Skand Tayal | Time For SCO To Refine Focus & Work On A Few Key Areas

The Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was adopted in 2002 by the six original members; the two regional Giants China and Russia and four Central Asian Republics — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The Charter defines among its goals promotion of “effective regional cooperation” in politics, trade economy, defense, law enforcement, S&T etc. Also, SCO is a forum for “multidisciplinary cooperation in the maintenance and strengthening of peace, security and stability in the region and promotion of a new democratic, fair and rational political and international order”.

Initially the focus of the activities of SCO was firmly on the Central Asian Region (CAR). But gradually the operational area of the ‘region’ expanded to include Northern part of the Indian sub-continent with the admission of India and Pakistan as members in 2017. There was a certain logic to this evolution as North India and Pakistan are civilisational, historically and culturally a continuum of Central Asia.

Subsequently, the two main drivers of SCO — China and Russia — worked together to admit Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024. This was in the background of deteriorating US-Iran relations and Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. These new members were globally seen as an attempt to give an anti-West direction to the SCO. But the four Central Asian countries, India as well as Pakistan were not comfortable with any anti-West trajectory. At the 26th SCO Summit at Bishkek on August 31, 2026, President Sadyr Japarov, as chairman, clearly stated that “SCO will be free from bloc thinking and confrontation and serve as a platform for strengthening trust and ensuring peace and stability”.

The SCO Summit in Tianjin in 2025 as well as the Bishkek Summit have reaffirmed that Central Asia is the core area of the SCO. However, the words “Central Asia” went missing from the statements of the major non-Central Asian leaders at Bishkek. Prime Minister Narendra Modi stated that “…. SCO has developed a strong tradition of dialogue and co-operation across the vast expanse of Eurasia”. In his statement Russia’s President Vladimir Putin noted that “SCO has de facto become the largest regional association…. on our shared Eurasian continent”.

At the Bishkek Summit, there were 15 dialogue partners of SCO — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, Laos, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and UAE. There does not appear to be any geographical criterion to qualify to become a Dialogue Partner. A question to be answered is whether SCO is evolving into a Eurasian regional organisation.

In the last 25 years, the Central Asian republics have transformed themselves into confident sovereign republics with growing strategic autonomy. These five countries are looking for investments, and road and rail connectivity towards South Asia, Iran and Turkey, as all the five are landlocked. They also need technology, trade and employment for their growing young populations.

For their development Central Asian republics have now institutionalised a joint approach towards extra regional powers in the CAR -5+1 format. Even with China and Russia, they decide their aid and development agenda in this format rather than through SCO. The Second CAR-China Summit was held in Astana in June 2025 and Second Russia-CAR Summit was held in Dushanbe in October 2025.

An important initiative of SCO was to establish in 2005 a “SCO Contact Group on Afghanistan” as a regional diplomatic mechanism created to address security and counter-terrorism. The group became inactive in 2009 but was revived in 2017 at deputy foreign minister level. After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the group has again paused its formal operations. On Afghanistan, the Central Asian republics now have their own separate and pragmatic approach with Uzbekistan playing a leading role for economic engagement with Kabul.

In three decades of independent existence the CAR nations have now become more cohesive. There is a new generation of leaders except in Tajikistan. After Shavkat Mirziyoyev became President of Uzbekistan in 2016 he has pushed for more regional dialogue, and Summits of Central Asian leaders are now regularly held to coordinate policies and strategy.

In Bishkek, on the future agenda for SCO, there were some differences in emphasis and priorities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggested that for the next 25 years, the people-to-people ties should be at the center of SCO co-operation. A victim of Western sanctions, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin singled out strengthening of commercial ties between member states and encouraged settlement in national currencies. China’s President Xi Jinping put “development first” for SCO to “open up the prospects for shared prosperity”. He exhorted the members to “taking security as a key goal, and foster an environment of common security”.

At the 26th Summit, important decisions were taken to establish a “Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges & Threats” at Tashkent, an “Anti-Drug Center” at Dushanbe and an “SCO Center for Combating International Organised Crime” at Bishkek. The “Regional anti-Terrorist Structure” already functions from Tashkent under the auspices of SCO. There was little progress on the establishment of a proposed “SCO Development Bank”, as both Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan offered to host this new entity.

The Bishkek Declaration condemned military strikes on Iran and backed Iran’s sovereignty. The Declaration is silent on Russia-Ukraine conflict. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s advice to President Putin in bilateral format that it was time to “move from endless war to end of the war” was widely quoted in the international media.

It would be fair to say that SCO has only modest tangible outcomes in its first 25 years of existence. Going forward, the questions arise as to what is now the raison d’etre of SCO? What is its geographic focus area? Central Asia or Eurasia? What is the common agenda which makes it different from other non-West groups like Brics?

It is time for SCO members to refocus and work on a few areas rather than on an expansive and unmanageable agenda.