Explainer: What Can Be Expected from the SCO Leaders' Summit?

New Delhi: With the summit being turned into a virtual show, there may not be as much of a spectacle or buzz around the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) leaders’ annual jamboree to be held on Tuesday, July 4. But there is a fair amount of interest generated among Western capitals as it will be the first international outing for the Russian President after the aborted mutiny.

Here is a quick primer on what to expect from the SCO’s leader summit on Tuesday.

What are the likely deliverables from the leaders’ summit?

Iran would become the ninth member of the SCO with full rights from the leaders’ summit. There is also a move by Russia to get its ally, Belarus, to also join the group, with the process to get a green light on Tuesday.

With the expansion, one of the issues also likely to be addressed is the matter of use of introducing English as one of the official languages for SCO.

At the end of the summit, a New Delhi declaration will be issued, as per practice.

For India, the main diplomatic push has as usual been to get stronger language on terrorism, especially to specifically list the names of terror groups in the declaration.

The outcomes of the summit had already been discussed during the foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa, as articulated by Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. He noted that there will be a “package of documents”, which along with the declaration will include statements on deradicalisation, drug trafficking, digital transformation, healthcare and other areas.

Earlier, Indian official sources had indicated at the time of the foreign ministers meeting that decision was being taken on around 15 ‘items’ which revolve around issues related to trade, energy and connectivity.

There will also be announcements on initiatives proposed by member states. Besides, the declaration will also lay out a common position on various global political hotspots.

Will Ukraine be discussed at the summit?

If one goes by the last year’s declaration after the Samarkand summit, there will not be a direct mention of Ukraine in the document again. However, the leaders are certainly expected to make their national positions clear in their national statements.

During the foreign ministers’ meeting, there was no focussed discussion on Ukraine but there were references to it during formal and informal sessions, as per the Indian external affairs minister S. Jaishankar.

Why has the summit become virtual?

At the end of his opening remarks at the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting on May 5, Jaishankar said that they hoped to “make the SCO Heads of State Summit meeting in New Delhi a great success”. The Russian foreign minister also said on the same day that there was a “shared commitment to hold a successful SCO Summit in New Delhi in the summer of 2023”.

It was clear that the host and at least one of the top member states were looking to hold a physical leaders’ summit at that time.

But, on May 30, India suddenly announced that it would be a virtual meeting. In the post-pandemic world of diplomacy, a virtual summit of a multilateral organisation at head of state level is a bit of an anomaly. There has been speculation that it was due to India changing dates that had earlier been confirmed and had made it difficult for all leaders to agree at a later date.

Politically, it would also have been awkward for the Indian PM to greet Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, especially in an election year. There would certainly have been some India-Pakistan verbal fireworks, as demonstrated during the foreign ministers’ meeting.

There is still no clear answer from the Indian side on why it became virtual. “I think it’s a call you take depending on who is coming, and what is your situation. There are a lot of factors which go into it,” Jaishankar told reporters.

What’s the origin story of the SCO?    

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s origin lies in the group known then as ‘Shanghai Five’ which was cobbled together in 1996 as a way to address border issues. This was in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the creation of new states in central Asia led China to confront problems related to the demarcation of boundaries, as well as the influence of Islamist groups on Xinjiang.

The ‘Shangai Five’ was formalised with the signing of the ‘Agreement on Strengthening of Confidence Building Measures in the Military Sphere in Border Regions’ by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in Shanghai on April 1996.

Four years later, Uzbekistan joined the group and the Shanghai Five transformed into the SCO in July 2001.

This turned a loose grouping that came together to resolve security and border issues following the dissolution of the Soviet Union into an institutionalised multilateral platform with a permanent secretariat and interlacing economic and security interests. Decisions in the group are taken by consensus, and all members must abide by the principle of non-aggression and non-interference in internal affairs.

While the SCO headquarters are in Beijing, another permanent body, the executive committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is based in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.

In a reflection of its origins, Russian and Chinese are the official languages of the SCO, despite efforts by new members to include English in the discourse. Further, the SCO secretary general and SCO RATS executive committee positions are appointed to a person from a particular committee on a rotational basis – in Russian alphabetical order. 

Was the grouping taken seriously by the West?

In May 2001, an American China-watcher, Bates Gill wrote a paper for Brookings Institution that the Shanghai Five had resulted in some “impressive achievements” like introducing confidence-building measures, resolving border disputes and combatting terrorism. He observed that the five countries had “stuck together and issued increasingly tough statements in opposition to what they see as US “hegemony”. However, he was not that optimistic about the future. “But it may be more difficult for the group to get much beyond this stage”.

At the same time, he noted that the forthcoming July meeting in China could lead to a “more robust set of agreements” in tandem with Beijing and Moscow seeking to consolidate their bilateral ‘strategic partnership’. “This will mark a new stage in the efforts of countries such as Russia and China to find ways to assert themselves more effectively in a world they see as dominated by the United States. It is a trend worth watching,” suggested Gill.

When the SCO got its current form, the perception continued that it was an attempt by China and Russia to maintain an exclusive sphere of influence in Central Asia and to keep away the West in forming their own vision of a multilateral forum.

After 9/11, the defeat of the Taliban regime and the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan created a new dynamic for the region. While Russia had earlier been the main security guarantor, Central Asian nations were willing to consider the strategic and financial opportunity to support the presence of US forces in Afghanistan and the creation of supply lines. 

How did India come to join the SCO?

According to a 2002 Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses paper, Pakistan had been the first to move, seeking a grant of observer status in January 2001, followed by a formal application for full membership in June 2001.

While China was said to have lobbied for Pakistan’s entry, Tajikistan president Emomaly Rahmanov strongly opposed even discussing an expansion. The belief was that Tajikistan and Russia were against Pakistan’s membership as Islamabad was then strongly backing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, with Central Asian nations worried over spillover of radical groups across porous border.

The first time that the SCO was officially mentioned by India was in a joint statement following Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to New Delhi in February 2002. The joint statement said that both countries “noted the progress” made by SCO. It added that Kazakhstan felt that given India’s “geographical proximity”, India’s membership of SCO would “add strength to the organisation”.

For several years, SCO froze the matter of membership expansion largely due to differences between Russia and China over who should be admitted as members. India, Iran and Pakistan were admitted as Observers at the 2005 Astana Summit, but it took another five years for the self-imposed moratorium on consideration of expansion to be removed.

India applied for membership in 2014, but it took another two years for the memorandum of obligations to be signed.

India and Pakistan were formally inducted as full SCO members in June 2017, when Kazakh President Nazarbayev welcomed the new member.

What were the main aspirations of India in joining the SCO?

New Delhi had two major agendas for joining the SCO – to expand interaction with central Asian countries, as well as, to have a say on security policies in the region that could impact India.

To have increased interaction with Central Asia also requires better connectivity. India has also pushed for the International North-South Corridor (INSTC) which connected the western coast of India to Iran and Central Asia, but it has not moved as fast as desired.

However, connectivity became a sensitive point with China aggressively spreading its Belt and Road initiative projects in Central Asia. India has now routinely refused to endorse the paragraph on BRI in SCCO summit declarations.

In the years after joining the SCO, India has also come part of other grouping like the Quad. India does not want SCO to be projected as a purely anti-West bloc, but it is aware that the agenda largely remains dominated by Russia and China.

Has the tension between India and Pakistan affected the functioning of the SCO?

There had been apprehension that the membership of India and Pakistan into the SCO may lead the organisation to fall prey to tensions on the line of SAARC. But since the SCO doesn’t revolve around the two South Asian nations and the fulcrum of power is clearly with China and Russia, there has not been any impact on the functioning of the grouping.

There is also a clear prohibition on the raising of bilateral issues, which is strictly adhered to by the member states. Pakistan has made it a point to tell interlocutors that it will not let SCO go the ‘Saarc way’ – which means that along with foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in Goa, there would also likely be high-level participation at the July summit in New Delhi.

An earlier version of this explainer was published in May 2023.