The Shanghai Cooperation Organization welcomed a new member

By Anthony Marcus, for Eurasia Business News, July 5, 2023

The last summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was held on July 4, 2023, and was hosted virtually by India, after joining the group in 2017.

The summit was attended by the leaders of the SCO member states, including China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. 

The summit aimed to expand the influence of the Eurasian group by including Iran and opening a path to membership for Belarus. 

During the summit, the SCO leaders sought to forge closer ties and boost cooperation within the expanding organization. 

The SCO is a political and security group that seeks to counter western influence in Eurasia. The SCO welcomed Iran as a new member, bringing its membership to nine nations. The SCO also includes the four Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, all former Soviet republics. The SCO leaders discussed regional security issues, including terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious extremism, which have been the main focus of the organization since its inception in 2001.

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The summit was opened by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who reminded the audience of the figures they knew well – the SCO represents 40% of the world’s population and almost one-third of the world economy. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev later added that the SCO countries account for a quarter of world GDP and 15% of total world trade.

“Most of the SCO countries share India’s concerns and expectations regarding Afghanistan. We must make joint efforts to help the people of Afghanistan,” Modi called a constant concern in the SCO. Tokayev, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov, and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the crisis in Afghanistan at the summit. According to Putin, the situation in Afghanistan “is not becoming less tense.”

In his speech, the Chinese president Xi Jinping singled out attempts from the outside to inspire “color revolutions” and a new cold war, unilateral sanctions among the threats.

The President of Kazakhstan, who took over the chairmanship of the SCO, paid much attention to the development of economic cooperation in the organization during the forum.

“It should be recognized that for more than 20 years it has not been possible to implement a single major economic project under the auspices of the SCO. An obvious factor is the lack of mechanisms for financial support of project activities. Therefore, I suggest that the Council of Heads of Government consider the possibility of creating a joint investment fund and make proposals on this important project,” Tokayev said at the meeting (broadcast by RBC).

Other participants of the summit also spoke about the problems with financing projects. Zhaparov noted that “for a long time” it was not possible to make progress in the issues of “introducing effective financial mechanisms through the creation of a development bank and an SCO development fund.” Support for the creation of the SCO development bank was announced at the summit by Xi Jinping and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. The latter noted that this topic had already been discussed.

The members of the organization started talking about the creation of mechanisms for financing projects in the SCO more than ten years ago. China took the initiative to create a development bank in 2010, and Vladimir Putin proposed to create an SCO development fund in 2013.

At the summit held in 2021, the procedure for Iran’s admission to the organization was launched. The partner states of the association are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

At the summit on July 4, Iran became a full member of the SCO, now the organization has nine member countries: India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.

Three countries have observer status – Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia.

Nine countries are partners in the SCO dialogue – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Cambodia, Qatar, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Sri Lanka.

Five more countries — Bahrain, the Maldives, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Myanmar — have begun the procedure for obtaining the status of a dialogue partner state.

The SCO is the world’s largest regional organization in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population.

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