Chapter 4: The SCO’s Success in Security Architecture

Since 1996, the process of the ‘Shanghai Five—SCO’ has registered some remarkable achievements in security cooperation. Its major accomplishments include three outcomes.

First, confidence-building measures have been put in place, leading finally to the resolution of the border problems left over from history. Within the frameworks of the ‘Shanghai Five’—SCO, and due to the joint efforts of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, all the disputes regarding the Western section of the former China-Soviet border of more than 3000 km—a border that had bred instability and conflict for centuries—were completely solved in six years. This was a rare accomplishment in the history of international relations.

Second, there has been close cooperation in the struggle against destabilising trans-border elements. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, extremist and terrorist forces started acting rampantly in the Central Asia, causing big trouble for countries in this region. The ‘Shanghai Five’ was the first international organisation to call for cooperative action against terrorism in Central Asia. On 15 June 2001, less than three months before the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, leaders of the six founding states of the SCO signed the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism. This Convention, as the first international treaty on anti-terrorism in the twenty-first century, spelt out the legal framework for SCO members to fight terrorism and other evil forces, and for their coordination with other countries. Within the framework of the Convention, SCO member states cooperated and established the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) to combat and contain extremism and terrorism in the region.

Third, the SCO has been able to restrain conflicts from spreading and to maintain regional security and stability. The ethnic and religious conflicts and issues that history left to Central Asia are as intricate and complex as those in the Balkans and the Middle East. Fortunately, the establishment of the SCO mechanism proved to be the defining difference for Central Asia, providing this region with a more positive outlook than either the Balkans or the Middle East. Within its framework, Central Asia managed to restrain malignant conflicts like the civil war in Afghanistan from spreading in the region as has happened in the Balkans and the Middle East. The SCO established a successful model for the troubled international scene after the end of the Cold War. One can say without exaggeration that, in the absence of the ‘Shanghai Five–SCO’, the Taliban may have continued marching northwards, and the conflict in Afghanistan could have possibly spread to neighbouring countries as well. In this regard, one can say that the SCO is playing an essential role in maintaining regional security and stability.

Taking a wider view, all these abovementioned successes, achieved within the ‘Shanghai Five–SCO’ framework, have been of strategic significance not only for the member states and for the security and development of Central Asia overall, but also for the peace and development in areas around Central Asia such as East Asia, the Middle East and South Asia and, indeed, even globally.