SCO looks to next decade

Cooperation and joint development in first 10 years has paved the way for regional stability and economic progress

Atwo-day summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was concluded in Beijing on Friday, with a declaration promoting lasting regional peace and common prosperity among the 10 documents signed.

The summit came as the SCO is entering its second decade and is thus expected to help promote its further development in the years ahead.

The international community, especially Western countries, had doubts about the SCO upon its establishment in 2002. The huge discrepancies among its member states, from the size of their territories and populations to their different economic development levels, caused doubts about whether the countries could be bound together and what they could do as an organization. The existence of outstanding ethnic and racial problems in some SCO members further aggravated such misgivings. However, the SCO has responded to these doubts with a series of concrete actions over the past decade.

A cooperative and consultation framework has been set up among SCO members after a decade of development. In addition to the mechanism of an annual summit among their heads of state, regular meetings have also been held among the prime ministers of member states. There have also been lower-level meetings among their ministers and central bank chiefs. At the same time, the SCO has also set up its secretariat and an executive committee aimed at better implementing its functions for regional anti-terror cooperation. Since the establishment of the committee in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the SCO has killed more than 400 terrorists and detained 840 others. These, together with their joint actions to demolish eight terrorist bases and destroy six extremist religious organizations, testify to the effective cooperation among the members.

The SCO members have also established their "Shanghai Spirit", based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultations, and respect to diversity. The spirit, a result of changed international relations after the Cold War and emerging conditions within the SCO, has offered an effective guarantee for the establishment of a long-term, friendly and good-neighborly relationship among member states and the building of Central Asia into a homeland of peace and harmony.

The SCO has played a crucial role in maintaining regional peace and stability over the past decade. Although militarily non-aligned, the organization involves important security cooperation among member states. From its establishment, the SCO has been unambiguous in its opposition to terrorist, separatist and extremist forces and signed a convention on countering terrorism. A total of eight anti-terror military exercises have been held over the past decade and the ninth exercise is now being staged in Tajikistan. These exercises have not only served as a forcible deterrent to terrorist, separatist and extremist forces but also played an important role in striking against regional drug trafficking and cross-border crimes.

Besides, SCO members have also had booming cooperation in the economic and cultural realms. For example, the more than $12 billion in loans offered by China to other SCO members will greatly elevate their economic and cultural cooperation and exchanges and contribute to their common development.

With joint efforts from its members over the past decade, the SCO has developed into an open international organization that pursues non-alliance and non-confrontation and one that does not target a third party. Now, quite a few countries hope to become a member, observer or dialogue partner, including some geographically remote from the region, testifying to the SCO's ever-growing status.

At the just-concluded Beijing summit, China came up with a development blueprint for the SCO over the next decade, which won extensive endorsement among the other SCO members. At the same time, they also put forward some constructive proposals for the development of the SCO. All these, if effectively implemented, will make the next decade another golden era.

Despite its huge progress, the SCO, however, will also face some harsh challenges in the years ahead. In the field of security, the threats from terrorist, separatist and extremist forces are still not completely eradicated although they have been crippled. Security conditions in neighboring Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US and NATO troops in 2014 will pose a big concern to SCO members. The Chinese government has made it crystal clear that the SCO will not fill up the security vacuum in the violence-ravaged country following the exit of US-led NATO troops. Afghanistan's SCO observer status will facilitate its communication with SCO members, which will be beneficial to the stability of the nation.

The complicated international economic conditions in the context of the global economic slowdown are also expected to negatively affect SCO members and their economic cooperation. Fortunately, SCO members have begun discussing trade settlement in their own currencies and the establishment of a development bank, along with concrete measures to consolidate their established cooperation in finance, agriculture, transport and energy. All these will open a new area for cooperation among SCO members, help them overcome adverse international economic conditions and promote the healthy development of their economies.

Political uncertainties in some countries may also affect the otherwise smooth economic and trade cooperation with other SCO members. The SCO is opposed to outside interferences into the region's internal affairs and such a principle is expected to help its members maintain internal stability and promote regional peace and development.

The author is a researcher with the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.