. For example, Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping used the term
"security" without "defense" in his talk to the press on June 15 when the SCO
heads of state were meeting in Astana. He also chose to put the issue of
development ahead of security.
Regarding security, Cheng promised that China would handle the issue "within
the existing security mechanism, ie, on the basis of SCO "consulting
mechanisms" such as the Council of Security Secretaries and the Council of
Internal Ministers. Cheng also identified the Russia-dominated Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) and CSTO as being involved in regional stability.
It is still the economy, stupid
China's growing interest in the SCO's security does not mean a sharp priority
shift. Security and development remain the "twin engines" for the health of the
regional group. If anything, China's growing interest in security suggests a
more balanced approach in managing SCO affairs as China's economic involvement
has surged in the past decade.
In 2010, China's trade volume with other member states was eight times greater
than it was in 2000, reaching $83.97 billion. Sino-Russian trade increased five
times compared with 2000, reaching $55.45 billion, and China has now become
Russia's biggest trade partner. China's trade with central Asian countries has
increased at an average annual rate of about 40%; in 2010, it was 14.81 times
higher than it was in 2000, reaching $28.52 billion. In the first 10 years of
the SCO, China provided favorable loans worth more than $12 billion to other
SCO member states for economic development.
Moscow and some other Central Asian countries perceive these impressive
economic figures quite differently. On the day of the SCO Summit, presidential
aide Sergei Prikhodko said that Russia did not perceive China's financial and
economic activities on the territories of other SCO members as a threat to its
interests and hoped that China would be more flexible in its credit, indicating
a complex feeling about the relationship between China and other SCO members.
The Moscow Kommersant, an online pro-Kremlin business daily, was more
straightforward, saying that the SCO's economic integration "would mean that
Central Asia and Russia would become the suppliers of raw material for China
and the markets for its export commodities ... [T]he SCO's economic projects
would enclose all the adjacent economies in a Greater China." The journal
deplored that the former Soviet republics run the risk of becoming a raw
material appendage of China, while being an unwilling supplier of raw material
to the West.
China is well aware of the mixed feelings of other SCO members, despite the
financial and economic input China has made to the region. According to Zhao
Mingwen, director and researcher for the China Periphery Security Studies
Center at the China Institute of International Studies, China and Russia have
different goals regarding the SCO.
"China hopes to take advantage of the SCO to boost its political influence and
economic development vitality, while Russia for its part wants to take
advantage of this platform to reassemble its character as a central Asian
partner, enliven 'its own' CSTO and Eurasian economic community, and restore
its former influence in central Asia."
"Under this mindset," argued Zhao, "Russia is not very willing to see the SCO
develop too rapidly." Some SCO members were even "full of misgivings over
deepening and expanding cooperation with China, and are worried that they will
in the end become economic appendages to China."
In his keynote speech to the 10th Conference of Central Asia and SCO on July
10, 2011, Russia's National Coordinator for the SCO Kirill Barsky went as far
as to use the phrase "China's economic expansion" in Central Asia. Timur
Dadabaev, an Uzbek scholar currently teaching in Japan, argued that China's
economic activities did not benefit Central Asian countries at all.
Chinese participants disagreed with Barsky and Dadabaev by listing various
developments and changes in the region. What is clear is that with its
continued economic growth, China is faced with a situation in which perceptions
of its economic input in the region are mixed at best and may not be welcome in
the long term.
SCO growing pains
In the past decade, SCO's remarkable growth is largely "on the periphery,"
meaning the security group reached out to several other regional countries with
"secondary" relationships such as the induction of four "observer members"
(Mongolia, Iran, India, and Pakistan) and two "dialogue partners" (Belarus and
Sri Lanka), plus an Afghan liaison group. The core of the SCO - China, Russia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan - remains unchanged despite
the mounting pressure for formal membership from several of the SCO
"peripheral" countries such as Iran (2007 and 2008), India (2010) and Pakistan
(2006).
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