The Rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Author: Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer

June 12, 2006

Introduction

Leaders of the six states�China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan�comprising the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will meet in Shanghai June 15 to discuss security issues in Central Asia. Celebrating its five-year anniversary, the SCO began in 2001 as a confidence-building mechanism to resolve border disputes but in recent years has risen in stature and scope. It made headlines last July by issuing a timeline for U.S. forces to pull out of Uzbekistan, a move that led some to say the organization had emerged as a powerful anti-U.S. bulwark in the region. Others say that because of inherent frictions between its two main members, Russia and China, the SCO is unlikely to pose a threat to U.S. interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, talks are under way to amend the group's mission statement to include, among other things, increased military cooperation, intelligence sharing, and counterterrorism drills. There is growing speculation that Iran, currently one of four observers to the SCO, may soon join the organization. Its president is expected to be present at the Shanghai summit.

What is the history of the SCO?

Originally called the Shanghai Five, the SCO formed in 1996 largely to demilitarize the border between China and the former Soviet Union. In 2001, the organization added Uzbekistan and renamed itself the SCO. Mongolia won observer status in 2004; Iran, Pakistan, and India became observers the following year. The SCO has since rose in regional prominence, tackling issues of trade, counterterrorism, and drug trafficking. The organization, which unlike the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is not yet a mutual defense pact, is expected to hold joint military exercises in Tajikistan later this year, as well as counterterrorism drills in Russia�s Ural Mountains next year. Some experts cite a convergence of interests among members in recent years, including improved ties between China and Russia and the perceived threat posed by U.S. forces in the region. Others, including Lieutenant General William E. Odom, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, say the SCO is being used by Russia and China as a vehicle to assert their influence in Central Asia and curb U.S. access to the region�s vast energy supplies.

What is the SCO position on the U.S. presence in the region?

SCO members say U.S. bases in the region, established in the wake of 9/11, were not meant to be permanent and were only installed to assist the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. China and Russia have chafed at the U.S. military presence in Central Asia, an energy-rich region both consider within their sphere of influence. After uprisings in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan unseated leaders loyal to the Kremlin, Russia views the U.S. presence in the post-Soviet region, including the eastward expansion of NATO and its growing presence in Afghanistan, with increasing suspicion. Many in Moscow argue these so-called color revolutions were the work of U.S.-funded nongovernmental organizations. Beijing sees the U.S. military presence along its western border as part of Washington's strategy to contain China, experts say.

What was the SCO�s role in removing U.S. forces from Uzbekistan?

On July 5, 2005, the SCO issued a declaration implicitly calling for the United States, though not explicitly, to set a timeline for withdrawing its military forces from Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, located in southern Uzbekistan. But experts say relations between Tashkent and Washington were already on the skids. After 9/11, Uzbekistan became a strategic partner of the United States, cooperating with American forces in joint counterterrorism exercises in return for security guarantees and military equipment. Yet a May 2005 uprising in Andijan province, followed by a brutal crackdown by the Uzbek authorities, led to sharp criticisms from Washington. The Uzbek government also grew suspicious of U.S. involvement in pro-democracy revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Hence, the Uzbek government ended its military cooperation with the United States and moved to eject its forces from Karshi-Khandabad. The SCO declaration, most experts say, merely accelerated the withdrawal of U.S. forces, completed by the end of 2005.

How strong is the SCO�s presence in the region?

Not that strong but growing, most experts say. "The basic picture is the SCO is not as important as people in Washington think," says Daniel Kimmage, an expert on Central Asia at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The SCO serves more as a forum to discuss issues of trade and security than a fully-developed counterpoint to NATO. "If you take NATO as your standard for organizational effectiveness," Kimmage says, "the SCO is not even close yet." Plus, unlike NATO, there are no mutual defense pledges. Also holding back the organization's effectiveness are internal divisions and tensions between its member states, particularly China and Russia over issues of energy and the construction of ports in the region. Finally, multilateral institutions historically have a poor track record in the region. "Most countries do serious stuff bilaterally," Kimmage says.

But the SCO's influence in the region is on the rise. "I think the current fears [of Iran joining] are overblown but that doesn't mean the capacity isn't there," says Martha Brill Olcott, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Others say a stronger SCO, particularly one with a military component and Iran as a full member, might serve as a check to U.S. interests and ambitions in the region. "An expanded SCO would control a large part of the world's oil and gas reserves and nuclear arsenal," David Wall, an expert on the region at the University of Cambridge's East Asia Institute, told the Washington Times. "It would essentially be an OPEC with bombs."

What is the status of Iran�s efforts to join the SCO?

Iran's ambassador to Kazakhstan recently said Iran was ready to join the SCO but that no timeframe was yet in place. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Iran will not be formally invited to join the SCO nor is expanding the organization on the agenda in June. Some experts say because no clear mechanism is in place to expand the SCO and offer Iran formal membership, the SCO may just expand the powers of the organization's observer states.

What are the pros and cons of Iran joining the SCO?

Sergey Karaganov, chairman of the Russia-based Foreign and Defense Policy Council, says eventual membership could "be one of the carrots that [is] part of a larger deal" to resolve the current nuclear crisis with Iran. Also, membership "would allow China and Russia to influence more positively Iran's foreign policy and, by implication, the Muslim world," writes Kaveh Afrasiabi, an expert on Iran, in the Asia Times. Yet other analysts are more skeptical. "At a certain point it'll become so diluted that China's original interest [in the SCO]�to neutralize its western neighbors�will not have been lost but submerged amid other issues," says S. Frederick Starr, an expert on Central Asia at Johns Hopkins University. Another problem is "nobody will trust the Iranians," Olcott says. "[SCO members] may be cutting off their noses to spite their faces," she adds. "If they want to score geopolitical verbal punching points, it's a good move. But if you want it to function better, you get nothing by bringing in Iran."

What are Iran�s motivations for joining the SCO?

In addition to a means for Iran to tighten its contacts with Russia (the Shanghai summit will be the second opportunity for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to meet directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin; their first face-to-face meeting was at the United Nations last September), experts say Iran sees the SCO as a club of like-minded states important to its geostrategic interests in Central Asia. The SCO also complements Iran's so-called "looking East" foreign policy, says Mohsen Sazegara, an Iranian dissident, policy activist, and until recently, professor at Yale University. He says Iran has strong historical, cultural, and economic ties with many of the Central Asian countries. Iran also wants to cultivate a stronger relationship with larger states like India and China. "China gets a lot of energy from Iran and in the future wants to get more," Starr says. But some experts question Tehran's "Eastern" orientation. "I think as it becomes exposed and analyzed, [it] will prove to be more of a slogan than a policy," CFR Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh told the Middle East Policy Council last December.

Is Iran�s desire to join the SCO aimed at the United States?

Perhaps, experts say. "Part of Iran's foreign policy, at least in the mind of the Supreme Leader, is to be anti-U.S.," Sazegara says. Further, Iran views the SCO as a potential guarantor of future security, experts say. Membership, for example, could offer Iran shelter from the international pressure put on Tehran to end its uranium-enrichment program. Similar protection was provided to Uzbekistan after the Andijan massacre last May. Yet U.S. officials are puzzled as to why China and Russia would want to bring Iran into the organization. On June 3, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a gathering of defense experts in Singapore, "It strikes me as passing strange that one would want to bring into an organization that says it is against terrorism one of the leading terrorist nations in the world: Iran."