In reviewing the successful journey that the SCO has undertaken and examining its future development, the following points merit special attention. First, regional cooperation must be steadily institutionalised, and be guaranteed by relevant international or regional laws and regulations. At the same time, the discrepancy in rules and regulations between the domestic and the regional should be sorted out in a careful manner. Second, regional security cooperation must be based on ‘comprehensive security’, and, particularly, the handling of conventional security threats should be combined closely with the handling of non-conventional security threats. And finally, it must be remembered that the maintenance of regional security and stability and regional economic and cultural cooperation are closely interdependent. Each facilitates the other.