Eurasian Regionalism: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific)

Eurasian Regionalism The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Stephen Aris

Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific Series Series Editor: Mark Beeson, Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific showcases new research and scholarship on what is arguably the most important region in the world in the twenty-first century. The rise of China and the continuing strategic importance of this dynamic economic area to the United States mean that the Asia Pacific will remain crucially important to policymakers and scholars alike. The unifying theme of the series is a desire to publish the best theoretically informed, original research on the region. Titles in the series cover the politics, economics and security of the region, as well as focusing on its institutional processes, individual countries, issues and leaders. Titles include: Stephen Aris EURASIAN REGIONALISM The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Toby Carroll DELUSIONS OF DEVELOPMENT The World Bank and the Post-Washington Consensus in Southeast Asia Shahar Hameiri REGULATING STATEHOOD State Building and the Transformation of the Global Order Hiro Katsumata ASEAN’S COOPERATIVE SECURITY ENTERPRISE Norms and Interests in a Regional Forum Erik Paul OBSTACLES TO DEMOCRATIZATION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA A Study of the Nation-State, Regional and Global Order Barry Wain MALAYSIAN MAVERICK Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times Robert G. Wirsing and Ehsan Ahrari (editors) FIXING FRACTURED NATIONS The Challenge of Ethnic Separatism in the Asia-Pacific

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Eurasian Regionalism The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Stephen Aris Senior Researcher, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

© Stephen Aris 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–28527–9 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables

vi

Acknowledgements

vii

Abbreviations

viii

1 Introduction

1

2 The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation: An Institutional Framework within the Regional Context of Central Asia

20

3 The Member States’ Perceptions: Security, Regional Cooperation and the SCO

54

4 Common Agenda, Managing Disagreements and Changing Perceptions about Multilateralism

75

5 The SCO’s Approach to Regional Security: Conceptions, Foci and Practices – Regional Security Governance in Eurasia?

100

6 External Policy: Common Narrative, Other Eurasian Organisations and Expansion of Membership

134

7 Conclusion

171

Appendix Key Developments in the Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

183

Notes

185

Bibliography

198

Index

212

v

List of Illustrations and Tables

Illustrations 1 2

Map of the SCO member states and observer states Organisational structure of the SCO

4 21

Tables 1 GDP of the SCO’s member states

vi

36

Acknowledgements

This book is the product of several years of research, during the course of which Dr Derek Averre offered very valuable input, guidance and encouragement. Professor Andreas Wenger and Dr Victor Mauer both gave me much-appreciated support in completing this project. In addition, I would also like to thank the series editor, Professor Mark Beeson, for his enthusiasm for the book, as well as the editors and staff at Palgrave with whom I worked. I acknowledge the Economic and Social Research Council for funding part of my research. Research visits to China, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were integral in shaping my view on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and interviews with officials, analysts and scholars in these countries were invaluable in giving me an understanding of the SCO’s development and interpretations of the organisation within the governmental and research communities of its member states. A number of scholars in the UK were also influential to my understanding of both the SCO and the Central Asian region more generally. Dr Roy Allison, in particular, provided very useful ideas and observations about the subject and welcome assistance with contacts in the region. In the course of conducting fieldwork, inevitable logistical and bureaucratic challenges were encountered, and a number of people offered much appreciated time and effort in overcoming these. In this respect, several people deserve special mention: Elena Golubinskaya and Millie Leigh in Moscow, Heiko Fritz and Aizhan Otegen in Almaty, Ashraf Khodjaev in Tashkent, Matthew Bishop and the staff at the Harbour Inn in Beijing. On a personal level, I am very grateful to my wife, Aglaya Snetkov, who provided continual and invaluable support. Also, I wish to thank my mum, dad, brother and parents-in-law for their encouragement. Sections of Chapter 5 of this book have previously been published in ‘Tackling the three evils: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – A regional response to non-traditional security challenges or an antiWestern bloc?’, Europe–Asia Studies 61, no. 5 (2009), and have been reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.tandf.co. uk/journals on behalf of University of Glasgow.

vii

Abbreviations

ASEAN CIS CSTO EU EurAsEC GUAM NATO OCSE SCO UN

Association for South East Asian Nations Commonwealth of Independent States Collective Treaty Security Organisation European Union Eurasian Economic Community Georgia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Moldova North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Organisation for Collective Security in Europe Shanghai Cooperation Organisation United Nations

viii

1 Introduction

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is an emerging regional organisation in post-Soviet Central Asia, which has become an important part of both Russia’s and China’s regional strategy towards Central Asia and the security and economic policies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Beyond its importance to its member states, the development of the SCO is of wider significance to global politics, security and economics. Russia and China are two of the most prominent states of the international system because of their territorial size, economic capacity, military strength and status as permanent members of the UN Security Council. Indeed, this is reflected in their inclusion in the widely used categorisation of the BRIC countries, a term developed to label a set of states expected to develop into major political and economic powers in the next 50 years.1 In addition, owing to their centralised political systems and views on international affairs, both of which are deemed to be distinct from those of the West, Russia and China are often depicted as alternative power centres within the international system. Therefore, the formation of a regional organisation comprising both Russia and China has important connotations for global politics, security and economics. The SCO is also a significant case study for International Relations theory, in particular the growing literature on regionalism and regional organisations outside of the West, as it illustrates how two major nonWestern powers perceive and seek to develop a framework for regional cooperation (see Busse 1999; Acharya 2001; Alagappa 2003; Sharpe 2003; Acharya and Johnston 2007a; Wunderlich 2007). For Security Studies it provides insights into the nature and perceptions of security 1

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as seen by major non-Western powers (see Job 1992; Ayoob 1995; Glen 1997; Roe 1999) and evolving approaches to regional security governance (see Cottey and Averre 2002; Sperling et al. 2003a; Krahmann 2005a; Kirchner and Sperling 2007a; Webber 2007) across the world. As well as having relevance for International Relations theory and the wider international system, the emergence of the SCO is also very important for our understanding of its member states’ foreign policies and the region of Central Asia in general. The SCO is integral to China’s foreign policy and its emerging regional strategy (see Drover et al. 2001; Lanteigne 2005; Wu and Lansdowne 2007; Dent 2008; Wang and Zheng 2008). The adoption of the ‘good neighbour’ policy in the 1990s placed strong and favourable relations with bordering countries at the heart of Chinese foreign policy. Against this background, the SCO is very significant as the first fully fledged regional organisation, of which China is a formative member and in which it has had a significant influence. In this way, it represents a crucial test case of China’s regional strategy, especially given that there is already evidence of the Chinese leadership seeking to replicate its approach to the SCO in other regions of the world (Lanteigne 2005, 116; Pan 2008, 253). The SCO is also a notable development in Russian foreign policy. It serves as an important element of Moscow’s approach to the former Soviet space, where, in recent years, Russia has pursued a renewed multilateral strategy aimed at developing closer relations with those former Soviet states most inclined to cooperate with it (see Weitz 2006; Bigg 2007; Kobrinskaya 2007; Libman 2007; Vinokurov 2007; Wilson Rowe and Torjesen 2009). However, until the launch of the SCO, the Russian leadership’s strategy was limited to bilateral relations and participation in multilateral frameworks over which it had a predominant influence. In this light, the pursuit of a multilateral mechanism in conjunction with another, and arguably more significant, world power is an extremely interesting development in Russia’s regional strategy towards the post-Soviet space. Although studied relatively little, in recent years Central Asia’s role within the wider international system has been receiving increasing attention from both the academic and policy community (see Allison and Jonson 2001; Allison 2004; Olcott 2005; Rumer 2005a; Crosston 2006; Rumer et al. 2007; Allison 2008a). The presence of unstable states, radical Islamic groups, organised crime and the transportation of drugs from Afghanistan to Europe have concentrated the minds of Western actors on the relevance of Central Asia to their own security. In 2007, the EU adopted its first comprehensive Central Asia strategy.2

Introduction

3

In addition, the existence of raw materials, including oil and gas, in the region has alerted energy ministries to the geoeconomic benefits of the region. Indeed, Central Asia’s new significance is emphasised by its greater prominence in the Western media as a function of the US-led NATO operation in Afghanistan. As a regional organisation formed to address a diverse range of challenges in Central Asia, the SCO is of considerable importance for our understanding of both the region and specific Central Asian Republics. The Central Asian Republics have pursued divergent foreign and security policies since they became independent states following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each is faced with the prospect of managing relations with one another and the larger neighbouring, regional and international actors seeking to develop a stake in the region (see Allison and Jonson 2001; Rumer 2002). Often, the Central Asian Republics’ foreign policy strategies have been characterised as attempting to ‘play off’ interested extra-regional states against one another and aiming to assert advantage over each another (Kubicek 1997; Allison 2004). Against this background, the SCO is an interesting development in the Central Asian Republics’ foreign and security policies. It is the only regional organisation in Central Asia to include two major extra-regional powers. Also, it is the only primarily Central Asian regional organisation of which Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have all maintained full membership since its foundation.3

The evolution of the SCO4 The SCO is the institutional outcome of a process of cooperation that has begun almost 20 years ago. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, an immediate priority for the newly independent Republics and their neighbouring states was to reach agreement on new borders and resolve long-term territorial disputes. For the post-Soviet Republics of Central Asia this involved negotiating their new independent boundaries with China. To this end, the Shanghai mechanism was created in the early 1990s, in order to facilitate the settlement of border issues between China and the Central Asian Republics, with the involvement of Russia as a long-term influence on the region. From this limited framework, the scope of cooperation grew into the Shanghai Five mechanism,5 which introduced a broader agenda of security and economic issues than just border delimitation. The signing of the Founding Declaration of the SCO on 15 June 2001 provided the first formal

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Eurasian Regionalism

Illustration 1 Map of the SCO member states and observer states

institutionalisation of the Shanghai process, creating a fully fledged regional organisation. At present, the SCO’s full membership stretches from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, covering most of the territory of the Eurasian continent. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have all been full members of the SCO since its formation in 2001, although Uzbekistan was not a participant in the Shanghai Five. In addition to full membership, an associate status within the SCO was created, termed ‘observer’ states, with India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia being accepted as official observer-members, while in 2009 a further associate-member status was introduced, allowing Sri Lanka and Belarus to become official ‘dialogue partners’. However, in spite of these two categories of associate membership, the SCO is overwhelmingly centred on its core full membership. The SCO’s agenda now covers security, economic, cultural and humanitarian collaboration between its members. The primary agreed foci are targeting the transnational security challenges disrupting the region, and developing economic cooperation between its members to contribute to regional stability. This agenda has proven itself relevant enough to its member states’ leaderships for the SCO to establish itself as an important part of the regional security and political architecture in Central Asia (Chung 2006; Aris 2009).

Introduction

5

This book characterises the evolution of the SCO as proceeding through three periods since its official inauguration in 2001: an initial phase of institutional development (2001–04), followed by a phase of expansion and development of its agenda (2004–07), and finally a phase focused on the implementation of commonly agreed projects (2007–10). 2001–04: Institutional development Although functioning primarily on an interstate, rather than a suprastate, basis, the SCO has developed an institutional structure of seven organs, most of which was completed by 2004. Following the formation of the organisation, it took another two years for the primary legal document of the organisation, the SCO Charter, to come into effect on 19 September 2003. In 2004, the SCO formally introduced its bureaucratic and permanently functioning institutional backbone, with the inauguration of its Secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent. However, in spite of the development of a permanently functioning institutional base, the annual Heads of State Summit, at which common declarations, agreements and agendas for the coming year are signed, is of central importance. 2004–07: Agenda development The establishment of the Secretariat and the RATS in 2004 was seen as representing the culmination of the institutional development process. Indeed, with these permanent institutions in place, work on developing the SCO’s agenda for practical cooperation moved forward more significantly. From its outset, the SCO’s primary focus has been on addressing the non-traditional security issues commonly perceived by its members as threatening regional stability, in particular tackling the threat of the so-called three evils: terrorism, separatism and extremism. Hence, the Shanghai Convention on Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism was signed on 15 June 2001. Although this document laid out the basis for cooperative work against these challenges in the early 2000s, a significant increase in cooperative efforts towards these aims ensued with the creation of the RATS in 2004 as a practical organ for collaboration on these issues. At the same time, the SCO’s security focus was widened to include non-traditional threats other than the ‘three evils’, such as collaboration on tackling organised crime and narcotics, as well as the development of traditional security collaboration, with large-scale SCO military manoeuvres.6 As well as progress in security cooperation, from the mid-2000s a wider range of cooperative programmes was developed,

6

Eurasian Regionalism

with a greater focus on economic cooperation. This was evident by the creation of an SCO Business Council and Interbank Association, and discussion about the creation of an Energy Club, in addition to the development of trilateral and quadrilateral economic infrastructure projects under the umbrella of the SCO. 2007–10: Implementation of agenda From the end of 2007, many officials and regional scholars of the SCO have noted a conscious choice by the organisation to focus on the implementation of the agenda and programmes discussed and developed in the mid-2000s. Hence the aim has become to consolidate the consensus reached up to this point, before moving on to the next stage of agenda development. This ambition has been modified in light of the global financial crisis, with the SCO forced to acknowledge the lack of available funds for project implementation and seeking to develop financial support funds to help members through the crisis. Another major international, as well as, significantly, regional, development that has impacted on the SCO has been the increasing insecurity in Afghanistan, created by the resurgence of Taleban-allied fighters and the setting of timetables for withdrawal by NATO forces. This has increased concerns within the SCO about the effects of an unstable and unfriendly conduit state for extremism and the illegal narcotics trade on the doorstep of post-Soviet Central Asia. As a result, Afghanistan has become a major focus for the SCO. A further notable addition to the SCO agenda during this period has been an increasing focus on people-to-people cooperation, such as the development of a common SCO University.

Current interpretations of the SCO A lot of existing work examines the SCO in light of its geopolitical considerations for the West, and the US in particular. Many Western analysts portray the SCO as a joint Russian–Chinese geopolitical device established in response to the growing US presence in Central Asia. It is thus argued that ‘SCO primarily serves as a geopolitical counter weight to the United States’ (Cohen 2006). Such interpretations range from sensationalist accounts, proclaiming that ‘SCO is “the most dangerous organisation Americans have never heard of” ’ and ‘a potential Warsaw Pact’,7 to academic accounts outlining the potential challenge it represents to Western interests in the region. Furthermore, it has been stated that the SCO is only as strong as the Russian–Chinese relationship,

Introduction

7

which is often said to be limited in scope and inevitably heading towards competition in Central Asia. From this perspective, Russian and Chinese interests in the SCO are often reduced to a common objective of anti-Americanism (Hanova 2009, 80). Indeed, even some analysts who argue that the main aim of the SCO is not to oppose the US, assert that ‘it still engages in a number of activities that serve neither United States interests nor values in the region’ (Cooley 2010, 19). Aside from the implications for the West, a prominent focus within contemporary interpretations of the SCO is on the lack of democratic credentials among its member states. Some of the more critical assessments in this regard characterise the SCO as an ‘autocrats club’ (Wall 2006), heavily criticising its member states’ regimes for their lack of liberal democratic principles and poor human rights records (e.g. Tisdall 2006), while others are more interested in highlighting the alternative nature of values within the SCO compared with the West (e.g. Ambrosio 2008). In general, these accounts often argue that the SCO is a challenge to the West, because it ‘represents a formidable challenge to the ideas of universal democracy and human rights through its de facto legitimisation of authoritarianism and by establishing itself as a counterweight to external democratic norms’ (Ambrosio 2008, 1322). As Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 13) outline, ‘up to very recently, analytical writing about the SCO . . . . [has] liked to stress how far away the Organisation actually is from European traditions and norms in its way of dismissing human rights concerns and forbidding mutual “interference in internal affairs”’. The lack of democratic governance among the SCO member states is related to the view of some analysts that the design and make-up of the SCO is not conducive to the development of serious regional cooperation. Such accounts highlight that as the SCO’s member states are not liberal democracies, meaningful cooperation between them is limited to mutual support for methods of controlling dissent (Splidsboel-Hansen 2008). Also, the viability of the SCO is questioned by some scholars, who point to a history of tensions between its member states (Dunay 2010). It is argued that the lingering mutual suspicion between its member states leaves the SCO as little more than a so-called ‘talking shop’. This interpretation is often supported by citing the SCO’s lack of response to high-profile regional security events, such as the recent incidents of civil disorder in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 (Blank 2005, 13; Melvin 2010; Weitz 2010). Other accounts highlight a lack of visible integration, arguing that the SCO ‘has yet to prove itself as something more than a forum for high-level networking among leaders’(Matveeva and Giustozzi 2008, 1),

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Eurasian Regionalism

and that ‘the hype surrounding the SCO has not matched its still meagre accomplishments’ (Cooley 2010, 17). The Central Asian Republics are interpreted by some studies as unenthusiastic about the evolution of the SCO. It is argued that Russia’s and China’s perceived use of the SCO against the US runs counter to the interests of the Central Asian Republics, because the prevailing Central Asian regimes aim to balance their foreign policy between the various great powers active in the region, including the United States (for more on balancing see Allison 2004; Rumer 2005b, 60–3; Cornell 2007; Lewis 2008, 209–36). In addition, the problematic relationships between the Central Asian Republics are said to present a major constraint on the development of the SCO, such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan competing against each other for regional supremacy (Esenov 2010) and rivalry over access to water resources (Dunay 2010, 6). At the same time, other assessments consider that the Central Asian Republics perceive the SCO as serving their interests by providing ‘symbolic political legitimacy and equality to Central Asian regimes that struggle to assert this on the broader international stage’ (Allison 2008a). Similarly, Matveeva and Giustozzi (2008, 22) note that the Central Asian Republics support the SCO because it facilitates much needed investment towards ‘the revival and development of regional communications infrastructure, [projects] in which Western donors were reluctant to invest in the earlier period of international assistance’. In general, most analysis of the SCO has focused on what its development means for the West, usually in terms of geopolitical considerations, rather than relating its development to its member states and the Central Asian region. Hence, there is relatively little substantive research on the SCO’s underlying dynamics.8 In addition, studies on the SCO have tended to focus on one particular element of its agenda or on a specific national perspective on the organisation, and have not sought to combine analysis of the various foci and national perspectives that make up the SCO.

Aims of the study This book argues that in order to understand a regional organisation, it is necessary to examine the context in which its functions and has evolved, as well as the perceptions of its member states. Therefore this study analyses the development of the SCO in relation to the perspectives of its member states and the regional context of Central Asia. In this way, it is not concerned with policy implications for the West;

Introduction

9

rather it is focused on accounting for the development of the SCO as a framework for cooperation in light of its underlying dynamics and the perceptions of its member states. The heavy focus within much existing analysis on explaining the SCO in regard to wider geopolitical factors is a function of the fact that most analysis has been approached from a neo-realist perspective, which emphasises the importance of global structures, such as ‘balance of power’. By contrast, this book analyses the SCO on its own terms by situating it within a regional, rather than global, context. Also, rather than assuming that all actors view the world from the same perspective, this study makes the perceptions and viewpoints of the key actors in the SCO the subject of investigation. The book investigates two main themes: one, the nature of regional cooperation in the SCO, and two, the role of the SCO in regional security. In investigating these two areas, this study challenges some of the predominant conceptions about the SCO’s security agenda and the strength of cooperation within its framework; namely that it is primarily an anti-Western security bloc and that its prospects for developing meaningful regional cooperation are limited. By contrast, this book argues that the SCO is primarily focused on tackling intraregional, rather than external geopolitical, security challenges and developing economic cooperation to the end of ensuring regime security. Also, it is outlined that the SCO has developed a different framework and form of regionally institutionalised cooperation as compared with the EU. However, it is argued that this form of regional cooperation is relevant to the Central Asian context, and thus should not be dismissed solely because it does not fit the EU model of integration. In order to address these issues, the analysis is based on a series of fieldwork interviews, official documents and analytical studies by regional experts. Interviews9 were conducted with officials from the Russian, Kazakh and Chinese Ministries for Foreign Affairs, as well as the SCO Secretariat. To complement this, regional analysts and specialists from universities and foreign policy institutes in Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China were also interviewed. These interviews imbue the study with a sense of the motivations and views of the most important players in the evolution of the SCO, acting as resources for situating the SCO within the context in which it developed. In addition, this book draws on a combination of insights from the theoretical literature on security, regionalism and international organisations. The following section outlines the theoretical and conceptual assumptions of this study, and how it uses these as analytical frames

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from which to analyse the SCO with respect to its regional context and its member states in relation to their perspectives on security and regional cooperation.

Regional cooperation, security and institutions in International Relations theory Regionalism and security The end of the Cold War is widely considered to have unleashed and accelerated regional security dynamics suppressed by bipolar superpower competition (see Lake and Morgan 1997, 3–6). As a consequence, ‘regional logics came to predominate both in the production of insecurity . . . . and in the management of insecurity, with increased incentives for states within a region to deal with their own problems and a decreased incentive for outside powers to intervene or become involved’ (Hurrell 2007, 131). On this basis, according to many, ‘one of the most widely noted and counter-intuitive features of the contemporary “global” era are that it has a distinctly regional flavour’ (Beeson 2005, 969). Most scholars consider that a region, in at least analytical terms, is the product of more than simply territorial proximity, and that as security dynamics often function across territorial boundaries, it is not sufficient to examine regional security from a traditional unit-level analysis of interstate relations. However, beyond these common elements, a variety of perspectives exist on how to understand regionalism, with approaches broadly divided between those that maintain a strict geographical definition and understanding and those that concentrate on shared norms and beliefs. Hurrell highlights the differences between these approaches as ‘those who see regionalism principally in terms of state interests and interstate arrangements and those who see integration as producing more complex regional polities’, or in other words, between those who take a more rational–materialist perspective and those who take a more social constructivist–ideational stance (Hurrell 2007, 130). The more positivist perspectives consider that states are rational actors in search of material gain, for whom regional collaboration is always viewed in terms of a cost–benefit analysis of whether it serves their interests, emphasising the importance of geopolitics and the traditional security dilemma (e.g., Lake and Morgan 1997). Conversely, social constructivist-inspired approaches liken ‘a region to a nation in

Introduction

11

the sense of an imagined community: states or peoples held together by common experience and identity, custom and practice’, bringing into play variables such as the role of identities, common ideas and socialisation (Fawcett 2004, 432). This book is primarily interested in analysing the development of the SCO by taking into account the perspectives of the key players in its development, its member states’ leaderships. To this end, it adopts a loose social constructivist perspective, as this offers a better analytical vantage point from which to incorporate the perceptions of the member states’ leaderships about security and multilateralism into the analysis. In contrast to neo-realist and game-theory perspectives, social constructivism considers that the decision to participate in a multilateral organisation is not inherently a rational or predictable reaction to an objective set of interests. To the contrary, an actor’s behaviour is only explainable within the specific context of its perceptions at any given moment in time, and these perceptions cannot be predetermined. Therefore this book considers that all regions (however defined) have a unique context that can only be fully understood by recognition of its specificity. Hence it rejects theories of regionalism that seek to develop one-size-fits-all models that are applicable across all cases of regionalism in the international system. In the search for universal applicability, one-size-fits-all models are designed to be applied downwards from generalised assumptions about the nature of the international system to the empirical reality of a region, excluding factors unique to the local and regional context from the analysis. However, such assumptions of commonality between actors and contexts run counter to many empirical studies, which emphasise difference and uniqueness in regional conditions and understandings of security and regional cooperation across the globe (Fawcett 2004, 434). As a leading regional analyst states, ‘understandings of world order vary enormously from one part of the world to another, reflecting differences in national and regional histories, in social and economic circumstances and conditions, and in political contexts and trajectories’ (Hurrell 2007, 134). Although seeking universal application, many theories of regionalism and regional security are developed using only a few empirical cases as testing grounds, overwhelmingly from Europe or the USA. As a result, these models are developed using language and concepts that are primarily Eurocentric in nature, and as such, ‘where there is a mismatch between theoretical expectations (i.e. that a system operates in a Western way) and empirical evidence, IR theory’s normative Westphalian straitjacket acts as an editor, highlighting similarities to the

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Euro-American model, rephrasing to better suit Western understandings and excising specificities deemed irrelevant to the Western model’ (Wilkinson 2007, 7). In light of this, many area studies scholars of less developed states argue that by virtue of the universalist approach of these theories, ‘Third World states are read into frames devised from above’ and such ‘downscaled theorising blinds investigators to the real drivers of events by predetermining what they should find’ (Kelly 2007, 215). However, rather than assuming that all states perceive security and regional cooperation from the same perspective, actors’ perceptions should be the subject of investigation. Hence, analysis should be built upwards from the viewpoints of the actors involved, not downwards from the global balance of power as in neo-realism. Taking this into account, this book considers the SCO member states’ perceptions as fundamental in accounting for the development of the SCO, and that these perceptions need to be understood in relation to the particular regional context of Central Asia. This perspective is supported by most scholars’ depictions of Central Asia as a region in which ‘regional dynamics . . .. have returned to the forefront’, and are the source of ‘reorientation of security policy and foreign policy preferences’ (Allison and Jonson 2001, 10). This conceptualisation of Central Asia as influenced primarily by dynamics indigenous to the region is in contrast to the assumptions of many analysts that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region would return to a situation similar to the ‘Great Game’ of the late nineteenth century (see Rashid 2002; Menon 2003). However, most scholars note that the predicted re-emergence of the ‘Great Game’ in Central Asia ‘has happened to a much lesser degree than expected’ (Buzan and Waever 2003, 423), and indeed ‘regional dynamics are often so strong that outside powers, when engaging in the region often fall in line with existing patterns of power relations and dividing lines between states of the region’ (Allison and Jonson 2001, 10). The existing regimes of Central Asia perceive themselves as facing tacit and overt challenges to their political authority and positions from within their own states. As a result, the prevailing Central Asian elites attempt to impose a strong grip over all political matters, in order to restrict the opportunities for other actors within their populations to challenge their authority. Therefore, the Central Asian political elites tend to consider that internal security is their most important concern, because of the perceived threat that internal dynamics pose to their sovereignty and territorial integrity. While the Russian and Chinese leaderships do not consider themselves as facing such intense existential challenges to the prevailing order, they nonetheless approach

Introduction

13

certain aspects of their security from perspectives similar to those of the leaderships of Central Asia, because of the emphasis placed on the threats posed by secessionist groups in far-flung regions: Chechnya and wider North Caucasus in Russia, Xinjiang and Tibet in China. As a result, Moscow and Beijing continue to view the maintenance of state sovereignty and territorial integrity as fundamental to their security policy. Therefore the ruling elites of all the SCO members believe that they face internal threats to both state sovereign authority and regime security. This outlook on security and regional context is in stark contrast to the political leaders of Europe, who do not perceive their political authority and positions as being seriously challenged from within their own states. Therefore a fundamentally different outlook on security can be identified among leaders in Central Asia when compared with those of European governments. While the majority of concepts in Security Studies have been developed on the assumptions of how security is seen by Western leaders, leading to an emphasis on the traditional security dilemma, the Central Asian regimes’ perspectives make security ‘primarily a domestic rather than an interstate phenomenon’ (Ayoob 2002, 35). This book, therefore, follows the calls of ‘area studies scholars [who] seek regionalist theory less detached from empirics, particularly in the Third World’ (Kelly 2007, 215), because the perceptions of state leaders in different regions are often distinct from one another. Such divergence in perspective can be seen in the methods of regional security management developed across the international system. Since the end of the Cold War, state leaderships across the globe have increasingly come to consider that they are unable to address transnational and non-state security challenges within their domestic jurisdiction alone (Kirchner 2007, 4), and as such have sought to cooperate regionally, in order to address these threats across the realm in which they function (Sperling 2007, 264). Against this background, the concept of security governance has been developed (Sperling 2003b, 5). Webber (2002, 44) defines regional security governance as ‘an intentional system of rule, dependent on the acceptance of a majority of states that are affected, which, through regulatory mechanisms (both formal and informal), governs activities across a range of security and securityrelated issue areas’. From this perspective, the nature of regional security governance is determined by what type of norms its participating actors are prepared to accept in cooperation with one another. As a result, the security governance agenda has often been developed regionally, because ‘norm sharing would appear more easily attainable in a

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Eurasian Regionalism

regional than a global context, as higher levels of economic and social interactions prevail regionally than globally’ (Kirchner 2007, 4). In Europe, the idea of security governance with regard to interstate relations has centred on the development of a system of regional security governance within the EU (Sperling 2009, 5). Indeed, the European framework regional security governance has come to form the basis of conceptual and theoretical investigation of security governance (see Webber et al. 2004; Kirchner 2006; Kirchner and Sperling 2007b; Wagnsson et al. 2009). However, actors’ perceptions of security may differ across the international system, and thus coordinated approaches to regional security governance may also differ. In other words, states develop regionally coordinated frameworks for security according to their perceptions of security and the regional context. Taking this into account, ‘Eurasian security institutions [such as the SCO] may contribute to the creation of a single set of norms governing statecraft in the region’, but ‘there is no guarantee that those norms will be consistent with those of the Atlantic community’ (Kirchner 2007). Hence, the development of a regionally coordinated approach to security in the SCO should not be assessed against, and assumed to be seeking to replicate, the development of regional security governance in the EU. Instead, it needs to be examined in light of its member states’ perceptions about the norms of security coordination in relation to the Central Asian regional security context.

What is an institution? The definition of an ‘institution’ was traditionally a source of contestation amongst certain scholars. However, in recent decades, a broad consensus has emerged, muting debate about distinguishing between an ‘organisation’, as a more formalised arrangement, and an ‘institution’, as a more culturally based account of social behaviour (Peters 1999, 31). It has been argued that ‘in the actual practice of research, the distinction between institutions and organisations is usually of secondary importance’ (Martin and Simmons 2002, 194), because the vast majority of multilateral organisations have, at least, a nominal formalised framework and all ‘political institutions are collections of interrelated rules and routines that define appropriate action in terms of relations between roles and situations’ (March and Olsen 1989, 21–2). Therefore ‘while we might want to reserve the term “organisation” to describe formally constituted and recognised entities, they are involved in precisely the same sorts of processes of institutionalisation as are more loosely

Introduction

15

defined institutions’ (Beeson 2002, 9). In this light, ‘new institutionalism’ conceives institutions as more than just a set of codified rules within an institutional charter and considers the role that norms, values and interaction have on the process of ‘institutionalisation’ (Beeson 2002, 10). The SCO has a moderately developed formalised organisational framework, and also seeks to lay down norms of practice to regulate its member states’ behaviour. Therefore, in this book, the SCO will be treated as an institution according to the criterion of ‘new institutionalism’, which emphasises the importance of a ‘logic of appropriateness’ (March and Olsen 1989), whereby the ‘routinisation or the institutionalisation of patterns of activity’ (Beeson 2002, 10) regulates and impacts on the behaviour of member states.

Explaining regional organisations While the regional nature of the post-Cold War international system is widely accepted, an implicit assumption remains within much of the literature on regional and international institutions that sustained cooperation between sovereign states is only possible when all of these states are politically democratic and economically liberal. Acharya identifies ‘a widespread assumption among liberal theorists that such [security] communities require a quintessential liberal-democratic milieu featuring significant economic interdependence and political pluralism’ (Acharya 2001, 31). As a result, most theoretical work on regional organisations is centred on the case of the EU, as an example of regional integration involving archetypal Western liberal-democratic states. The EU, then, is seen by many institutional theorists as the zenith of regional integration and, often, as the only truly effective regional multilateral organisation in the international system. Therefore, while regional organisations exist throughout the world and some have proven robust, these cases, by and large, are not reflected in the theory. Indeed, the focus on the EU context and its very particular ‘legal–functional’ approach, centred on supranationalism has led to a concentration on the procedural minutiae of its model.10 As a result, many rationalist frameworks, drawing on the experience of the EU, are centred on the capacity of an institution to formally enforce its member states to enact its policies (e.g. Haftendorn et al. 1999; Koremos et al. 2001; Rittberger and Schimmelfennig 2006). Hence, in essence, these frameworks assess how closely a regional organisation resembles the EU. This concentration on the process of EU integration means that

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Eurasian Regionalism

assessing other regional organisations inevitably leads to conclusions that serve only to highlight the failure and limitations of non-European regionalism in replicating the EU (Acharya and Johnston 2007b, 12). Against this background, scholars of regions other than Europe have noted that ‘comparative regionalism has been hindered by so-called theories of regionalism which turn out to be little more than the translation of a particular set of European experiences into a more abstract theoretical language’ (Hurrell 2007, 133). The EU is the product of a very specific context, which emerged in post-World War II Western Europe and provided a very distinct catalyst for an integration-orientated regional project. The assumption that similar processes and contexts exist in other regions does not match up with the ‘wealth of available literature pointing to substantial differences in the economic conditions, security predicament and regional dynamics between the West and Third World’ (Acharya and Johnston 2007b, 14). As already discussed, state leaders can and do interpret security and multilateralism as a tool for managing security from very different perspectives, and by applying assumptions developed on the basis of other states ‘only a partial understanding of institutional dynamics in the Third World’ is possible (Acharya and Johnston 2007b, 14). Although, most empirical work has been done on the EU, numerous studies of other regional organisations have been conducted, most prominently on the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).11 The work undertaken on ASEAN highlights that the example of one regional organisation cannot be assumed to explain another. Indeed, some scholars of ASEAN have become the source of alternative conceptual ideas and frameworks on regional multilateral organisations, arguing that EU-inspired literature on regional organisations does not provide much explanatory power in accounting for the longevity and relative success of the ASEAN framework (see Busse 1999; Acharya 2001; Alagappa 2003; Sharpe 2003; Acharya and Johnston 2007a; Wunderlich 2007). These approaches tend to take a more idea-driven and normative perspective than traditional rational-actor and legalistic models of institutional analysis, arguing that the development of ASEAN is an example of the importance of common norms and regional identity in establishing regional cooperation (Busse 1999; Acharya 2001; Alagappa 2003). From this perspective, it is argued that it is possible for institutions to create ties between states and shape their perception and behaviour not only via legal treaties and charters, but also through socialisation on the basis of common principles and norms of behaviour. Hence, an institution’s ‘principles, norms, rules and values, which are

Introduction

17

frequently unstated, but which guide and facilitate decision making’, come to ‘influence the collective expectations and the internal and international behaviour of member states in the political, economic and security arenas’ (Alagappa 2003, 427). ASEAN scholars have highlighted the differences in shared perceptions of security between ASEAN members and EU members, and as a consequence the differences between the aims, approaches and practices of regional cooperation in South-East Asia and Europe (Busse 1999; Acharya 2001; Alagappa 2003; Sharpe 2003). An important illustration of this for the design of institutions, is the different attitudes to sovereign legal integration between the members of ASEAN and those of the EU. While sovereign legal integration is perceived as the aim of cooperation in the EU, it is not viewed in the same way by the ASEAN members. As Narine (2005, 423) points out, ‘the regional attitude towards multilateral institutions is that they should assist in the state-building process by enhancing the sovereignty of their members’. This highlights the misconception, which informs the majority of mainstream frameworks for analysing regional cooperation and organisations, that legalised sovereign integration is considered the high-water mark of regional cooperation in all regions. This emphasises that the shared ideas developed within one regional context may differ from those within another. Therefore, as Acharya (2009, 495) states, ‘comparative research and studies would suggest that regional institutions ought to be judged in terms of their own set goals, rather than some universal standard derived from the European Union model’. To this end, an understanding of the context of the actors involved is required, in order to comprehend their perspective in designing institutional arrangements and forming norms of practice.

Guiding assumptions The previous section has argued that the development of a regional organisation, in terms of both its regional framework and its approach to addressing regional security, cannot be fully understood without examining the nature of its regional context. Therefore in this study the SCO is examined in relation to the political, security and normative context of Central Asia. Drawing on the assumptions outlined above, it is suggested that analysis of a regional organisation must also take into account the positioning and interests of the member states. With this is in mind, the SCO’s role as a regional security provider will be

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Eurasian Regionalism

informed by examining the security priorities of its member states and their leaderships’ perceptions of the regional security environment. In light of these guiding principles, this study examines the evolution of the SCO according to four main themes: its institutional framework, the perceptions of its member states, its approach to security and its external relations. The first half of the book analyses the perceptions of the SCO’s member states’ leaderships about regional cooperation and security. On the basis of this analysis, the development of the SCO’s framework for cooperation is assessed in relation to its utility for its membership and its appropriateness for its regional context. The second half of the book investigates the SCO’s approach to addressing regional security and external relations, framing this against the examination of the SCO’s institutional context and the perceptions of its member states discussed in the first half of the book. In this way, the question of whether the SCO is orientated towards intraregional security cooperation or towards geopolitically counterbalancing the West is evaluated.

Outline of the book This book is divided into five chapters, addressing the four main themes of analysis. In Chapter 2 the institutional framework of the SCO is assessed, not just in terms of its formal structures, but also the norms that have framed its development. As noted in the discussion of theoretical frameworks for assessing regional organisations, different models of regional cooperation are evident across the international system, some of which illustrate that cooperation is possible without sovereign legal integration. Against this background, it is argued that the loose evolutionary framework of the SCO is based primarily on building norms of practice, rather than on legal integration. It is suggested that this approach is largely appropriate to the Central Asian regional context, and hence should not be dismissed as irrelevant because it is dissimilar to that of the EU. Indeed, this approach has enabled the SCO to become an important element of the regional landscape, in spite of concerns by member states’ leaderships about giving up sovereignty, by evolving in line with the political will of its members’ leaders. Chapters 3 and 4 analyse member states’ attitudes and approaches to the SCO in light of their perceptions of security and regional cooperation. As outlined in the section on regionalism and security, this book considers that states perceive and approach security and regional cooperation in different ways. Taking this into account, Chapter 3

Introduction

19

investigates what the SCO member states’ leaderships consider to be their security priorities, and how they envisage that the SCO can contribute to these. Drawing on this analysis, Chapter 4 challenges the assumption that participation in the SCO is driven by geopolitical interests, arguing that, to the contrary, its member states’ leaderships perceive it to be centred on addressing transnational threats to both state and regime security. As a result, the member states’ elites are coming to view regional multilateralism within the SCO as a valuable tool in their foreign policies. In Chapter 5, the SCO’s approach to regional security is examined in detail. In light of this book’s assumptions about the importance of security perceptions, an investigation of how the SCO approaches regional security coordination is enlightening for determining the main priority of the SCO. The SCO’s role as a security provider is identified as being based on developing coordinated norms of practice in tackling the ‘three evils’ and providing rhetorical support for the right of the leaderships of the member states to pursue regime security strategies as they see fit. Thus, the SCO is focused on security issues internal to the region. Chapter 6 analyses the SCO’s external relations in terms of its rhetoric and statements on international affairs, interaction with other regional organisations and debate over expanding its membership. By taking its external relations into consideration, it is possible to investigate whether the SCO is orientated towards countering the US. It is concluded that, although the SCO is viewed by its member states’ leaderships as an important resource in expressing criticism of the West on certain issues, the SCO is not designed primarily as a counterbalance to the US. Instead, it is predominately focused on addressing intraregional issues of security relating to the domestic security of its member states. Bringing the insights from these five chapters together, Chapter 7 outlines this book’s conclusions about the SCO as a regional framework for cooperation and a regional security provider. It is argued that the SCO’s framework for cooperation is largely appropriate to its regional context and that the SCO is primarily focused on addressing transnational security challenges that are seen by its member states’ leaderships as threatening regime security.

2 The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation: An Institutional Framework within the Regional Context of Central Asia

The SCO was founded in 2001 in order to create an institutional base to the informal cooperation developed within the Shanghai process during the 1990s. Although still in its infancy, the SCO has developed an institutional structure including seven bodies,1 within which there are clear structural design themes, areas of concentration and an institutional culture. This chapter lays out the key principles of the SCO’s framework for cooperation, in terms of its institutional structures, areas of focus, values and norms in order to analyse its effectiveness, applicability for its regional context and potential longevity. As noted in the introduction, the SCO has evolved through three distinct phases thus far: institutional building, agenda expanding and implementation. This chapter analyses all three. It examines the institutional framework developed between the founding of the SCO and its establishment of permanently functioning organs in 2004. In addition, it assesses how this institutional base, in conjunction with the norms and culture that have developed around them, has impacted on the next two phases of the SCO’s development.

Institutional structure and mechanisms Structures The SCO is based on intergovernmental cooperation, which can be seen by the organisational map in illustration 2. It functions mainly to provide a mechanism of coordination and communication, but also has a permanently functioning and independent core of institutions. The framework’s design also makes provision for different levels of intergovernmental cooperation and a permanently functioning 20

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 21

Council of Heads of State

Council of Heads of Government

Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure

Council of Ministers of Foreign affairs

Various Councils of Ministries

Council of National Coordinators

Special working groups

Secretariat

Business Council and Interbank Association

Illustration 2 Organisational structure of the SCO

bureaucracy of representatives from the member states. In this way, it contains ‘an internal mechanism which organises regular meetings for member states’ and ‘such a mechanism constitutes an integral part of discussions and policy-making within the SCO’ (Zhao 2006a, 110). The SCO is, thus, defined strongly by informal discussion and contact between the leaderships of each member state. Yet, the framework does include a fully functioning administrative structure and organs that are dedicated to specific areas of activity. Since its formation, the SCO has been constructing an institutional framework, the formal base of which was completed with the creation in 2004 of its first permanently functioning organs: the Secretariat and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) (Lukin and Mochul’skii 2005, 10). As a result of the creation of permanent organs, the SCO became a fully developed regional structure, ‘enabling it to handle everyday affairs and respond to emergency issues’ (Pan 2004, 5). Since then, this base has been added to, both on an ad-hoc basis and with the creation of more permanent offshoots, but the Secretariat and RATS remain the SCO’s permanently functioning backbone. Indeed, in the view of most regional analysts, ‘the creation of a Secretariat and its antiterrorism arm, RATS . . . . represents two steps forward in the organisation and institutional development of the SCO and heralds the basic completion of the SCO’s institutional development’ (Zhao 2006a, 110). Therefore, the SCO is interpreted as having reached a period in which the fulfilment of the agreements already made has

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become the main focus. The leading Tajik analyst, Batyr Khudaiberdiev (2007, 31) states that ‘at the current time it is possible to assert with full confidence that the SCO has successfully concluded the stage of institutional establishment and entered into a phase of active functioning in various spheres of its activities’. However, in spite of establishing a solid set of institutional arrangements, which provide the SCO with a significant degree of stability, the functional utilisation of these structures remains inhibited by the preference of member states not to concede control over the levers of state power, and as such, informal discussion between the leaderships remains the dominant trend (Official in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interview, July). While the institutional structures of the SCO have been agreed upon by all members and interested parties, patterns of practical implementation have not yet been established to the same degree.

Non-Permanent institutions The Council of Heads of State The Council of Heads of State is composed of the state leaders of the member states and is the main decision-making body of the SCO. According to the SCO Charter, ‘it shall determine priorities and define major areas of activities of the Organisation, decide upon the fundamental issues of its internal arrangement and functioning and its interaction with other states and international organisations, as well as consider the most topical international issues’.2 The other organs of the SCO are dependent on approval from the Council of Heads of State: ‘the functions and working procedures for the SCO bodies, other than the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, shall be governed by appropriate provisions adopted by the Council of Heads of State’.3 In normal circumstances, the Council is only convened at the annual summit of the SCO, when each of the SCO’s member states’ leaders is present. The summit of the national leaderships is the most important event in the SCO’s calendar and defines the direction of the organisation for the forthcoming year. The annual summit meeting is usually used as an opportunity for the state leaders to sign off already prepared agreements, rather than taking on the function of a debating chamber. These agreements, new programmes, joint statements and the next annual agenda are usually developed and agreed upon several months earlier by the SCO’s permanent staff and lower-ranking officials from the member states (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July).

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 23

Since the Council of Heads of State meets only once a year at the summit, programmes and initiatives developed months previously tend to be held back until they can be officially endorsed by the respective leaderships at the summit. At the same time, the summit also provides the SCO with tangible regional and international credibility, assembling the main political actors of the region in one place, and includes the opportunity for members to put across common viewpoints on both regional and international affairs in the form of a common statement.4

Other organs Below the level of national heads of state, the SCO also facilitates regular and routine meetings of national government departments and agencies. Although these meetings possess significantly less power to determine the direction of cooperation, they are nonetheless integral to the development of agreed programmes for cooperation and the implementation of coordinated approaches and policies across the member states. As an example, a senior official in the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs informed the author that the Ministers from each member state responsible for external economics and external trade work together like a coordinated body, by holding various working groups on areas of cooperation, such as transport, energy, customs, agriculture, electronic trade and statistics (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June).5 The Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) is linked to the Council of Heads of State and thus has a mandate to ‘consider and decide upon major issues related to particular, especially economic, spheres of interaction within the Organisation’.6 It is also responsible for the approval of the SCO’s budget. In this way, the Meetings of Heads of Ministries and/or Agencies are convened to work out the details and facilitate the policy directions agreed upon by the Council of Heads of State, bringing together the relevant domestic bodies to form practical and effective policy. According to some regional analysts, the Council of Prime Ministers is the most active level of cooperation and exchange between the member states (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May).7 In addition, the SCO Council of National Coordinators acts as an administrative organ ‘that coordinates and directs day-to-day activities of the Organisation’,8 while the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs ‘shall consider issues related to day-to-day activities of the Organisation, preparation of meetings of the Council of Heads of State and holding of consultations on international problems within the Organisation’.9

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Permanent organs The Secretariat The SCO Secretariat, located in Beijing, is the standing administrative organ ‘responsible for the provision of organisation, technical and information assistances to activities supported within the framework of the SCO’.10 It provides the bureaucratic backbone to the organisation, and thus performs many unnoticed, but essential operations, including ‘budgeting, personnel, institutional functions, [and] operating procedures’ (Zhao 2006a, 110). The Secretariat has a Secretary General who represents the SCO Secretariat in public affairs and who is appointed for a fixed term, with representatives from each member state staffing the position on a rotational basis.11 The SCO is a very hierarchical institution, and within this hierarchy the Secretariat’s main role is to provide technical assistance, which is transferred to higher levels of the SCO structure based on non-permanent contact between national leaderships, where decisions on implementation are taken (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). As a result, the role of the Secretariat is limited to an administrative one, without much functional power to impact on the direction of the organisation. The Secretariat is a permanently operating organ composed of officials from each member state. The number of appointees from each member state is determined according to the contributions made by that member state to the budget. In this way, all member states are permanently represented within the Secretariat, albeit contingent on their financial contribution to the organisation. This is designed to ensure each member state considers itself involved in the processes of the SCO’s work and that their interests are represented in the formulation of outcomes and policy.12 As opposed to the Council of Heads of State, the Secretariat is designed to function on a non-partisan basis. The officials in the SCO Secretariat are supposed to work for the SCO rather than their national government, and as such act without any specific national affiliation. The SCO Charter states that, ‘the Secretary-General, his deputies and other Secretariat officials in fulfilling their official duties should not request or receive instructions from any member state and/or government, organisation or physical persons’.13 Although the Secretariat is an independent organ, this does not entail the member states giving up any significant degree of control over the agenda or decision-making to a supranational body. Indeed, even its status as a non-partisan body is dubious. Due to their greater contributions

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 25

to the SCO budget, there are a disproportionate number of Russian and Chinese officials in the Secretariat, and by virtue of it being based in Beijing support roles are largely staffed by Chinese personnel. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure was established in 2004 as a permanently functioning organ to address the ‘three evil’ of the region: terrorism, extremism and separatism. The headquarters of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure are based in Tashkent and have been operational since November 2003. RATS is composed of a Council and an Executive Committee. The Executive Committee is the permanently functioning element of the RATS based at its headquarters. Its role is to oversee the running of the RATS and the functional implementation of its work, and it is comprised of the senior staff stationed at the headquarters. The Council is the main decision-making body of the RATS, and is made up of the ministers in charge of counterterrorism efforts in the respective member states, and the Director of the Executive Committee. The RATS Council is not a permanently functioning organ, but is the forum that controls the direction and sets the agenda of the RATS’s activity. Therefore, as in the main SCO framework, it is possible to distinguish between the collaborative meetings of national governments, in which functional power lies, and the permanently functioning organ, which, in spite of carrying out most of the work, does not hold decision-making power. To some extent, the RATS is regarded as a distinct organ within the SCO, as can be seen by the fact that it is governed according to slightly different provisions from the rest of the organisation.14 The RATS is primarily defined by a distinct treaty, the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, which acts as the guiding framework for the RATS’ activity. To some extent, the RATS has a different hierarchical position within the SCO structure compared with the Secretariat. Indeed, the RATS could be described as the most effective mechanism within the SCO, because there are fewer layers of bureaucracy between the RATS and the highest level in the member states.

Decision-making and powers of enforcement The SCO’s model of cooperation is based on intergovernmental cooperation, whereby it does not seek sovereign control over its member states, and as a result does not have provision for ensuring its decisions and

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Eurasian Regionalism

recommendations are enforced. As outlined in the SCO Charter, ‘the decisions taken by the SCO bodies shall be implemented by the member states in accordance with the procedures set out in their national legislation’.15 The SCO does not have a formal codified procedure of decisionmaking, and instead operates on the basis of informal discussion. At the same time, the SCO is underpinned by the idea of equality between members. The SCO Charter states that SCO bodies shall take decisions by agreement without vote and their decisions shall be considered adopted if no member state has raised objections during the vote (consensus).16 Therefore the adoption of a programme requires consensus whereby the smallest member has the same right of veto or to opt out as the largest. This is an important consideration for the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships, given their relative disadvantage in terms of power projection vis-à-vis Russia and China, and their focus on maintaining full control over state sovereignty. According to a Russian official, the SCO’s consensual approach means that decision-making is problematic and slow, but also ensures the relevance of the organisation’s agenda to all member states and creates the opportunity for the organisation to evolve and for its agenda to progress (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). As the SCO has no authority to enforce its decisions and policies in national legislation, a strong consensus on a decision or programme is required in order for it to be approved, because if one government decides not to implement it then the region-wide format is undermined. By the same logic, if other states have yet to implement an SCO policy in their domestic policy, then there is little incentive for other member states to do so either, creating a cycle of non-implementation. The only legal recourse the SCO has to push members to conform is that failure to act within its guidelines will lead to expulsion from the organisation. However, some consider that this lack of permanent decision-making bodies is beneficial, because it avoids significant institutional bureaucracy, given that neither the Secretariat nor the RATS has the capacity to play a larger role. On this basis, the member states themselves are required to be active and thus to find common ground (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). As a result, the SCO has to rely on the good will of its member states to act in accordance with its programmes.

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 27

Therefore, at present, cooperation in certain areas is often hamstrung by divergent views among its members’ elites. Taking into account the fact that the interests and perspectives of the SCO’s member states are quite diverse, it is not unsurprising that ‘SCO has already identified 127 areas for cooperation but due to disagreements over how to implement them, most remain as documents at the proposal stage’ (Zhao 2006a, 112). Kyrgyz expert Erlan Abdyldaev highlights that owing to its structural design, ‘one of the main problems of the SCO is a certain non-compliance with the declared principles of cooperation both within the organisation and the states and organisations outside of it’ (Abdyldaev 2007). The lack of powers of enforcement in the SCO framework and the fact that decisions are taken on the basis of consensus agreement within informal discussion between elites are designed to reassure its member states’ leaderships that it does not challenge their state sovereignty. As a consequence, the importance of informal cooperation and a natural evolution of the agenda are evident throughout the SCO. Its Charter states that relations within its structures will not be strictly defined, and a degree of informality and negotiation is inbuilt. According to some, this reflects the full extent of diversity among its membership and their concerns about state sovereignty. Indeed, Tolipov (2004b) argues that the SCO approach of decision-making based on consensus is the best for the organisation, as it allows it to function and does not threaten national sovereignty. At the same time, it can remain effective as ‘the small number of members will make it easier to reach a consensus’. However, these decision-making procedures are also criticised for being open to abuse by a dominant state or group of states within the organisation. Some analysts argue that this loose, high-level consensus approach to decision-making has created a form of hegemony, with Russia and China as the hegemons and the Central Asian Republics subject to their dominance (Blank 2005). Yet, officials highlight that the SCO agenda is not controlled exclusively by Russia and China, but that the Central Asian Republics are very active within its framework (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Indeed, because decisions are not binding and member states are able to opt out of specific SCO projects, smaller members are able to avoid being tied into agreements and agendas they deem not to be in their interest. In addition, in order for the organisation to function effectively, the larger members are reliant on the smaller members voluntarily implementing programmes and

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Eurasian Regionalism

agreements, and as such the larger members are inclined to pursue an agenda in keeping with all members’ interests.

The SCO’s main areas of focus The Shanghai grouping was initially formed to reduce the latent security tension between the states within the region of Central Asia, by providing a mechanism within which border demarcation disputes could be negotiated and resolved. At the present time, security remains an integral element of the SCO. However, since its official establishment, the SCO’s central focus has switched from border demarcation and confidence building to the struggle with the ‘three evils’ and economic cooperation (Zhao 2005, 9). The proclaimed battle against terrorism, extremism and separatism in particular has formed the main building block of collaboration, from which other areas of cooperation have been built. This is a reflection of the fact that for the elites of the SCO member states, cooperation is targeted at two main goals: intraregional and regime security. Security As outlined, security cooperation provides the main focus of the SCO. Taking this into account, the SCO’s approach to security and the range and nature of cooperation on security between its member states is analysed in detail in Chapter 5 of this book. Hence this section only provides a very brief account of the SCO’s agenda in relation to security. The SCO Charter outlines a broad focus on the ‘maintenance of peace and enhancing security and confidence in the region’, and on traditional areas of security collaboration within international organisation cooperation such as the ‘coordination of efforts in the field of disarmament and arms control’.17 This represents a broad commitment to manage traditional power politics in the region, along state-to-state lines. However, now that the border disputes between the member states have more or less been settled, the security focus of the SCO has shifted to addressing security challenges emanating from non-state sources. The SCO and its members have characterised terrorism, extremism and separatism as the ‘three evil’ of the region. Its Charter sets out the aim of ‘development and implementation of measures aimed at jointly counteracting terrorism, separatism and extremism, illicit narcotics and arms trafficking and other types of criminal activity of a transnational character, and also illegal migration’.18 This represents a commitment to target security threats that are non-traditional in nature, functioning

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 29

below the state level and across state boundaries, and which require a fundamentally different approach from that of state-to-state security. All the member states’ leaderships consider that they face similar non-traditional security challenges. In this context, the SCO appeals to them as a vehicle to address these transnational issues at an appropriate level, and within an organisation that is compatible with their flexible definitions of Islamic extremism. Although the SCO is still a young organisation, a degree of evolution in its regional security agenda is discernible. For the first half of the 2000s it focused quite narrowly on anti-regime groups under the banner of the ‘three evils’. However, after a period of agenda expansion in the mid- to late 2000s, the SCO has adopted an increasingly wider focus on security, which seeks to increase state stability via collaboration in economic, cultural and environmental fields. This is in large part because the Russian and Chinese leaderships have come to consider the threat of terrorism and separatism to their survival as less immediate, leading them to adopt wider perspectives on security.

Economics While there is no doubt that security concerns provided the initial impetus for the formation of this regional grouping, and that it continues to be of prime importance, economic cooperation is an area of growing interest for the SCO. Indeed, following a period of agenda expansion in the mid-2000s, most officials and regional analysts perceive economic cooperation to be of equal priority for the SCO (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May).19 Hence from 2007 onwards, the implementation of economic projects has become a priority. Economic cooperation has always been on the SCO agenda. The SCO Charter outlines economic cooperation as an important area, with the aim of ‘support for, and promotion of regional economic cooperation in various forms, fostering a favourable environment for trade and investments with a view to gradually achieving free flow of goods, capitals, services and technologies’.20 However, economic cooperation has only come to the fore following the completion of the SCO’s institutionbuilding and agenda expansion phases. In 2006 an Action Plan for the realisation of the SCO Programme of Multilateral Trade and Economic Cooperation was initiated, which envisages that economic cooperation

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will progress along systematic steps ‘for getting down to a more practical interaction between ministries and departments responsible for external trade and economic activity, transport, environmental protection, tackling of emergency situations, culture and education, as well as establishing a rational financial and budgetary policy for the SCO’.21 In addition the SCO created two economic bodies in the same period, the SCO Business Council22 and the SCO Interbank Association.23 The SCO plays a facilitating role in economics, similar to the one it plays in security, whereby it provides the basis for the establishment of low-level connections and cooperation in order to facilitate collaboration within a broader framework. The Business Council aims to foster direct contact between the institutions and businessmen of its member states, and contribute to the implementation of the SCO projects, while the Interbank Association ‘is a banking institution of six countries that at its own discretion determines feasibility of the projects based on the generally accepted banking standards’.24 These bodies serve as organisational and coordinating hubs, working towards projects agreed upon by the member states through the main SCO framework, rather than acting as stand-alone centres of economic policy. This is illustrative of the SCO’s focus on facilitating coordination by providing a forum for communication and development, while not acting as the main source of ideas and policy on its own terms. Nonetheless, experts from the SCO’s member states have seen the development of these economic bodies as a step forward in economic cooperation. Portyakov highlights the Interbank Association, stating that it ‘has shown its members to have succeeded in finding the real mechanism of financing and starting the implementation of concrete cooperation projects’ (Portyakov 2007). However, the coordination and harmonisation of economic programmes and interests among the SCO members is not an easy task. The SCO states are not immediately economically compatible in certain sectors. Although sharing key economic interests (energy resources of the Caspian and Central Asia, development of transportation and communication infrastructure and more active trade in specific sectors), the consensus among most regional analysts is that ‘in the mid-term there is no prospect for efficient economic cooperation among the SCO members since the countries differ greatly as far as their domestic economic and political situations are concerned’ (Tolipov 2004b). There are different levels of capacity among the member states’ economies, from the economic powerhouse of China to the weaker economies of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Also, the member states have

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different priorities with regard to the relationship between state political structures and the economy, for example China is an advocate of free trade in the region, while some of the Central Asian Republics are unwilling to relinquish tight political control of their economies. Therefore, while there is a high level of compatibility in perceived interest among the member states in certain economic cooperation, primarily energy and infrastructure, there is less enthusiasm about wide-ranging trade cooperation. At present the economic element of the SCO is lagging far behind the security element in terms of practical implementation, although in recent years, progress in economic projects has emerged as a growing priority. There are developments in macro-level projects, such as energy and transport, but not in micro-level trade. In essence there is agreement in large-scale, state-to-state-type cooperation, but not in people-to-people cooperation, because of fears among the Central Asian Republics about the strength of the Chinese economy. Although the economic element of the SCO is relatively underdeveloped at present, there are areas of shared economic interest between the member states, which the SCO is seeking to exploit. In this way, ‘in the long- and midterm perspectives, its potential will be tremendous, especially in the areas of energy and communications’ (Zhao 2004, 308). However, this is dependent on a positive evolution of political relations among the SCO members, and the preservation of coordination in the security sphere.

Diplomacy Although this study seeks to challenge the image of the SCO as nothing more than a geopolitical tool for its larger member states, it does recognise that the SCO is influenced by considerations of geopolitics. The SCO seeks to present and put forward its own particular viewpoint on specific and wider issues in international affairs. Indeed, this intention has been clear from the outset, with the SCO Charter identifying the aim to ‘search for common positions on foreign policy issues of mutual interest, including issues arising within international organisations and international fora’.25 An important element of the SCO in the eyes of its member states’ leaderships, is its representation of the principle of non-interference in sovereign states’ domestic affairs (Maitdinova 2006). In the wake of the ‘Colour Revolutions’26 , 2003–05, the promotion of this principle by the SCO has been seen by certain member states’ regimes as an increasingly valuable tool to magnify their own voices in the global arena.

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Other cooperation Security and economics provide the main realms of cooperation in the SCO, but in recent years several other areas are beginning to be developed. In this way, the SCO is trying to move beyond its function as a regional security organisation to become a multifunctional regional organisation. The broad range of cooperation placed under its umbrella is focused on developing a more collaborative regional unit out of its member states. These ambitions for coordination range from the management of natural resources within the region to harmonising legal systems. An illustration of this was the 2005 SCO summit declaration, which stated that ‘SCO member states will work out a multilateral mechanisms for the creation of a system for monitoring and exchanging analytical information in connection with possible disasters and their consequences, as well as the creation of necessary legal and logistical arrangements for conducting joint rescue operations, including education and training of personnel under united methods, the rapid transfer and compatibility of technology’.27 The SCO is trying to orientate itself to becoming a focal point for communication and coordination in the region. This is in conjunction with the slow evolutionary nature of the SCO’s organisational design, whereby wider areas of cooperation emerge naturally and in conjunction with the perceptions of member states. As a result of this approach, the member states are increasingly finding areas of compatibility in their interests. Another area on which the SCO has focused from 2007 onwards is cultural and social cooperation. Indeed, regional analysts and officials argue that the SCO is trying to develop a third major element to the organisation, targeting the creation of a common cultural space among its members (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May; Cheng, Y., 2007, personal interview, 26 June; Zhao, H., 2007, personal interview, 18 July).28 This can be seen in the major programmes announced at the Bishkek Summit in 2007, to create common education standards that would be recognised across the member states and a joint SCO University. Morozov highlights that the creation of an SCO University is driven by the ‘need for training specialists with the knowledge of not only widely-spoken languages (Russian, Chinese, English), but also regional ones (Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Turkmen, Mongolian)’ (Morozov 2009, 173). Another illustration of the increased effort towards cultural cooperation is the emphasis placed on a joint SCO exhibition at the World Expo, Shanghai, in 2010. The SCO Secretary General, Muratbek Imanaliyev, asserted the significance of this,

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arguing that it represented ‘a very serious economic, humanitarian and political measurement of the SCO’s activities’.29 A number of regional analysts consider the widening of the scope of the SCO’s interests as an attempt to foster greater connections between the populations of its member states, and in so doing develop greater understanding, trust and common interest between them (Chen, X., 2007, personal interview, 20 June; Shi, Z., 2007, personal interview, 20 June).30 Indeed, the Director of the Centre for East Asia and SCO at the Moscow State University of International Relations argues that wider people-to-people links are vital for the longevity and development of the SCO, and considers the increasing importance of cultural cooperation as a product of its member states comprising old civilisations and sharing the same dilemma of protecting these from globalisation (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). Taking this into account, a Russian official emphasised the importance of work on increasing the understanding between the populations of the SCO’s member states, pointing to the recent Year of Russia in China (2006) and Year of China in Russia (2007), and the success of an SCO-sponsored art exhibition, ‘Fairy Tales Drawn by Children’, where children from each member state drew pictures of how they imagined the other SCO member states (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). At present, the SCO still plays a limited role in local-level relations between its member states, but its cultural work is an increasingly important aspect on its agenda. Regional analysts assert that if cooperation in less politically sensitive areas can be achieved, then trust and mutually beneficial links can be built between states and the organisation, so that they come to view the organisation as integral to their security considerations (Lukin, A., personal interview, 2007, 4 May; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May).

Implications of structures and foci Membership and mandate The SCO has the most comprehensive membership of any regional organisation in Central Asia. It incorporates four of the five Central Asian Republics, excluding the permanently neutral Turkmenistan, and the two largest and most influential external powers bordering the region. The involvement of two major wider-regional powers sets the SCO apart from other regional organisations in Central Asia. The presence

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of both Russia and China under one umbrella formation contributes to the view within the Central Asian Republics that the SCO is more likely to be responsive to their interests compared with other organisations, as the SCO is not overshadowed by one overbearing external power. In this way, the composition of the SCO theoretically ‘leaves some latitude for the Central Asian member states to advance their own priorities and leave their imprint on its agenda’ (Allison 2003, 34). In this respect, the presence of China in the SCO is important to the Central Asian Republics, as a second major external power to balance the potential hegemonic influence of Russia. From the perspective of the leaderships of the Central Asian Republics, [the] uniqueness of the SCO lies in the opportunity it offers to bandwagon with both Russia and China in a framework where the Chinese presence increasingly offsets any Russian efforts to impose unwanted aspects of its integration agenda on the Central Asian states, while the Russian presence equally provides reassurance about Chinese policies and therefore enables the SCO to act as a vehicle to incorporate Chinese interests in developing joint responses to selected security challenges in Central Asia (Allison 2004, 478). The SCO is thus seen as the most balanced and comprehensive regional organisation in Central Asia. The opportunity to participate, at least notionally, as equal partners in a multilateral organisation containing Russia and China has significant rhetorical benefits in the eyes of the Central Asian leaders. Kurtov (2008, 50) notes that this factor has an important psychological significance for Central Asia. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan gained the opportunity to position themselves as equal partners (in their eyes) of the leading powers. This was a flattering assumption for regional leaders, which helped them play on this fact for propaganda purposes before their people. The SCO joint declarations, photo calls and treaties serve as a legitimising agent for the Central Asian regimes by enabling them to associate themselves with the strength and prestige of two of the most significant powers in the international system. The participation of four of the Central Asian Republics plus two major external powers gives the SCO the potential to impact upon events on a regional-wide scale. Allison (2004, 478) notes that ‘in

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Central Asia the most inclusive and prominent regional, or more properly macro regional, consultative framework with a security dimension is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’. Security in Central Asia tends to be of a transnational nature, as seen by the Central Asian leaderships’ perceptions that security in one Republic tends to be influenced by developments in another. As a result, security perceptions in Central Asia could be said to exhibit some of the characteristics of a regional security complex.31 While asserting their independence as security actors, the Central Asian leaderships have come to realise that their security policy must take into account, explicitly and tacitly, the other states of the region, as well as the behaviour of powerful external actors. Thus, within the SCO, the Central Asian Republics have sought to tackle regional security dynamics in coordination not just with each other, but also with Russia and China. The involvement of Russia and China alongside the Central Asian Republics is interpreted by all the SCO member states as necessary for addressing regional security because, as Allison argues, ‘it is not satisfactory to confine the scope of the Central Asian security complex, even as an analytical construct, to the borders of the CIS Central Asian states’ (Allison 2001, 263). Northern Afghanistan, Xinjiang province in Western China and the Southern Russian border regions with Kazakhstan significantly impact on security in Central Asia, and the security of these regions and that of the Central Asian states are interconnected. Therefore, with the inclusion of Russia and China, the SCO encompasses most of this region, and includes a large swathe of transnational security dynamics and challenges. Indeed, the region-wide composition of the SCO is seen by its member states as an important element in the appeal of the SCO. In addition, the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships also consider the membership composition of the SCO as conducive to developing economic cooperation, in areas that suit their primary aims. As already noted, the Central Asian elites do not welcome free trade in the SCO, but they do, however, perceive engaging Russia and China as foreign investors in the development of infrastructure in their states as advantageous. From this perspective, the possibility of significant financial investment from two, rather than one, external powers is valuable. As Imanaliev (2006) argues, for the Central Asian Republics, ‘close cooperation with such economic giants as Russia and China, which, moreover, have decent political weight, can develop [the economies of the Central Asian Republics] much faster than they could alone or even in a “pure Central-Asian team”’.

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Membership and finance The SCO central budget is financed by contributions from member states, and these contributions are determined and apportioned according to a cost-sharing agreement between the SCO’s member states (see Table 1). The contributions of the various member states to the SCO are not equal, and those who make larger contributions receive greater representation within the organisation’s main permanent body, the Secretariat. Russia and China each contribute 24 per cent of the budget, Kazakhstan 21 per cent, Uzbekistan 15 per cent, Kyrgyzstan 10 per cent, and Tajikistan 6 per cent. Positions in the Secretariat are allocated relative to financial contribution, with Russia and China allocated seven positions each, the largest number per country within the Secretariat (Oresman 2004). This raises the question of whether Russia and China, as the larger financial contributors, have significant advantage over the other members. In spite of this issue, SCO officials note that all members agree on their respective financial contributions and that this should form the basis for national quotas of representatives in the Secretariat (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). In 2005, the then Secretary General of the SCO Secretariat noted that ‘concerning the budget contributions, China and Russia should contribute more, which corresponds with the principle of aspiration to joint development and an idea of mutual benefit’.32 Although the composition of personnel in the Secretariat is not equal, the SCO Charter maintains that decision-making will be conducted on the basis of equality between the member states.

Table 1 GDP of the SCO’s member states SCO member state China Russia Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

GDP 2007 ($ billions) 3280.224 1289.54 104.85 22.307 3.748 3.712

Source: International Monetary Fund, ‘World Economic and Financial Surveys’, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2008, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2008/ 01/weodata/index.aspx.

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A major challenge facing the SCO is its financial capacity, especially in light of its increasingly ambitious programmes of cooperation in a variety of fields. The official SCO budget is not a significant amount of money for a regional organisation and is not consistent with the SCO’s proclaimed programmes of cooperation. The entire SCO budget for 2004 was US$3.5 million, US$2.16 million for the Secretariat and the rest for the Regional Antiterrorism Structure (RATS) (Oresman 2004). This is not sufficient to enable the SCO to address sub-state security threats, fund programmes of economic, social and cultural collaboration, as well as maintain a fully functioning bureaucracy. The SCO’s limited financial resources should not, in many respects, be seen as surprising, given that in relative terms ‘the member states of the SCO are all rather poor economically, especially the Central Asian member states’ and ‘China and Russia, while relatively better-off compared to their fellow members, also have limited financial and economic resources’ (Zhao 2006a, 111). Since little progress has been made in increasing its budget and in defining a more consistent process for financing projects, ‘SCO has to operate within the limits of a tight budget and this is a real hindrance to the growth of the SCO’ (Zhao 2006a, 112). However, the financing of SCO projects is determined on a project-by-project basis, whereby participating members directly contribute funds and resources to the realisation of a project and not to the SCO central budget. In this way, although the Secretariat has its own budget, the financing of collaborative projects within the SCO comes from the member states themselves. This ad hoc approach to financing collaborative programmes arguably exacerbates the problems of unequal influence, stemming from the economic inequality amongst the SCO’s membership (China’s GDP is almost 900 times greater, and Russia’s 350 times greater, than that of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan). This has led to concerns that the richer members are able to buy influence in the SCO. As only Russia, China and perhaps Kazakhstan have the necessary financial resources to set projects in motion, it is likely that all the SCO projects that are implemented will be in these members’ interests, but not necessarily beneficial to the smaller Central Asian Republics. In this way, while the ideas and aims of the SCO are inclusive, implementation of these ideas is dependent on key member states. At present China provides much of the investment behind SCO projects, including loans of US$900 million to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. However, due to their limited financial resources, a Tajik- or Kyrgyz-inspired project would likely require Chinese or Russian financial backing in order to be implemented. As a

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result, although the Central Asian Republics are very active in the development stage of SCO projects, many of these projects remain at the proposal stage since the finance is not available to set them in motion. This leaves the SCO strongly dependent on the Russian–Chinese relationship, as the primary source of finance to realise the organisation’s projects.

Norms and values ‘Shanghai spirit’ As outlined, normative culture is often an important element of a regional organisation, whereby certain principles and values, some officially defined and others not, play an integral role, even though they are not the subject of formal enforcement. A range of principles and values form a significant part of the SCO’s framework. Indeed, a leading Chinese expert defines the SCO as, not a union or bloc, in it there is an absence of demands for a common internal political, ideological system and foreign policy course of its participants. At the same time membership in the organisation is not ‘free’. The organisation has a charter, programme of activity and working structures etc, in it exists certain principles and requirements (Zhao 2005, 23). The SCO Charter does not lay down many strict guidelines or rules; rather it focuses on the natural development of relations within certain agreed parameters. The Charter states that relations within its structures will not be strictly defined, but rather they will proceed from the spirit of mutual trust, mutual advantage, equality, mutual consultations, respect for cultural variety and aspiration to joint development that was clearly established at the meeting of heads of six States in 2001 in Shanghai.33 The values and normative base on which the SCO has been developed are termed the ‘Shanghai spirit’. The Deputy Chairman of the Federal Council of the SCO Business Council, Dmitrii Mezentsev, explains the Shanghai spirit as ‘one for all and six for one’.34 This statement illustrates the central importance of the concepts of equality and togetherness in the proclaimed cultural base of the SCO. The SCO Secretariat states that ‘internal policy [is] based on the principles of mutual trust, mutual

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benefit, equal rights, consultations, respect for the diversity of cultures and aspiration towards common development’, while ‘its external policy is conducted in accordance with the principles of non-alignment, non-targeting of anyone and openness’.35 Indeed, the impact of the Shanghai spirit is regularly proclaimed by the organisation’s officials and regional analysts as a major factor guiding the progression of the organisation, in the absence of extensive codified regulations (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). According to the Director of the Centre for SCO Studies at Fudan University, the Shanghai spirit is designed to allow states and people with different ideologies, political systems and states of mind to cooperate, rather than attempting to create a common ideology (Zhao, H., 2007, personal interview, 18 July). The promotion of common values and norms has been formulated to fill the gaps within the SCO’s loose organisational framework, by creating a set of norms and values by which members should abide (Chen, X. 2007, personal interview, 20 June). This is a formula which has enabled the fledgling grouping to progress from a forum to manage issues of border demarcation to a framework addressing a variety of security challenges and issues in other areas. Furthermore, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Alexei Borodavkin argues that SCO member states’ commitment to openness and equality, their striving for joint development and their respect for the diversity of cultures and traditions – this philosophy subsequently received the name ‘Shanghai spirit’ – have bolstered the potential of the organisation and helped transform it into an important factor of regional and global politics.36 A number of scholars have argued that one of the major achievements of regional organisations in Central Asia, including the SCO, has been to enable the states of the region to communicate with one another and help avoid interstate conflict in the region. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was widely expected that the Central Asian region would become mired in interethnic and interstate conflict. However, there has been no major interstate conflict since the demise of the Soviet Union, and a lower occurrence of intrastate conflict than anticipated by many.37 Some attribute the SCO as contributing to this greater than expected regional stability. It is argued that the evolutionary nature of the SCO, with its concentration on developing a common normative basis, has

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enabled its member states, some of which view each other with suspicion, to remain within a regional mechanism with each other. Therefore the SCO has functioned as a forum for the Central Asian Republics to communicate and cooperate with each other on a regular basis, often on issues they would not discuss bilaterally. The SCO’s loose approach aimed at enabling communication was evident in the initial success of the Shanghai mechanism, which facilitated agreement on border disputes created by the collapse of the Soviet Union; an issue that has now become more or less redundant. In this way, the SCO has served, to a certain degree, to provide a mechanism whereby member states can seek credible information on the mindset and intentions of other members and through this reciprocal exchange of information reduce their uncertainty about one another’s intentions. In particular, Central Asian analysts outline that it has provided an important channel of communication between the Central Asian Republics and China (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May).38 Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva (2006) argue that ‘taking into account the fact that, until recently, China was conducting an isolationist foreign policy, and all the Central Asian Republics, including the Organisation’s member states, were closed off from the outside world by the Iron Curtain, their ability to reach a stable level of trust in each other [within the SCO] is impressive’. As well as potential disputes between the Republics of Central Asia, another challenge facing the development of cooperation among the SCO’s member states is that they encompass a diverse range of interests, cultures, traditions, political systems, societal structures and geographical locations. Zhao highlights that the ‘disparities in terms of population and geographical size are very significant among member states. In particular, both China and Russia have huge populations and territories compared to the Central Asian member states. Every country also has a different profile in terms of politics, society, religion, culture, not to mention the different pace of economic growth’ (Zhao 2006a, 114). This has led a number of analysts to question the long-term viability of the SCO (Allison 2004; Blank 2005; Wall 2006). However, the organisation via the Shanghai spirit has sought to emphasise that it embraces this diversity and that significant aspects of commonality and solidarity exist between its member states. The emphasis on common values stems, to a large extent, from a shared interest in the promotion of the traditional principles of the Westphalian international system, the inviolability of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. As outlined, these values are viewed positively by the Central Asian elites because they see them as

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legitimising a significant degree of latitude to pursue strategies of regime security. ‘Asian’ values While acknowledging that the ideas and concepts that make up the Shanghai spirit are not new, the SCO argues that they present a different ordering of priorities than those seen in Western organisations. Indeed, SCO officials note that the organisation’s culture is centred on ‘Asian values’ rather than ‘Western’ (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Furthermore, some officials have argued that the Shanghai spirit represents a set of norms of behaviour favoured by a wide range of states beyond the Western community. From this perspective, the Shanghai spirit is seen as encompassing the ideal of building solidarity between the weaker states of the international system, as laid down at the Asian–African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia in 1955. In 2005, Zhang Deguang, the Secretary General of the SCO, stated that ‘the spirit of Shanghai inherited and continues to develop the Spirit of Bandung, becoming its living embodiment in the new historic reality’.39 A major distinction in perceptions about the ordering of priorities between many Asian and Western state leaderships can be seen in the prioritisation of economic growth over political liberalisation. This is in large part because a lot of state leaderships in Asia consider that they are facing significant challenges to the political legitimacy of their regimes and lack the economic capacity to fulfil the needs of their populace. As outlined previously, these perceptions often lead state elites to focus on issues of regime security, which as a result tend to relegate aims of political integration and liberalisation down the agenda. According to Haacke and Williams, the SCO and ASEAN members ‘share interlocking beliefs about the major security referents [especially regime and state security] and the importance of maintaining regional stability in order to allow governments to pursue their domestic political and socio-economic agendas’ (Haacke and Williams 2008, 218). From this perspective an SCO official notes that, in Europe there has been 300 years of democracy, but there has not been the same experience in Eurasia, thus democracy is not just applied unrestricted. The priority of the SCO is not democratic structure but contributing to stability and economic development in order to ensure its populace are fed, and if the states are not ready for political liberalism then it is better not to jeopardise economic

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development for political liberalisation. This caused instability in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan (Official in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interview, July). This perspective is also reflected in regular common statements by the SCO’s members rejecting attempts by the West to interfere in local politics. The attitude of Western states to politics in Central Asia is often perceived by regional elites and analysts as based on a misunderstanding of the political realities of Central Asia. Zhang Deguang states that in conditions of no stable economic development, no general life standards of the population, construction of democracy, protection of human rights and achievement of all other purposes are nothing but an unrealisable utopia. This truth is accepted by the overwhelming majority of politicians, businessmen and ordinary citizens of the Central Asian states, so why should people from outside be any wiser than all of them?40 Many analysts in the region argue that the concerns of elites should be focused on the development of economic stability in order to alleviate the levels of poverty found in Central Asia, and that political liberalisation can be introduced subsequently. In this way, this different ordering of priorities within the Shanghai spirit is presented as reflecting the regional context and values of its members’ leaderships. Evolutionary approach The creation of an effective framework is complicated by the unwillingness of the leaderships of the SCO’s member states to cede any form of national sovereign decision-making power to a common regional body. In light of this, the SCO seeks to promote norms of practice and a common spirit as the basis of its organisational framework. This approach mitigates the concerns of the member states’ leaderships about maintaining sovereign freedom, and at the same time is conducive to developing further cooperation. In this way, the development of the SCO agenda is the product of communication and agreement between its member states, rather than a predetermined plan. Hence the SCO does not develop by design, but instead is evolving by virtue of common values and a unique bureaucratic way of development (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). Chinese analyst Chen Xulong (2007, personal interview, 20 June) considers that the SCO is an evolutionary mechanism, because

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when the initial border demarcation negotiations were conducted within the Shanghai mechanism in the mid-1990s, there was no grand design to create a full regional organisation, and instead the SCO emerged out of the perceived success of the Shanghai process up to that point. In fact the SCO has progressed through a number of evolutionary phases. It has completed institution-building (2001–04) and agendaexpanding phases (2004–07), reaching agreement among its members on the functioning structures and foci of the organisation, which has allowed it to move into a third phase (2007–) centred on the implementation of previous agreements. The value of the SCO’s evolutionary approach is acknowledged by officials, with the Kyrgyz foreign minister stating that ‘the mutual definition of the Shanghai solidarity and national interests of our states enabled the formation of a common infrastructural aim in the economic, energy and other spheres in less than a decade’.41 In accounting for this progression of the SCO agenda, Morozov emphasises the evolutionary mindset to the development of the SCO, stating that ‘SCO as a unique international organisation of multiform cooperation is a trail blazer, as it were. This is why many problems facing it are resolved by the “trial and error” method’ (Morozov 2009, 169). Furthermore, a leading Russian official emphasises that one of the most important elements of the organisation is its unique internal logic and culture, which up to the present has enabled its members to find agreement on a wide variety of issues by creating an environment in which unexpected solutions to some divisive issues have been found and agreed upon (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). This internal culture of collaboration is seen as meaning that ‘the tasks of the SCO are not established once and for all, but form within a process of cooperation, therefore its functions develop in parallel with its structural characteristics and, correspondingly, also possesses the potential for expansion’ (Zhao 2005, 13). By developing patterns and practices of cooperation on issues of common interest and importance to the member states’ leaderships, the SCO has created an impetus and background of collaboration, which has led to the development of further common interests and greater collaboration in these areas. On the basis of this logic, regional analysts have argued that cooperation in the field of security, and particularly in countering the ‘three evils’, is laying the foundations for emerging economic cooperation. Many regional analysts consider the foci of the SCO as complementary, but sequential, with security cooperation leading to other avenues of collaboration, whereby ‘an effective struggle with the “three evils”

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creates the necessary conditions for successful socio-economic development of the member states of the organisation’ (Sultanov 2008a). Indeed, once the institutional framework of the SCO was put in place, from 2004 to 2007, the member states discussed an expansion of the agenda, and agreed to focus on greater economic cooperation and latterly the development of cultural and social cooperation projects. Some regional analysts argue that this evolution is possible because ‘the member states are invariably emphasising not the confrontational, but the cooperative nature of their organisation’ (Arkhangel’skii 2007). Different interpretations of the Shanghai spirit Although the Shanghai spirit is widely acknowledged as an important part of the SCO’s development, because it enabled the SCO to keep pace with the political will of its members, there are variations in the perception of its value by the leaderships of the member states. China is perceived by the other members as the main proponent of the Shanghai spirit and the orientation of the organisation along such a normative course. Regional analysts often argue that ‘SCO was set up on China’s initiative, which needed a lever of influence in Central Asia’ (Syroezhkin 2008) and ‘to answer the threat of Uighur separatism’ (Komissina and Kurtov 2006, 89). Aware of this perception amongst many in the other member states, Chinese scholar Shi Yinhong (personal interview, 1 July 2007) noted that the Chinese leadership is aware that it cannot be seen to be controlling the SCO agenda, and hence Chinese diplomats are very patient and pragmatic when programmes sponsored by Beijing are not realised.42 The Chinese leadership advocates the Shanghai spirit as a formula to facilitate coordination between diverse states. In fact the Chinese leadership perceive the value of the SCO and its norms of practice as stretching beyond Central Asia. As Wang (2007, 118) outlines, ‘Beijing attempts, among other things, to demonstrate through the SCO that . . . countries with different civilisations and social systems could coexist in peace without democratising domestic systems, as the democratic peace advocates would argue’. Indeed, in 2006 Chinese President Hu Jintao stated that ‘though there are big differences among the SCO member states in ideology, culture and level of economic development, the reason why the SCO has made such rapid progress and outstanding achievements lies in our insistence on the Shanghai Spirit’.43 In some respects it is certainly plausible to argue that the Chinese leadership sets the tone for the SCO. As a leading Chinese scholar

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points out, ‘from the very beginning the Shanghai Five-SCO reflected Beijing’s desire in establishing a norm-based and new kind of post-Cold War security order in the region’ (Wang 2007, 116). As a result, certain key principles of Chinese foreign policy are embedded within the SCO. An example of this is the concentration on high-level diplomacy within the SCO, with a lot of weight placed upon the annual meeting of the heads of state and other high-level officials. However, it is also noteworthy that, by and large, these principles have been deemed acceptable and relevant by the leaderships of the other SCO member states. The head of the SCO Division of Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs argued that the Shanghai spirit is integral to the SCO because although the member states have quite different political, economic and cultural characteristics, they do share some common values and the SCO has been able to emphasise these (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). The Russian leadership in particular is a strong proponent of the Shanghai spirit and its role in the progression of the SCO. A Russian official outlined that Chinese officials have introduced some very interesting and innovative ideas into the SCO, which have proven extremely beneficial and have been widely accepted amongst the other member states (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Former Russian President Vladimir Putin noted in an essay on the SCO, that the model for cooperation that we developed, the Shanghai Spirit, is increasingly in demand. Our organisation is founded on precise and clear principles. Among them are mutual trust, discussing any problems openly, resolving problems without exerting any kind of pressure, and consultations. In practice, these already constitute the SCO’s prominent features, features that we hope will increase the Organisation’s appeal in the eyes of the international community.44 Hence, many of the key principles of the Shanghai spirit are interpreted favourably by all the member states, including the Central Asian leaderships, which perceive the emphasis on the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs and high-profile rhetoric of the SCO summit as useful in asserting their legitimacy in the eyes of their populace on a multilateral stage. The greatest disparity in perceived value of the Shanghai spirit is between China and the Central Asian Republics, which do not view the SCO in the same symbolic terms as Beijing (Shi, Y., 2007, personal interview, 1 July). Taking the view that the Shanghai spirit is

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a distinctly Chinese collection of values, some Central Asian analysts argue that the Shanghai spirit has no importance to the SCO. For example, they view the Shanghai spirit as a code for enhancing Chinese influence in the region, and thus of little relevance to the priorities of the Central Asian Republics. From this perspective, Uzbek researcher Ablat Khodzhaev (2007) states that the SCO ‘is considered to be a Chinese channel for participation in the Central Asian states’ affairs’. This view stems from the perspective that leaderships of the Central Asian Republics adopt a very pragmatic strategic approach to their foreign policy, and as a result consider the development of common norms a low priority (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Although, the Central Asian leaderships do not consider the Shanghai spirit as forming the normative basis of their foreign policies, its central principle of non-interference in domestic affairs is at the forefront of their foreign policy agendas. Many Central Asia officials and analysts consider that US and other Western actors seek to interfere in and influence their domestic affairs through techniques of ‘soft’ power, primarily the promotion of pro-Western Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) and the supply of rhetorical and resource support to opposition groups (Khodjaev, A., 2007, personal interview, 29 May).45 In light of these perceptions, the Central Asian leaderships view the model of noninterference within the SCO as compatible with their perceived primary interests. In addition, the Central Asian elites consider that the Shanghai spirit keeps the SCO in line with the pace of change dictated by them, and serves to reassure them that they will not be held hostage to the interests of Russia and China. The Tajik Ambassador to China highlights that ‘ “Shanghai spirit” provided us with a very unique opportunity to fuse national interests with common concerns about the transformation of the region of the SCO to a territory of peace, stability and prosperity’ (Alimov 2008). In this respect, the Shanghai spirit has served the interests of the Central Asian leaderships by enabling them to seek the benefits of closer cooperation with their neighbours within a multilateral framework, without having to surrender any instruments of control over their domestic agendas.

A relevant model for regional cooperation in Central Asia Contrary to many analysts’ expectations, the SCO’s model of cooperation is proving both durable and acceptable to the leaderships of its member states. It has attracted a significant degree of political

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 47

investment from all member states, albeit without any prospect of ceding sovereignty. As outlined, the SCO has evolved through distinct phases of progression, suggesting that it is becoming an increasingly relevant and credible institution in the eyes of its member states’ leaderships. The degree of flexibility built into the SCO’s framework has enabled it to adapt to the rapidly evolving and changing political landscape of Central Asia. Indeed, some scholars note this with regard to its member states’ reaction to September 11, which has been seen as leading the SCO to shift its primary focus from economic cooperation to security. By concentrating on areas of common interests at an elite level, and ignoring those areas where disagreements exist, the SCO has created a solid base with ‘a high elasticity of existence’ (Zhao 2004, 310). However, the development of the institutional and functional base of the SCO should not be exaggerated. The SCO has yet to really establish itself as an actor capable of effectively impacting on all of the issues it claims to address. Some analysts argue that given the unstable and congested nature of the Central Asian security landscape and the hierarchical and weakly codified charter of the SCO, ‘it is hardly surprising that the SCO has hitherto failed to become much more than another of those alphabet soup security organisations where leaders and high-ranking officials meet and issue sonorous but empty communiqués about joint operations and cooperation’ (Blank 2004). Indeed, the practical output of the organisation is to a large extent constrained by its lack of a rigid treaty or constitution that enshrines significant leverage to enforce its decisions. The SCO has to operate according to its environment, and on some aspects of its agenda the domestic and external policies of its members are fairly diverse. As a result, it can be both a difficult and timeconsuming process to reach agreement on new programmes on the basis of informal discussions. This has tended to be especially acute with regard to economic projects. Beyond this, it is an even tougher task for the SCO to ensure that its programmes and policy are realised across its membership. On this basis, Zhao argues that ‘this is a structural problem whereby there is little avenue for the SCO to implement and enforce collective decisions according to its members’ will’ (Zhao 2006a, 111). A consequence of the SCO’s non-sovereign pooled design is that the SCO is restricted in terms of its recourse to ensuring its common agreements are realised. Yet in spite of these significant restrictions on its functional capacity, the SCO is held in relatively high esteem as a functional structure

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by regional officials and analysts. In a poll of Kazakhstani experts, the SCO was ‘regarded as the most efficient regional Central Asian structure’ (Abdrakhmanova 2008). This suggests that officials and analysts in Central Asia acknowledge the political reality of the region, whereby national leaderships are unwilling to concede any form of national sovereignty, making far-reaching political integration unlikely; taking this into account, the SCO has been relatively successful as a functional tool. As outlined above, the SCO seeks to overcome its lack of legal resources by laying the foundations for the establishment of a normative community, and this has had some impact on the region already. However, at present, there remain some significant limitations to the SCO’s ability to socialise its members into a common group. One of the most important is simply that the SCO is a relatively new organisation and as yet has not had sufficient time to successfully socialise its members into a common normative community. At this stage in its development, the SCO needs to act in coherence with the national interests of its membership to ensure its survival and development. The incentives for the leaderships of its member states to accept a highly bureaucratic and disciplined regional organisation do not exist at present, and they continue to perceive a strong multilateral organisation as detrimental to regime security. They are reluctant to cede any control over domestic affairs, and this is reflected in the SCO’s consensus-based, decision-making structures and focus on informal discussion. At present, a high-level political focus is ingrained in the design of the SCO. According to a Kazakh official, practical cooperation between member states’ agencies and bureaucracies is regularised, with increasingly frequent meetings held at a working level (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). As a result, at an expert and political elite level there is broad agreement on the development of the SCO. However, this has led some analysts to describe the SCO as a mechanism designed to ensure regular government-level interaction between its member states and not much more than that, with others noting that cooperation, interaction and contacts outside of the yearly summits are not common (Expert, International Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, 2007, personal interview, 19 April).46 Although the organisation has established a permanently functioning spine, this does not represent any significant devolution of sovereignty away from its constituent states. As noted earlier, the permanent officials within the Secretariat and the RATS work, in theory, for the organisation and not for the

The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation 49

member states. However, their roles are restricted to technical support, with little scope to determine the direction of the agenda. Although the SCO contains elements of low-level cooperation, its framework is based overwhelmingly on top-level political cooperation, and to a large degree on the pomp and ceremony of high-level diplomacy. Indeed, the main challenges identified by officials and analysts in the region are to fulfil the agreements and programmes reached at the high-political level, and thus create lower-political and wider linkages between the member states. As Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva (2006) note, ‘only if it can draw up a specific regional strategy and, most importantly, put it into practice, without remaining at the level of bureaucratic paperwork, will this regional structure be able to provide answers to the transnational challenges facing its participants and play a dominant role in forming the region’s geopolitics’. The recent focus on widening the scope of cooperation within the SCO would, to some degree, increase the level of local links between the member states. The SCO has proposed creating common education standards, regular meetings between the member states’ Supreme Court judges to harmonise the region’s legal framework, as well as increasing communication between local businessmen within the Business Council and officials in the SCO Energy Club (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). However, a vice-director of the Institute for International Economy and International Relations in Moscow noted that these projects have yet to be fully implemented, and at the present time, a lack of effective mechanisms to enact political decision-making in a coordinated manner has limited such implementation (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May).47 In addition to limited low-level linkages, the capacity of the SCO to implement its programmes is hampered by reliance on the political will and the resources of its member states’ national governments. The SCO’s permanently functioning organs remain reliant on state resources, and are largely restricted in their mandate to the implementation of decisions and policy developed by the annual summit of the Council of Heads of State and within other regular or irregular meetings of state-level representatives. As a result, the direction of the SCO is developed by national elites who have only intermittent contact with the organisation and little understanding of it. The main decision-making power within the organisation is wielded by actors who proceed from a state rather than the organisation’s perspective. This differentiates the SCO from other regional organisations, such as the EU, that are built on political integration, whereby the organisation is able to wield a

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certain degree of influence and power over its member states by virtue of legal coordination and high levels of local cooperation. This has led several regional analysts to argue that in order for the SCO to fulfil its agenda effectively, it needs to develop greater low-level collaboration between its member states and populations (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). However, a common view among both regional officials and experts is that the SCO needs time to develop into an effective mechanism, and its current evolutionary approach is the best method in this regard. A scholar from the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences notes that there is a possibility that the member states’ leaderships may consider ceding sovereignty to the SCO in the future, but first it needs to convince its member states’ elites that if they transfer a certain degree of sovereignty then they will receive more benefits in return than they will be losing by giving up control over domestic affairs (Expert, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 28 June). It is often argued by SCO officials that the EU’s model of supranational integration took over half a century to develop, and that the SCO is less than a decade old and hence supranational integration is not appropriate for the SCO’s current stage of development (Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June). Furthermore, the Central Asian regimes are very protective of their national sovereignty, and as such the regional context is not favourable to the creation of a supranational organisation. In spite of certain limitations, the development of the SCO should be seen as a success from the perspective of its main aim to establish itself within the region. It has achieved this by maintaining its relevance to its member states’ leaderships. This study argues that the member states perceive regime security as their main priority and this is reflected in the framework of the SCO. Its loosely codified design allows its member states’ elites to coordinate their approaches to regime security within a format that does not challenge their zealously-guarded state sovereignty. A Russian scholar notes that what has been important is the willingness of the member states’ agencies to work together, and this has generated a greater understanding between them, even if the results of that cooperation are limited (Expert, International Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, 2007, personal interview, 19 April). Indeed, the primarily normative approach of the SCO to regional cooperation has ‘allowed the organisation to progress in pace with the political will of the states’ (Swanström 2004, 45).

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The loose and non-binding nature of the SCO’s framework has enabled it to develop and evolve, in spite of the different speeds of collaboration envisioned by its member states’ leaderships. Furthermore, its voluntary, consensual and informal approach creates the impetus for the SCO to continue to move forward, even if a particular member state has reservations on a certain issue. On this basis, the Kyrgyz analyst Sergei Slepchenko (2008) argues that out of the principles of the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ the most effective principle is of a ‘network organisation’ i.e. one or other projects are achieved by those willing to participate, but the other states do not even sign up to. In this way, the circle of existing problems is sharply decreased. This logic focuses on emphasising that if the member states see the SCO as broadly beneficial to their interests, it will not be derailed by minor political disagreements. This approach has also yielded some tangible agreements and programmes. According to a former SCO Secretary General, the SCO has initiated 120 projects related to security, customs cooperation, cross-border transportation, harmonisation of laws and regulations, energy, and railway construction.48 Following the logic of path dependency, the programmes already developed within the SCO are providing real value and benefit in the eyes of its member elites, and as a result these leaderships are more inclined than previously to accept a more comprehensive form of institutionalisation, as seen with the creation of permanent functioning bodies in 2004. Although the SCO lacks the interlocking bonds of political integration, it is providing a forum for regular and practical cooperation between and among its member states at an increasing number of ministerial levels. As a result, the SCO is very slowly ingraining itself as an integral part of the foreign policies of its member states, a process which can be speeded up if the SCO is able successfully to carry out the range of projects agreed in principle between its members in the next few years. In this way, cooperation within the SCO can be seen as preparing the ground for a harmonised normative framework, distinct from the Western-inspired model of political integration that emphasises a common legal framework. In terms of its institutional role, leading Chinese expert Zhao Huasheng (2007, personal interview, 18 July) defines the SCO as a unique model, because it reflects neither the EU nor ASEAN, but should be considered as being closer to ASEAN than the EU because

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it is primarily non-codified and centred on building common norms. Without any ceding of sovereignty, the SCO’s promotion of common norms has gone some way to establishing it as a valuable, trustworthy and reliable mechanism for the national leaderships of the region. As some regional analysts assert, this approach ‘has provided a very strong foundation on which to widen and deepen cooperation between the member states’ (Orazalin 2007, 70). Indeed, the SCO’s evolutionary approach is advocated by its officials and regional proponents as representing a new model for regional cooperation, which stems from the specific historical experience and values amongst its membership. The former SCO Secretary General, Zhang Deguang, argues that the ‘SCO is totally different from the European Union, which represents a traditional model of the regional integration begun with economic cooperation and based on regional and civilisation unity’ and, by contrast, ‘SCO is a unique experiment in the field of modern international relations’.49 Furthermore, one Chinese analyst distinguishes between the SCO and the EU and NATO, by arguing that the SCO is based on openness while the EU and NATO are exclusive clubs with ideological standpoints (Chen, X. 2007, personal interview, 20 June). Therefore regional officials and analysts often distinguish the approach of the SCO from that found in Western regional organisations on the basis that it represents a framework constructed to reflect the regional context of Central Asia, and not of Western Europe. The SCO’s flexible and evolutionary approach is considered by some regional analysts as a model not entirely understood in Western interpretations of the SCO. Two leading Chinese analysts outlined their view that the SCO is a problem for Western theories of International Relations because concepts of alliances and supranational integration are not evident within China’s perceptions of a regional organisation. Indeed, they argue that China’s approach, which is distinct from Western theories, has been accepted by the other member states and has influenced the dynamic of the SCO. As a result, the concrete purposes and objectives that are assumed as vital in prevailing Western theoretical ideas about multilateral cooperation are not as evident within the SCO. Instead, as argued by a leading Chinese scholar from the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an emphasis is placed on the process of evolution, whereby China and the other member states are not afraid of the organisation changing over time, as it is believed the organisation will adapt to reflect the main interests of its members (Expert, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 28 June).50 This flexible and evolutionary outlook is perhaps more relevant to the context of contemporary Central Asia than to political integration.

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A leading Chinese scholar considers that the Central Asian Republics are very different states from those found in Western Europe, because they are in a period of state-building and, taking this into account, an EU-type organisation would not be valid (Zhao, H., 2007, personal interview, 18 July). Instead, the SCO has proven that a mechanism which does not threaten national sovereignty but which its member states’ leaderships can rely on to support regime security, is seen as relevant in the eyes of the region’s elites. Although this model imposes restrictions on the degree of integration and harmonisation, it does enable the member states to remain focused on areas of common interest and not on issues that are the subject of long-term dispute.

Conclusion The framework of the SCO largely reflects the Central Asian regional landscape and the perspectives of the member states that it represents. As a result, it has become an important element in its member states’ foreign policies. However, the reluctance of the member states’ leaderships to participate in binding multilateral structures because of concerns about ceding sovereignty creates very significant caveats to its effectiveness. To accommodate these caveats, the SCO is strongly interstate in design, with very limited elements of supranationalism, in order to reassure its member states that it is not challenging their ultimate political authority. It is also largely elite-focused, with the national leaderships controlling its agenda. As a result, the organs of the SCO are limited in their capacity to impact on national affairs and in their ability to ensure that their programmes are implemented nationally. To overcome a lack of codified power, the SCO presents an agenda that appeals to what its members’ leaderships perceive as their primary concerns. From this position, it has sought to develop a harmonised normative community. In this way, it is attempting to establish patterns of collaborative behaviour, in the hope that its member states come to see cooperation within the SCO as an integral part of their foreign policies. Due to its member states’ perceptions of the SCO’s agenda as relevant to their primary aims, the SCO has been able, to some degree, to embed itself into the mindsets and regional outlook of the regional elites. In this respect the SCO is more similar to ASEAN and other Asian regional organisations than to the EU, because ASEAN is also primarily based on norms. As a result of the SCO’s focus on promoting the Shanghai spirit, it has become a prominent part of the regional picture in Central Asia.

3 The Member States’ Perceptions: Security, Regional Cooperation and the SCO

As has been outlined, this book considers it essential to examine how a regional organisation’s member states perceive security and regional cooperation, in order to evaluate that regional organisation and assess what value it has for its member states. This chapter thus analyses the perceptions of member states’ leaderships in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) regarding security and multilateral cooperation, and how these have fashioned their outlook on the SCO in terms of its focus and the nature of cooperation within its framework. On the basis of this analysis, the chapter investigates the degree of commonality between the member states’ leaderships’ visions of the SCO, and whether its agenda and framework is considered as valuable across its member states. In addition, the chapter examines the impact that the SCO has had on its member states’ perspectives on multilateralism.

China Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chinese elites had begun a process of altering the orientation of China’s foreign policy, from an overwhelmingly inward focus to a more outward-looking perspective. An important aspect of this process has been the active promotion of the ‘good neighbour policy’, which aims to ensure favourable external relations with all the states along China’s vast periphery.1 As part of this strategy, the development of positive relations with the newly independent Central Asian Republics became a high priority. At the same time, the Chinese leadership has considered development of a normative agenda an important aspect of foreign policy. As an emerging world superpower, China has begun to pay greater attention to the wider international system. Its leadership perceives that as a leading 54

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world power, China should play a role in establishing the norms of behaviour and expectation that should constitute the international system. Wang (2007, 119) argues that ‘China firmly believes that the new reality of world politics requires some norms and principles’ and that China ‘is determined to have a say in formulating these’. The SCO is a very important element in this process. To date the SCO is the only major regional multilateral organisation that China was a member of at the time of its founding, and over which it has had such a large influence. Indeed, the Chinese leadership has invested significant political and diplomatic will in the development of the SCO. As Yahuda (2007, 76) argues, in embracing ‘multilateral associations of states . . . . China has not only changed fundamentally the character of its relations with neighbouring countries, but it has also begun to challenge, and perhaps change, the character of international order within its region’. The collapse of the Soviet Union provided a new set of security challenges for China along its western flank. Against this background, the Chinese leadership considered the resolution of long-term border disputes with Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan a priority. However, a greater security challenge in the eyes of the Chinese elites was the creation of a number of politically unstable and economically weak states on the border of Xinjiang province, whose native Uighur population have long sought independence from Beijing. The presence of Uighur separatist groups and sympathisers operating freely in the Central Asian Republics caused great alarm in Beijing and is a very strong motivating factor behind China’s promotion of the SCO mechanism (see Yermukanov 2005b). This is illustrated by China’s 2002 ‘Position Paper on the New Security Concept’, which notes that ‘the SCO is a successful case of the new security concept’, whereby it ‘has taken the lead in making an unequivocal stand and proposition of combating terrorism, separatism and extremism’.2 Indeed, Marketos (2009, 12) argues that ‘SCO can be seen to have its origins in China’s “Xinjiang problem” ’. To this end, a number of agreements on tackling Uighur separatism have been reached between the Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Chinese governments, parts of which were conducted under the auspices of the SCO. These agreements and the SCO programmes have led to the Kazakh and Kyrgyz authorities cracking down on Uighur groups on their territory. In recent years, according to most observers, the threat from Islamicinspired terrorism and separatism in China has declined substantially and the SCO is seen by the Chinese authorities as a key contributing factor in this (Zhao, H., 2007, personal interview, 18 July). Nonetheless, the Chinese leadership still considers Uighur separatism a priority

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issue in the long term, and as such it perceives the SCO as a very useful tool in addressing this issue: ‘within the SCO, China can be secure in the assurance that its fellow members will not only accept each others’ characterisations of their various dissidents, but engage in practical national and multinational efforts to suppress such elements and keep all borders closed against them’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 14). Following large-scale rioting and clashes between the Uighur and Han Chinese populations in Urumqi in July 2009, the then SCO Secretary General Bolat Nurgaliev issued a statement expressing that ‘the SCO member states consider the XUAR [Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region] to be an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China and believe whatever happens there is a solely internal affair of the PRC’.3 In addition to this support with regard to Xinjiang, the Chinese leadership appreciates the solidarity expressed in the SCO statements on its long-term security interests in Taiwan and Tibet. As well as causing concerns about new security challenges, the collapse of the Soviet Union was also seen by China’s elites as creating new opportunities for economic trade and cooperation with a region with which it had had little contact previously. Matusov (2007, 84) notes that the Chinese leadership perceives its main economic interests in Central Asia as ‘seeking raw materials for its manufacturing sector as well as markets for its consumer products’. Taking these aims into account, the SCO is seen as very attractive because ‘the Central Asian Republics and Russia are rich in natural resources and pose as potential markets for Chinese goods’ (Matusov 2007, 84). In fact the Chinese Foreign Ministry often expresses the view that ‘we [China] attach great importance to various forms of economic and trade cooperation within the framework of the SCO’.4 In recent years, China has been increasingly active in negotiating access to Central Asian raw materials. Liao highlights that ‘China’s energy diplomacy towards Central Asia has indeed enabled it to gain a strong foothold in the region over the past decade, and Central Asia is today one of the most dynamic locations for Chinese oil companies operating abroad’ (Liao 2006, 61). As a result of the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, and its huge production levels of consumer goods, China’s leadership considers there to be enormous economic benefit in easier or preferential access to the relatively untapped consumer markets of the Central Asian Republics.5 Chinese economic experts, Gaël Raballand and Agnès Andrésy noted in 2007 that ‘trade volume between Central Asia and China has tripled since 2002’ (Raballand and Andrésy 2007, 235). This aim of gaining access to Central Asian markets for Chinese goods seems likely to continue to grow, because the Chinese political elites view the

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development of its western provinces as a priority.6 To this end, China advocates the development of micro-level economic projects within the SCO, aimed at reducing trade barriers and eventually the creation of an SCO common market. At a meeting of the SCO Heads of Government in September 2006, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao proposed a free trade zone within the organisation.7 As outlined above, the Chinese leadership has come to view foreign policy as more of a priority in recent years, and central to this vision is the promotion of certain norms and values in China’s relations with other states. Kurlantzick argues that the Chinese leadership is pursuing a soft power strategy, whereby soft power refers to its ‘ability to influence by persuasion rather than coercion’, which is pursued by ‘various means, including culture, diplomacy, participation in multinational organisations, businesses’ actions abroad, and the gravitational pull of a nation’s economic strength’ (Kurlantzick 2006). Indeed, China’s foreign policy can be characterised as increasingly focused on promoting norms. As Cabestan (2008, 206) argues, China often tends ‘to make good use of the EU’s soft power, as opposed to the US’s hard power’. The Chinese leadership has focused on certain regions in its foreign policy, seeking to increase its influence in these regions via this soft power approach. The main perceived normative aim for China in Central Asia is challenging the existing negative perceptions of China in Central Asia, in order to ‘make it easier for Chinese actors, from language schools to business people, to have an effect on the ground’ (Kurlantzick 2006, 1). In recent years, the Chinese government has established Confucius institutes across the world, to teach the Chinese language and establish cultural communication with other countries, thereby socialising other states into accepting a Chinese influence in their countries. The original Confucius Institute was established in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 2004 and others have been created in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The SCO is seen by the Chinese leadership as an important method of facilitating greater exchange between the peoples of Central Asia and China. A recent initiative to this end is an SCO educational scholarship scheme, whereby students from all the SCO member countries can apply for a scholarship to study at Chinese universities, funded by the Ministry of Education of China.8 Another aspect of the Chinese leaderships’ expression of soft power has been the promotion of certain norms at a regional and international level. China’s elites often seek to present its normative agenda as a more reasoned and respectful approach, than the moralising and interfering norms promotion of some Western actors (Experts, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007, personal interviews, 28 June). The SCO is viewed

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by Beijing as an important part of its attempts to recast normative landscapes. The Chinese leadership has often touted the SCO as a model of ‘new interstate relations’, a ‘new security concept’ and a ‘new model of regional cooperation’. Central to this model are the rules, beliefs and values contained within the organisation. In this context, a leading Chinese scholar points out that ‘SCO has had a strong “demonstrative effect” in the formation of new models and new thinking for Chinese diplomacy at the turn of the 21st century’ (Pan 2007, 45). Therefore the SCO is seen as having great symbolic importance for China because it ‘has an interest in showing that it can build an international bloc independent of the West and organised on non-Western principles’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 13). The various perceived functions that the SCO has for China’s foreign policy have led the Chinese leadership to interpret the SCO as the cornerstone of its strategy in Central Asia. The Chinese political elites consider that the promotion of security within the SCO has reduced the scale of the Uighur separatist threat stemming from the Central Asian side of its western border, and has enabled the development of new economic links between China and the Central Asian Republics. A leading Chinese expert has outlined that the Chinese leadership’s perception of the SCO has shifted from initially a defensive move to tackle separatists and resolve border disputes, to a more positive outlook on the framework as an avenue through which it can develop markets for trade and secure access to energy resources (Shi, Y., 2007, personal interview, 1 July). In addition, the Chinese leadership views the SCO as playing an important role in demystifying negative perceptions of China within the Central Asian Republics. This process is seen as important for the long-term aim of creating a free-trade area in the SCO, because at present, concerns about Chinese intentions and strength dissuade the other members from accepting this development. Therefore, as well as being seen as a vital part of its Central Asian strategy, the SCO is thought to have wider importance for the development of Chinese foreign policy. As the Chinese leadership perceives itself to have had a strong influence on the development of the SCO, it is considered that the ‘SCO has provided the most visible model of Beijing’s New Security Concept via the use of informal cooperation and communitybuilding rather than through hierarchical alliances’ (Lanteigne 2005, 139/40). In this way, the SCO is seen by the Chinese leadership as a significant case study for its foreign policy in other regions. Pan argues that the shape of China’s approach to relations with ASEAN, the EU and the African Union is based on ‘the current Chinese diplomatic principle

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of befriending and benefiting neighbours has been based firmly on the SCO success story and other related experiences’ (Pan 2008, 253).

Russia Under the presidency of Vladimir Putin, Russian foreign policy has sought to present Russia as an international power (Monaghan 2008; Sakwa 2008b; Stent 2008). As part of this programme, the reclaiming of Russia’s place as the leading power in the former Soviet space has been seen as a priority (Sakwa 2008a, 293). This focus on the post-Soviet space is interpreted by many as one part of a wider programme aimed at recapturing the status of a ‘great power’. The 2008 Russian Foreign Policy Concept outlines that ‘Russia, just like other countries in the world, has regions where it has its privileged interests. In these regions, there are countries with which we have traditionally had friendly cordial relations, historically special relations’.9 The same document also identifies that the ‘development of bilateral and multilateral cooperation with CIS Member States constitutes a priority area of Russia’s foreign policy’.10 With these aims in mind, by the early 2000s the Russian leadership came to consider the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as ineffective, having become paralysed by disagreement,11 and switched its focus towards more exclusive multilateral cooperative frameworks.12 The Russian elites perceived developing regional frameworks with those states most inclined to cooperation with Moscow as the best method to reassert its leadership over parts of the post-Soviet space. As Rahr suggests, ‘Russia has understood that it has no future building a new reintegration model with countries like Ukraine or Georgia, which are heading westward . . . so Moscow is moving toward the east, toward the Central Asian states, which are eager to have some kind of alliance with Russia’ (cited in Bigg 2007). In this context, the Russian leadership views Central Asia as a key region. It is thought that Central Asia is well-disposed to cooperation with Russia because of Moscow’s past domination of the region, and the preservation of significant political, economic and human linkages between the Central Asian Republics and Russia. To this end, the SCO is considered by Russian elites to be one of its key tools for expanding its relations with the Central Asian states. The Russian leadership sees the SCO as an important element in its security policy in a number of respects. It views its own security as directly related to Central Asia, because Russia shares a long porous border with the region, and it is considered that security challenges in Central Asia have the potential to spread north over the border

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into Russia’s ‘soft southern underbelly’ (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Of particular concern to Moscow is the movement of Islamic and other radical secessionist groups from Central Asia to the Russian North Caucasus. Also, the flow of illegal narcotics from Afghanistan through Central Asia into Russia and on to Europe is interpreted as a major security challenge by the Russian leadership. Against this background, the Russian leadership considers the SCO agenda as highly relevant to what it perceives as its security priorities. In addition to the benefits for its own security, the SCO is seen to be valuable because Russian elites believe that supporting the regime security of the leaderships in Central Asia is in Russia’s own interests. It views the current regimes as, by and large, sympathetic to Moscow and also it is feared that an alternative regime might choose to concentrate more on its relations with other states. As well as engaging with Central Asia for security purposes, the Russian leadership also interprets economic cooperation as important for ensuring its predominant place in the region, and its position as the Central Asian Republics’ most important trade partner. Alongside an emphasis on building bilateral economic relations, Moscow considers multilateral economic cooperation as key. The Russian leadership has identified clear economic objectives for the SCO, which mainly focus upon energy and developing existing trade links. At the 2006 SCO Shanghai Summit, President Putin stated that ‘there are many ways in which our countries’ economies complement each other. For that reason we have a huge range of possibilities for cooperation in energy, developing natural resources, modernising transport infrastructure and in other sectors’.13 As one analyst states, ‘Russia values the SCO as a means for cooperation in infrastructure development and – most desirable of all – for coordination of its energy policies among itself, China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan’ (Troitskii 2007, 36). This focus on energy is also born out of the perceived need to increase Russia’s role in the wider East Asian economy, in order to establish itself as an important energy supplier to the rapidly expanding states of that region. Indeed, ‘on various occasions during the autumn of 2006, high-ranking Russian officials – including President Putin – vowed to increase the share of Russia’s total oil exports to Asia to 30 per cent over the next 10–15 years’ (Troitskii 2007, 42). However, Russian ambitions for economic cooperation within the SCO are limited to certain sectors and predominately to large-scale infrastructural and energy projects. In general, the Russian leadership interprets microeconomic cooperative projects in the SCO as being

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against its interests (Oldberg 2007, 29). Instead, it appears that Russia prefers to develop such economic coordination within the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), thus excluding China. In 2010, a customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan came into operation, with the expectation that by 2012 a single economic space between the three countries would be realised. The background to these agreements was developed in part within the auspices of EurAsEC, and the inclusion of other EurAsEC member states at a later stage has been discussed. The Russian leadership considers that the strength of the Chinese economy means that a free trade agenda in the SCO would lead to Chinese domination of the other member states’ economies. This concern also plays an important role in Russia’s approach to bilateral economic relations with China. Moscow is seen as restricting the development of the huge trade potential between the economically weak regions of Russia’s Far East and North-Western China because of political considerations about growing Chinese influence in these regions. Within the SCO, some in Moscow fear that, given China’s superior economic capacity, Russia would not be able to compete and would as a result lose a number of lucrative economic deals with the Central Asian Republics, and that this would lead to Russia being displaced as the dominant economic, and potentially political, external influence on the region (Malashenko, A., 2007, personal interview, 7 May).14 By only focusing on trade and customs cooperation within multilateral frameworks comprised of only post-Soviet states, the Russia leadership considers that its importance as the hub of the Soviet Union’s economic infrastructure is not threatened. Central Asia is also an important region symbolically for Russia, as a representation of its great power status. The so-called colour revolutions of 2003–05 led Russian political elites to perceive their influence within the post-Soviet space as being undermined by outside interference. Following these events, Moscow has sought to provide greater support to those Central Asian elites who are concerned about similar uprisings, and the Russian leadership view the SCO as valuable in this regard (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). The SCO is also considered as having a wider normative role for Russia. Since the SCO’s inception, the Russian Foreign Ministry has noted that ‘the Shanghai Cooperation Organization . . . . in the long term can play the role of one of the major pillars of a multipolar world pattern’.15 The Russian leadership increasingly interprets the approach of leading Western powers towards Russia as negative, especially considering the West’s failure,

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in the eyes of Russian elites, to recognise Russia as a great power (Sakwa 2008b). As Morozov (2009, 175) outlines, ‘in other international organisations (the European Union, NATO, IMF, and others) Russian initiatives are often ignored or not realised (CIS), or blocked by unfriendly countries (within the framework of UN and OSCE)’. Furthermore, the Russian leadership has encountered a number of disagreements with Western states and institutions over normative issues in recent years, leading to official Russian declarations criticising the ‘double standards’ of Western powers on international affairs (Makarychev 2008). In this context, participation within a multilateral framework, including a rising superpower, China, and in which the Russian leadership believes it has more scope to influence the direction and nature of its normative base, is considered as a valuable tool for Russia in asserting its place in international affairs. Since the upturn in relations between Moscow and Beijing in the 1990s, the two leaderships have established a degree of solidarity on interpretations of the contemporary international system, with both perceiving that alternative models to the Western liberal-democratic international system are necessary. Hence the development of norms in the SCO is not only important for China, it is also seen as significant by the Russian leadership as ‘Russia has sought to demonstrate the viability of a “Eurasian integration” model that is independent from, and an alternative to, its political dialogue with the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) or the pattern of Russia’s engagement with the United States since the end of the Cold War’ (Troitskii 2007, 32). The SCO is thus viewed by the Russian leadership as having contributed to presenting its viewpoint on a number of significant international events, especially when this viewpoint is contrary to the position taken by leading Western states. However, as distinct from China, the SCO is not the only multilateral framework in which Russia plays an important role. Indeed, the SCO is not considered as central to Russia’s Central Asian strategy as it is for China’s regional strategy. Nonetheless, the SCO is interpreted as a significant element of Russian foreign policy in Central Asia, and also as significant for developing relations with China, but, at the same time, the Russian leadership prefers to also maintain strong bilateral and other multilateral frameworks within the region.

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is considered by many analysts as the most successful of the Central Asian Republics (Trenin 2007, 77). The presentation of

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itself as the natural political leader of the Central Asian Republics is an important element of Kazakh foreign policy. As outlined by an official in the Kazakh Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ Forecasting Institute, ‘Astana is not hiding its long-term geopolitical and geo-economic ambitions. There can be no doubt that the country is interested in retaining its role of regional leader, outstripping its neighbours in all the main parameters of national might’ (Shaikhutdinov 2009). The Kazakh leadership is widely seen as having been relatively successful in this regard. The importance of Kazakhstan was demonstrated by the fact that newly elected Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev chose to visit Astana on his maiden visit abroad. Although outmatched in military terms by its traditional regional rival Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan has sought to capitalise on its valuable geostrategic location as a link between Asia, the Middle East and Europe, as well as on its natural resources, in order to establish itself as the most advanced economy in the region. Since independence, the Nazarbayev regime has perceived the pursuit of a multi-vector foreign policy as valuable for its aims of maximising the benefits of its significant raw material and advantageous geographical position. In this respect, Kazakh analysts emphasise the multidimensional identity of Kazakh foreign policy. The head of the Department of International Relations at the Kazakh State University, Al-Farabi, argues that Kazakh foreign policy is formulated primarily in reaction to the policies of Russia, China or the US and not from an internal basis (Kukeyeva, F., 2007, personal interview, 17 May).16 As a result, Kazakhstan has developed good relations with a varied collection of states, including Russia, China, Turkey, the EU and the US (Oldberg 2007, 34). Cummings argues that this multivector foreign policy ‘is driven both by heterogeneity at home and the need, as a landlocked state, to secure multiple pipelines routes and markets abroad’ (Cummings 2003, 50). Although the leadership of Kazakhstan argues that it pursues a multivector foreign policy, the some vectors are seen as having greater importance than others. The legacy of the Soviet Union and the continuing development of strong connections with Russia are perceived by the Kazakh leadership as ensuring that Russia has a very important role in Kazakh foreign policy. Indeed, reciprocally, Kazakhstan is viewed by the Russian leadership as its closest ally in the region. In this way, while Astana seeks to maintain a positive relationship with a variety of countries, it also continues to position itself within the Russian orbit (Oldberg 2007, 36). This can be seen by Kazakhstan’s membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), and participation in the three-way customs union project with Russia and Belarus. In this light, Astana

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has come to consider its foreign policy as based on striking the optimal balance between a multivector foreign policy and ensuring itself an influential role in the most important vector for its interests, the post-Soviet space. As a result, from one perspective, the Kazakh leadership views multilateral mechanisms as restricting its ability to pursue a multivector approach to foreign policy. From another perspective, Astana considers a regional multilateral framework as a favourable method for asserting its central role in the region. With regard to the latter concern, Kazakhstan has been one of the most active proponents of regional cooperative frameworks, such as the now defunct Central Asia Cooperation Organisation and CIS’s customs union. The Kazakh leadership views the SCO in the same light; although wary of being tied into a Russian–Chinese anti-Western agenda, Astana has been one of the most active members of the SCO. Indeed, the Kazakh leadership seeks to ensure that the SCO remains an open and non-sovereign binding framework, but also encourages the widening and development of its agenda. While the other Central Asian regimes view tackling the ‘three evils’ as a primary motivation for participation in the SCO, this consideration is seen as less significant by the Kazak leadership. At the same time, the Nazarbayev regime considers that events and instability in the rest of Central Asia possess the potential to impact negatively on their domestic situation. Akimbekov (2005) argues that ‘we can talk about a vast space of instability to the south of Kazakhstan’s borders. If the events in our “southern underbelly” spiral out of control, Kazakhstan runs the risk of being confronted with numerous negative problems.’ Nonetheless, although involved in a variety of anti-terrorist groupings and adopting anti-extremist and anti-separatist legislation, the Kazakh leadership, relative to other states in the region, views itself as relatively untouched by such challenges. There have been no large-scale terrorist or extremist actions on Kazakh territory, although several of the main anti-regime groups in the region are active, notably Hizb-utTahrir, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and East Turkestan Liberation Organisation. Taking this into account, Kazakhstan’s main role in security within the SCO has been cooperation with other member states, which consider that these threats are more acute. Indeed, Kazakhstan has been criticised by other member states for inaction in the face of the activities of terrorist, extremist and separatist groups on Kazakh soil: ‘in a February 7 interview with the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, the director of the SCO regional anti-terrorist unit, Vyacheslav Kasymov,

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accused Kazakhstan of harbouring terrorist organisations within its territory’ (Yermukanov 2005b). However, recently Kazakhstan has tightened up its security with regard to such extremist groups, largely in response to pressure from China about the activity of Uighur separatists on the Kazakh side of the Sino-Kazakh border. The Kazakh leadership consider that increased economic cooperation in the SCO is as important as security collaboration. Kazakhstan’s economy is growing rapidly and it is becoming a regional powerhouse. The Kazakh economy has been growing by almost 10 per cent per annum, and Kazakh GDP accounted for 78 per cent of the total combined GDP of the four other Central Asian members of the SCO in 2006.17 Against this background, the Kazakh leadership increasingly views greater access to the other Central Asian Republics’ domestic markets as important for further economic development, and also to cement its economic dominance of the region. From this perspective, Kazakhstan is one of the main driving forces behind the development of other regional trade agreements, such as the customs union agreement between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Prior to this, President Nazarbayev was also a rare supporter of supranationalism within the CIS, emphasising the importance of greater economic trade within the region (see Yermukanov 2005a). However, such ambitions to create regional economic mechanisms have often been undermined by the mutual suspicion that exists between the Central Asian Republics, which makes the negotiation of a common economic framework difficult.18 According to an expert in the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, the other Central Asian Republics are wary of tying themselves to an economic arrangement that serves to enshrine Astana as a regional leader by extending the relative gap in economic strength between Kazakhstan and the other states in the region (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007, personal interview, 10 May). The participation of Russia and China in the SCO is widely seen by the other Central Asian regimes as ensuring that Kazakhstan will not be able to design economic cooperation programmes that increase their position vis-à-vis other Central Asian Republics. This perception is viewed favourably by the Nazarbayev regime, which has regularly pushed for greater economic integration among the Central Asian Republics, because it has led the other Central Asian leaderships to engage in more regional economic coordination in the SCO, than they have been prepared to do within Central Asian only regional frameworks. The involvement of both Russia and China is also viewed as significant

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because of the greater access to markets and economic cooperation with larger states beyond the region. A resource-hungry China is interpreted as a huge potential market for Kazakh oil and gas pipelines, while Russia is Kazakhstan’s main economic partner, and the prospect of common energy supply-route agreements across Eurasia is seen as very lucrative by Kazakh elites. Indeed, many of the current projects under development within the SCO are to build up transport and energy links between Kazakhstan and Western China.19 In this way, the SCO’s economic agenda is considered by Astana as serving Kazakh interests in two respects, by fuelling its economic growth and by asserting Kazakhstan’s leading role in the regional economy. Within the SCO, the Kazakh leadership perceives it is able to balance its relations with Moscow and Beijing to its advantage, and hence position itself as the primary actor among the Central Asian Republics. In fact the Kazakh leadership is pushing for the SCO to take on a shape that enshrines a triumvirate of unofficial leaders of the organisation. The SCO is thus seen as a very important tool in Kazakhstan’s foreign policy. Former Kazakh foreign minister Kassymzhomart Tokaev notes that ‘Kazakhstan considers its participation in the SCO as one of the priority directions of its foreign policy and considers it an active and effective instrument of regional integration’.20 In the SCO, Astana is able to develop its interests and relations with the two most important external influences on Central Asia simultaneously. At the same time, a leading Kazakh analyst notes that the Kazakh leadership will not accept domination by other members, and Kazakhstan should be seen as a vital connecting actor between Russia and China (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). In this context, Kazakhstan seeks to situate itself alongside Russia and China as the driving force behind the SCO and assert that it is primus inter pares in the Central Asian region. The economic dimension is seen as very relevant by the Kazakh leadership, as an opportunity to develop large-scale energy and infrastructural projects to continue its rapid economic development. At the same time, Kazakhstan remains an active participant in other regional organisations and is developing bilateral relations with a variety of countries across the world. From this respect, the Kazakh leadership is keen to play down the rhetoric about the SCO as an alternative conception of regional cooperation, because it perceives this idea as detrimental to its relations with Western states and hence its multivector foreign policy. Taking this into account, were the SCO to take on a strong anti-Western aspect, then it is unlikely that Astana would continue to perceive the organisation as so significant for its foreign policy.

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Uzbekistan The Uzbek regime views its foreign policy as largely aimed at the twin goals of ensuring the survival of the existing regime of President Islam Karimov and the promotion of Uzbekistan as a major power in the region (Allison 2008b). To this end, Tashkent adopts a flexible and independent approach to foreign policy, whereby it seeks to foster strong relations with whichever states can contribute to this dual goal at any given time. Indeed, it is possible to characterise Uzbek foreign policy as having gone through several substantial changes in direction, continually refocusing away from actors that the Karimov regime perceived as hostile to regime security, towards those seen as more favourable. The most prominent example of this came in the wake of heavy criticism and subsequent sanctions by the Western international community for the Uzbek leadership’s action in suppressing an uprising in its Andijan province in 2005. Since then, Tashkent has considered it necessary to alter its foreign policy, cutting ties with the West and moving towards a closer relationship with Russia, and also China (Marquardt and Benderskii 2005). In November 2005, Russia and Uzbekistan signed a ‘Treaty on Allied Relations’, which strengthened security and military ties between the two countries. This agreement signified a distinct change in the Uzbek leadership’s perceptions of Russia from what had been relatively frosty relations between Tashkent and Moscow in previous years. Prior to 2005, Uzbek foreign policy placed ‘emphasis on bilateral over multilateral relations and the formation of ties with major Western states to offset Russian influence over Uzbek policy formation and to attract foreign investment’ (Allison 2008b, 3). In this way until the mid-2000s, Uzbekistan was often characterised as an awkward actor for cooperation in Central Asia. As Horsman (2003, 52) notes, ‘Tashkent’s limited support for multilateral bodies’ impacted on ‘regional confidence, cooperation and economic development’. Indeed, the Karimov regime’s perception of regional cooperation as something that undermines its independence ‘has been costly in terms of trust between it and its Central Asian neighbours and out-of-region states and international organisations’ (Horsman 2003, 50). However, in recent years the Uzbek regime has changed its view on regional multilateralism to a certain extent. As part of the perceived need to build stronger relations with Russia following Andijan, the Uzbek leadership chose to join the Russian-led regional organisations, EurAsEC and CSTO, in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Marquardt and Bendersky (2005) argue that ‘after the multifaceted foreign policy

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of the 1990s and early 21st century, Uzbekistan is moving toward a stronger partnership with players it perceives as reliable’. However, in November 2008 Uzbekistan announced its withdrawal from EurAsEC, with some commentators suggesting this indicated another recalculation by Tashkent regarding the balance between its relationships with Russia and the West. Allison (2008b, 3) notes that in spite of the closer relationship between Tashkent and Moscow since 2005, ‘President Karimov has remained wary of concessions to Russia that could constrain Uzbekistan’s own field of manoeuvre in Central Asia or allow Russia direct access to Uzbek military facilities’. Nonetheless, the Uzbek leadership view maintaining positive relations with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China as more significant after Andijan. The Karimov regime was not involved with the early incarnations of the Shanghai mechanisms, as this was based on cooperation with China over border demarcation and Uzbekistan does not share a border with China. However, Uzbekistan became a member of the SCO on its inauguration in 2001, and since 2005 the country has been one of the strongest proponents of the SCO. A Ministry for Foreign Affairs document notes that ‘as is repeatedly underlined by the President of Uzbekistan I. A. Karimov, active participation in the work of the SCO is one of the most important priorities of foreign policy of our state’.21 Although Uzbek foreign policy perceptions have proven highly changeable since its independence, it seems likely that at least in the mid-term, Tashkent will remain committed to the SCO. The Uzbek leadership considers security as of paramount importance, viewing the continuation of subvert opposition to the Karimov regime, especially the activities of radical Islamic and other separatist groups in the Ferghana Valley region of the country, and the cross-border connections between these groups and equivalents in Afghanistan, as security priorities. The Karimov regime perceives areas within the Ferghana Valley as largely beyond the control of the state, and as incidents in 1999 and 2000 demonstrate, groups active in the Ferghana Valley and Afghan border region are capable of organising raids deep into sovereign Uzbek territory. In light of these security challenges and the 2005 Andijan uprising, the Karimov regime has become one of the loudest advocates of security cooperation within the SCO. Although, the perceptions of the regime in Tashkent are very volatile, its foreign policy is consistently aimed at enhancing its independence and regime security. Taking this into account, the SCO is viewed as an extremely valuable organisation given its focus on what the Uzbek leadership perceives as the primary challenges to its regime security. While at

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times shunning other regional organisations in Central Asia, the Uzbek regime has maintained its membership in the SCO since the formation of the organisation. The continued interpretation of the threat from the ‘three evils’ to regime security, and the growing acknowledgement that many of these threats emanate from the other Central Asian Republics of the Ferghana Valley, as well as from Afghanistan, has led the Karimov regime to perceive the SCO to be valuable as a regionally coordinated response to security. This is complemented by the fact that the Uzbek leadership considers the rhetorical support provided by the other SCO members for its internal security policy as significant.

Tajikistan A debilitating civil war between 1992 and 1997 left the small post-Soviet Republic of Tajikistan a near ‘failed state’. Against this background, the Tajik leadership sees itself as facing two major challenges: the resurgence of Islamic opposition and radicalism, and an inability to provide basic human needs for its population. Therefore, ‘since independence, the focus of Tajikistan’s foreign policy had been on two main tasks – surviving as a nation and securing international assistance to maintain national security’ (Abazov 2003, 66). As a result of its limited capacity, the Rahmon regime considers itself to be heavily reliant on Russia for substantial security and economic support. In fact the Russian 201st Motorised Rifle Division patrols its borders and Moscow provides largescale economic aid and undertakes infrastructural projects in Tajikistan. A close security relationship serves the differing perceived interests of both Moscow and Dushanbe. Paramonov and Stolpovskii (2009) outline that it is of vital importance for the Russian Federation that facilities with a significant role to play in the Russian security system in Central Asia are located on Tajik territory. The Tajik leadership, in turn, which is concerned about the extremely unpredictable situation in neighbouring Afghanistan, regards Russia’s military presence as an important external factor of the country’s stability and security. Indeed, in 2007 the Tajik government allowed Russian combat aircraft to be deployed in Dushanbe, emphasising ‘Tajikistan’s reliance on Russian military support during any future crisis’ (McDermott 2007a). As a consequence of its almost complete military dependence on Russia, Tajikistan has been characterised by some as a ‘protectorate’ of Moscow.

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However, it is not just Moscow that the Tajik leadership perceives itself as dependent upon; Chinese economic trade and support is increasingly viewed as invaluable. Dushanbe struggles to provide the necessary provisions and infrastructure to maintain basic standards of living amongst its population. Tajikistan was afflicted by catastrophic energy crises in the winters of 2007/08 and 2008/09, with many people dying as a result, leading international relief organisations to send aid packages and workers to address the situation. In this context, the Tajik leadership has come to consider the development of trade relations with China as an increasingly important source for supplementing its limited economic capacity.22 To this end, border crossings between China and Tajikistan have been opened in the last decade, which ‘can be seen as a sign of successful bilateral relations between the two countries, strengthening their economic and political cooperation, allowing for the rapidly growing Chinese economy to attract resources from Tajikistan, and Chinese goods to flow into Central Asian markets’ (Aksakalov 2004;). The Tajik regime views the SCO as an important tool in developing economic cooperation with China. Indeed, Dushanbe gratefully received the offer of a $900m loan from Beijing at the 2005 SCO summit. Tajik analyst Saodat Olimova (2008, 65) states that this loan ‘was mainly used for the construction of the north–south high voltage lines project, LEP-500, for the Lolazor to Khatlon LEP-220 project in the Khatlon region, and for the construction of a tunnel under the Shar-Shar pass on the road between Dushanbe and Kuliab. The construction of this transport corridor joining China and Central Asia is a key factor for maintaining Chinese interests in Tajikistan.’ Hence the SCO is viewed as an important mechanism by both the Chinese and Tajik leaderships, for opening up potential cross-border trade between the two states. Yet, even with this external support, the Tajik state is manifestly incapable of providing sufficiently for its population. As a result, it is estimated that 30–50 per cent of the population are reliant on the drug trade for survival.23 Taking into account its limited capacity as a state, perceptions of manifold security challenges and reliance on external support, the Tajik leadership considers participation in multilateral security and economic frameworks in Central Asia and the wider post-Soviet space as advantageous. The Tajik leadership views the SCO particularly positively, perceiving its agenda as consistent with what the leadership considers to be priorities for regional security. Dodikhudoev and Niyatbekov (2009) state that ‘Tajikistan’s active involvement in the SCO speaks for itself: Dushanbe highly assesses the potential of this structure,

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which has posed itself the task of strengthening regional stability and encouraging economic integration’. In fact the SCO has come to be seen as even more relevant by the Tajik regime, given the SCO’s increasing focus on Afghanistan and in relation to the announced plans by the US to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in 2011. The Tajik regime views Afghanistan as the primary source of many of the security threats undermining stability in Tajikistan, and the prospect of the US and NATO withdrawal has led the SCO to be interpreted as a potential vital replacement. Like the Uzbek regime, the Rahmon regime also struggles to attract foreign investment, and in this light it considers the SCO as offering opportunities to seek significant potential economic investment, especially as two of its main external investors, Russia and China, are members. The Tajik ambassador to China, Rashid Alimov (2008, 36), states that ‘as rightly noted by President E. Rahmon, for Tajikistan the SCO has opened new potential opportunities for multilateral cooperation, in the first instances in the sphere of security and economics, but also in cultural and humanitarian spheres’. The Tajik leadership considers participation in regional frameworks that seek to enhance the stability of its regime and provide it with much needed financial investment very positively. It has therefore come to view the SCO as an important part of its foreign policy. It is also seen as enhancing its relations with other Central Asian Republics, by increasing communication on issues that may otherwise not be discussed bilaterally. As well as viewing itself as reliant on Russia and China, the Tajik regime acknowledges a dependence on trade in energy and water supplies with neighbouring Uzbekistan; this is an issue that is often at the heart of the tense relations between Tashkent and Dushanbe. Within the SCO, the Tajik and Uzbek leaderships are able to address these issues informally, without the intense scrutiny of a bilateral meeting.

Kyrgyzstan Similarly to neighbouring Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz foreign policy-makers have perceived a multivector foreign policy as most conducive to its aims, seeking to develop strong cooperative relations with the West, the East and its former Soviet partners.24 Within this multivector policy, the different Kyrgz leaderships of the last two decades have all seen relations with Kyrgyzstan’s traditional economic and political partner, Russia, as paramount, because of its economic and security weaknesses (Paramonov and Stolpovskii 2009). The 2007 Kyrgyz foreign policy

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concept outlines that ‘the Interlocking interests of Kyrgyzstan and Russia predestine a high level of political partnership . . . . Vital economic interests connect the country with Russia as well. All of this underlines the need to build a strategic partnership with Russia.’25 At the same time, Kyrgyz foreign policy has sought to reach out to the wider international community, considering this as imperative for attracting much needed investment for its fragile economy and also for greater recognition as an independent actor (Luckins 2003). During the 1990s the Akayev regime was relatively successful in this regard, as shown by Kyrgyzstan’s entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1998. Kyrgyzstan is characterised as being in a continual political flux since the ‘Tulip Revolution’ in 2005, with regular opposition protests culminating in the removal of Kurmanbek Bakiyev as President in April 2010 and the swearing in of an interim government led by Roza Otunbayeva. Since then, regular breakdowns in civil order have continued, most prominently in riots and ethnic clashes in the southern cities of Osh and Jalabad in June 2010, with hundreds killed and many thousands of ethnic Uzbeks fleeing to the Uzbek border. Against this background of ongoing political instability, Kyrgyz political elites have perceived the countering of internal political challenges to the ruling authority to be a priority. In addition to the threat of internal instability to regime security, Kyrgyz leaderships have also considered the threat of terrorism and extremism as a significant challenge to state and regime security, although in general Kyrgyzstan has experienced fewer problems in this regard compared with some other Central Asian Republics. According to Omelicheva, ‘despite the limited evidence of the risks of terrorism in Kyrgyzstan, its public authorities hold on to a view that radical Islamic groups remain the primary threat to the republic’s security, and Kyrgyzstan’s security forces direct their counterterrorism efforts toward the elimination of Islamists’ (Omelicheva 2009, 903). Owing to its internal instability, the Kyrgyz leadership views regional frameworks for cooperation in terms of their contribution to state and regime stability. Luckins (2003, 42) notes that ‘Kyrgyzstan has been trying to strengthen national and regional security, through its participation in regional security forums’. The Kyrgyz leadership views its domestic economic weakness as leaving it needing significant external support to stave off internal instability (Abduvalieva 2009), and as such, ‘assuming the preservation of the focus of the SCO on counter terrorism and extremism, Kyrgyzstan will be one of the most consistent supporters of the further strengthening of the SCO’ (Omarov 2005, 26).

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In this way, the perspective of the Kyrgyz leadership is to some degree similar to that of the Tajik leadership, as both states consider a lack of state capacity and significant challenges to internal stability as key factors in their foreign policy. In the same way that the Rahmon regime views the development of trade relations with external powers as vital, Kyrgyz leaderships have also considered the opportunities for economic investment created by participation in the SCO and other regional frameworks as very beneficial.26 However, the Kyrgyz regimes have sought to develop such economic relationships with a wider range of external powers. In this way, Kyrgyz foreign policy seeks to assert its independence as a foreign policy actor to a greater extent than Dushanbe. In 2009, after protracted negotiation, the Kyrgyz government reached an agreement with the US government for continued use of its Manas airbase, whereby the Kyrgyz government received a significantly higher rent.27 Also in 2009, the Kyrgyz government procured US$2 billion in loans and aid from Moscow (Marat 2009). Yet, at the same time, the primary focus of Kyrgyz foreign policy remains on relations within the post-Soviet region, as seen by the Otunbayeva interim government turning to Moscow for support following the removal of Bakiyev and during the Osh riots (Kim 2010; Orange 2010). All of the Kyrgyz regimes have seen the SCO as contributing to their main goals of stabilising the region and developing economic growth, while arguing that the SCO should remain an open organisation in line with its multivector foreign policy strategy. In recent years, both the now-deposed Bakiyev regime and the Otunbayeva coalition have become increasingly strong advocates of the SCO, seeing participation within the SCO structures as providing welcome foreign support against the background of domestic political opposition. Former Kyrgyz foreign minister Kadyrbek Sarbaev said that ‘the participation of the Kyrgyz Republic in the SCO gives to us an historic opportunity for realising important social-economic programmes and projects, strengthening mutual trust, friendship, and neighbourliness, deepening practical cooperation with our partners of the organisation’.28 Against the background of the 2005 ‘Tulip Revolution’ and the ousting of Bakiyev in 2010, the Kyrgyz regime has come to value the rhetorical support the SCO provides towards regime security as important for its own survival. Indeed, one of the first acts of the Otunbayeva interim government was to express its commitment to the SCO.29 Hence, in spite of the political turmoil and changes of regime, Kyrgyz foreign policy has considered the SCO as a valuable actor within the region, in terms of its support

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for regime security and the opportunity to engage with the neighbouring economic powerhouse of China as a source of much-need financial investment.

Conclusion This chapter has outlined the perceptions of the Russian, Chinese, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Uzbek leaderships about security and multilateral cooperation. It has identified some similarities and some divergences between these leaderships in their ordering of security priorities, and the perspectives from which they evaluate regional multilateral cooperation. The impact of these perceptions on the nature of both the agenda and the framework of the SCO are assessed in the next chapter.

4 Common Agenda, Managing Disagreements and Changing Perceptions about Multilateralism

The introduction to this book argued that to analyse the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), an understanding of its member states’ perceptions is required in order to examine its utility as a mechanism for addressing security and as a framework for cooperation. On the basis of Chapter 3’s analysis of the perspectives of the member states’ leaderships, this study identifies certain common perceptions about security between the SCO’s membership. The leaderships of the Central Asian Republics perceive themselves as facing significant challenges to the legitimacy of their rulers from within their own states. To a lesser extent, the Russian and Chinese leaders perceive certain regions and non-state actors as threatening the stability of their regimes. In this light, SCO’s member states’ leaderships see security as primarily an internal challenge which is often indelibly interlinked with regime security. Taking the perceptions of its member states’ leaderships into account, the SCO should be characterised as a means of enhancing its members’ domestic security rather than as a framework for resisting extra-regional challenges and counteracting the US. This chapter also outlines that the SCO is more than simply another branch of the Russian–Chinese relationship. Although the relative influence of the Central Asian Republics vis-à-vis Russia and China is restricted by structural factors, their leaderships are an active part of the organisation because they consider it to serve a number of their key interests. As well as assessing the member states’ perspectives on the SCO, this chapter also examines the impact of the SCO on the perception of its member states’ leaderships with regard to regional multilateralism. It is argued that although the mindset of its members’ elites remains focused on bilateralism, the SCO and multilateralism are emerging as an increasingly important element in their foreign policies. 75

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Common or disparate interests and approaches Agreement on security As has been outlined, many analysts interpret the SCO as driven by the aim of its members to create a bloc to counter Western intrusion into the region. However, on the basis of the examination of individual member states’ perceptions of the SCO in Chapter 3, this study argues that the role of external security considerations in the development of the SCO is of secondary importance. Instead, it identifies the prioritisation of internal regime security by the SCO member states’ leaderships as integral to explaining the growth of the SCO. All the Central Asian leaderships see maintaining the stability of their regimes as the main goal of their foreign and domestic policies, and cite the threat of terrorism, extremism and separatism as significant challenges to this goal and to their states. The leaderships of Russia and China also consider addressing the destabilising effects of separatist movements within their territories as a high priority. As a result, the member states’ leaderships acknowledge the need for a region-wide approach to tackle these threats, and interpret the SCO as the main vehicle to this end, especially since the creation of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). Therefore the focus on tackling the ‘three evils’ within the SCO agenda is seen as highly relevant by its member states’ leaderships. A Kyrgyz analyst highlights that ‘Kyrgyzstan was the first to call for the creation of anti-terrorist structure in the SCO. This position found understanding and support from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan’ (Omarov 2005, 26). Indeed, the SCO is seen by the national leaderships as having had some success, with a decline in activity by terrorists and radical group operations in recent years. By concentrating its efforts on addressing what the leaderships of Central Asia view as their main aim, enhancing regime security, the SCO has established itself as a mechanism for ensuring regional stability in the eyes of its member states’ elites. As noted by a recent report, ‘the central function of the SCO for its four Central Asian member states is to buttress their newly won independence’ (Oldberg 2007, 34). On this basis, the SCO has developed a high degree of authority and goodwill within the region, by establishing itself as a major pillar for regime security. As Allison (2004, 478) argues, ‘those governmental patterns of association that have made a positive contribution to the domestic survival of post-Soviet governments have been more likely to endure’. Indeed, this was illustrated by the Central Asian leaderships’ reaction to the events and fallout from Andijan, which led them to see the SCO

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and its member states as more reliable security partners than Western states, because of its central focus on supporting regime security (Chung 2006, 12). Although the SCO’s inaction in response to the extra-constitutional removal of Bakiyev from the Presidency in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 raised some questions about the SCO’s commitment and ability to ensure regime security within the region, these events have not significantly impacted on the member states’ perceptions of the SCO as a valuable tool for ensuring regional security. The SCO has never presented itself as a framework for military intervention against insurgency or coups d’état, but rather for contributing to regime security by tackling the ‘three evils’ and providing rhetorical support for the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. This suggests that the nature of regime security, as understood by the SCO member states, is the protection of the existing regimes from extra-regime forces and pressures, such as non-state internal forces or interference by external actors, and does not entail active involvement to prevent changes in leadership from within a regime. Although the SCO is, in the eyes of its member states’ leaderships, a qualified success in the realm of non-traditional security, the SCO is still criticised by some analysts for not facilitating wider and more traditional security cooperation among its member states. This is partially explained by less agreement between the regimes’ views on traditional security concerns and the benefits of a multilateral military approach. Significantly, the Russian leadership is less keen on traditional military collaboration, because it considers that the intrusion of Chinese influence would undermine its own leading regional position. According to some Russian analysts, Russia wants to retain its hard military dominance in Central Asia and is therefore reluctant to develop a mechanism that encourages an increased Chinese military role in the region (Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007, personal interview, 28 April).1 Instead, Russia perceives the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) as a better mechanism for military coordination in Central Asia in relation to its own interests.2 Indeed, the Russian leadership views the SCO and CSTO ‘as distinct tracks for developing its security relations with Central Asian countries and China. While CSTO is designed as a traditional defence arrangement, the SCO has renounced any ambition to develop military cooperation apart from intelligence sharing and limited joint exercises’ (Troitskii 2007, 34). There is also evidence that the Central Asian states ‘give priority to CSTO for their security’ (Oldberg 2007, 35). As former Soviet military

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allies, there are numerous interconnections and familiarities between the national militaries of Central Asia and Russia. On this basis, the Central Asian leaderships perceive Russia as a traditional military ally, while China is considered more of an outside actor in this respect (Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007, personal interview, 28 April). For example, the Rahmon regime in Tajikistan sees itself as dependent on Moscow in terms of security, and thus considers that it is inclined to advocate the same separation of functions between the organisations as advocated by Moscow. However, these concerns about the impact of a growing Chinese military presence in the region have not become an important issue because the Chinese leadership does not consider the development of common military security projects in Central Asia as a priority. In view of these tendencies, none of the SCO’s member states’ leaderships perceive extensive military cooperation as a primary focus within the SCO, and the role that the SCO can play in non-traditional security is considered the main priority.

Divergence on economic cooperation: State infrastructural projects, but not free trade According to most analysts, economic cooperation has come to the forefront of the SCO agenda in recent years and can be interpreted as a second primary sphere of cooperation alongside security. This can be characterised as a function of the second phase of the SCO’s development during the mid- to late 2000s, in which it sought to expand its agenda. To this end, a deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences highlights the 2007 Bishkek Summit as an important point in providing the SCO with an economic direction, via the introduction of transport projects and the energy club (Luzyanin, S., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). However, while economics has become a primary focus, cooperation in this regard has not developed as smoothly as it has with security matters because a greater divergence exists between member states’ visions of economic cooperation within the SCO. Up till now, economic cooperation has focused overwhelmingly on macroeconomic cooperation, largely because disagreement exists on microeconomic cooperation. A concentration on large-scale infrastructural economic projects is perhaps not unsurprising given that the SCO positions security and economics as heavily interlinked in the region. The Central Asian Republics are some of the least economically developed states in the international system, and as a result their leaderships perceive attracting foreign

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investment in the development of state infrastructure as a priority. Indeed, they link their lack of economic capacity with rising insecurity.3 In this light, Uzbek President Islam Karimov stated: ‘it should be admitted that along with other directions of cooperation it is still obvious that not enough attention is being paid to the issues of exploiting the immense economic potential of the SCO member-countries, implementing large-scale projects, and particularly, the projects that provide reliable transport and communication ties, establishment of modern centres of logistics, trade and tourism, construction of new enterprises, as well as introducing innovative technologies and developing the social infrastructure’.4 From the perspective of the Central Asian Republics, the framework of the SCO, which contains their traditional economic sponsor, Russia, and the most rapidly expanding economy in the world, China, is seen as an important source for economic investment to aid their ailing domestic economies. Reciprocally, the Chinese leadership considers the development of economic opportunities in Central Asia as a primary aim, including gaining access to raw materials. As part of its concentration on energy as an area of strategic importance during the last decade, the Russian leadership considers maintaining its position as the main economic trade partner of the former Soviet Republics and ensuring it has an important stake in the direction of oil and gas pipelines in the region as priorities. Against this background, the SCO economic agenda has been focused on this common perception of interest between its member states in developing large-scale energy and infrastructural projects. As a result, a series of economic programmes and projects have been agreed among the SCO members, a prime example being the building of a new railway between Andijan (Uzbekistan), Torugart (Kyrgyzstan) and Kashgar (China), which will connect Asia with Western Europe.5 Indeed, the member states share the view that establishing cooperation in the field of energy within the SCO, offers good prospects for long-term cooperation. Although negotiations over the exact structure and details of the proposed Energy Club is likely to be complex and competitive, regional analysts have identified the potential mutual benefits for all member states in such cooperation. Sergei Luzyanin (2009, 105) states that ‘energy cooperation among Russia, Central Asian countries and China could be equally advantageous to all participants in the project’. Furthermore, Frolenkov (2008) argues that ‘in principle, realization of the Energy Club concept can contribute to the emergence of a self-sufficient energy trio of producer, supplier, and consumer, and also draw new elements – security and economics – into the Organization’s

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traditional areas of concern’. Hence, if the minor divisions in perceived interests between the member states in terms of energy cooperation can be addressed, the development of energy projects could become a valuable function for the SCO. Compared with large-scale projects, cooperation on microeconomic projects has been negligible. This can be explained by a difference in perceptions between the Chinese leadership and the other members’ leaders about the role of the SCO in trade and customs cooperation. However, divergences remain as to the prioritisation of the economic agenda for the SCO. A number of regional analysts have argued that while Russia favours security as the central raison d’être for the SCO, China would like to see economic cooperation on a par with security activities (Sultanov 2008b). The Chinese leadership considers the removal of tariff barriers, to open up new markets for its booming consumer industries, as one of its primary aims for the SCO. To this end, Chinese elites perceive that it is necessary to invest in the development of the Central Asian Republics in order to realise the aim of a customs union in the long term. Indeed, an official in the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2007, personal interview, 25 June) outlined that the long-term aim of economic cooperation in the SCO is to create a regional economic community with free trade, but at present it is necessary to support the development of the weaker economies within its membership by providing funds and experience. Furthermore, a former Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, and now analyst of Central Asia, argues that this approach is mutually beneficial for China and the Central Asian Republics, as economically the Central Asian states are backward and this needs to be addressed via regional integration and also the globalisation of their economies (Shi, Z., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). The Russian leadership also considers the provision of economic support to the Central Asian Republics as beneficial to its aims in Central Asia. A leading Chinese scholar considers that both Russia and China are contributing more than they are getting in return with the aim of stabilising the region (Expert, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 28 June). Although, the Russian leadership views economic coordination aimed at developing infrastructure and state capacity in Central Asia as a focus of the SCO, Moscow is less enthusiastic about low-level economic projects aimed at reducing trade barriers. It considers that Chinese economic domination of trade in the region would threaten Russia’s prominent and privileged place in the regional economy (Chufrin, G.,

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2007, personal interview, 3 May). Indeed, there is a widespread perception in the region that cheap Chinese goods could flood the Russian and the Central Asian Republics’ economies, causing a loss of sovereign control over economic stability, and creating socio-economic problems because the indigenous population are unable to compete with the prices offered by Chinese traders (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007, personal interview, 10 May). Therefore, while Russia has been active in the development of large-scale economic projects such as the Energy Club,6 Moscow ‘has blocked the proposal of making the SCO a free-trade area, which China has been pressing for in order to gain better access, and only supported common projects in some areas like energy and transport where Russia stands to gain’ (Oldberg 2007, 28). This reticence to develop customs harmonisation is echoed by the Central Asian Republic’s leaderships (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). The Chinese economy dwarfs those of the Central Asia Republics, and their trade relationships with China are highly imbalanced (Peyrouse 2007). As Raballand and Andrésy (2007, 239) highlight, in 2004 the GDP of Xinjiang Province alone was US$220 billion, which was ‘more than four times the GDP of the five post-Soviet States combined’. While the Central Asian leaderships consider the development of stronger economic ties with China as highly beneficial in terms of increasing economic capacity, this is tempered by the outlook that they are no keener to be dominated economically by Beijing as they are by any other external actor (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). According to Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 16/17), ‘like Russia, the Central Asian states have seen both attractions and dangers in developing the economic dimension of the. For both Russia and the Central Asian Republics, ‘what they would like to get out of the SCO in positive terms is the guaranteed inflow of Chinese (and, to a lesser extent, Russian) investment to support their power infrastructures’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 17). However, the other member states are currently unwilling to accept the political implications of high levels of Chinese economic investment. Therefore, ‘just like the Russians, or perhaps even more, the Central Asian nations are afraid of the growing Chinese economic strength . . . . And have therefore opposed the Chinese wish for free trade’ (Oldberg 2007, 35). Thus, as an expert from the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies (2007, personal interview, 10 May) has outlined, the Central Asian leaderships are looking to strike a balance between seeking Chinese investment and resources as part of

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their efforts towards state capacity-building and not becoming overly dependent on China. The different Central Asian leaderships evaluate the nature of this balance differently, largely reflecting the differing strengths of the Central Asian economies and their regimes’ views on the need for immediate foreign investment. This difference was illustrated by the response of the Central Asian regimes to the Chinese leadership’s offer of a $900m interest loan to all the SCO members at the 2005 Astana Summit (Oresman 2005, 8). While the leaders of the Central Asian Republics with the weakest economies perceived this financial input as outweighing a potential loss of autonomy, Kazakhstan and Russia turned it down, believing ‘the terms of this contribution disadvantageous for themselves’ because the conditions attached to these loans were linked to the purchase of Chinese goods (Lukin 2007a). This suggests that the economically weaker Central Asian Republics consider they have little option but to seek any form of substantial foreign investment, while the stronger economy of Kazakhstan felt able to decline for political reasons. As one Kazakh analyst noted, Kazakhstan is priming itself as the connecting point between the regional giants of Russia and China and thus will not accept an increase of Chinese influence if it is unrestricted. Thus, according to many leading scholars in Central Asia, the Central Asian regimes consider Russia’s resistance to customs coordination as providing a significant check on Chinese domination of the economic agenda in the SCO (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). Regardless of these different perspectives on economic independence, all of the Central Asian leaders view the SCO as a valuable method for engaging economically with China, especially given that they interpret the presence of Russia within the SCO as offsetting Chinese domination. Although microeconomic cooperation is constrained by concerns among some members about the political consequences of such cooperation, the importance of this difference in view for the SCO economic agenda should not be overstated. As noted by Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 9), the harmonising of all six members’ interests takes place in the SCO in much the same way as for any (non-supranational) regional group: by the formulation of guiding principles that, among other things, play the role of safeguards; by the creation and balancing of a programme of activities in which each party can find something to its taste; and by features of institutional ‘process’ that allow difficult issues to be worked through to compromise.

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Russia and the Central Asian Republics are reluctant to give up tariff controls against Chinese goods, but this is not an issue that is proving disruptive to other areas of cooperation. None of the member states has considered making this issue an important one for the continuation of the SCO’s agenda. The member states’ leaderships consider too many other aspects of the SCO as important ingredients in their foreign policies. Foremost amongst these is the contribution it makes to regime security, but also the development of macroeconomic projects. In this way, the SCO’s framework tends to concentrate on areas favourable to cooperation rather than those where divergence in interests is evident. Global financial crisis Inevitably, the global financial crisis has impacted on the economic ambitions of the SCO, scaling back the scope of proposed economic projects. At the same time, the proclaimed need for the member states to work together to cope with the global economic recession has been used by the SCO as a rhetorical call to enhance economic cooperation. At the 2010 SCO summit, it was declared that the Member States emphasize that in the centre of the SCO’s attention there should be the issues of strengthening of coordination of the joint activity connected with an exit from world financial and economic crisis and decrease of its negative consequences. Consecutive implementation of national economies’ modernization aims, their transfer onto innovative rails, equal involvement of the interested countries into processes of making key international decisions, strengthening in these purposes of interaction at global and regional levels would ensure the exit from the crisis.7 As part of the SCO’s focus on the implementation of agreed programmes since 2007, the SCO member states agreed a ‘Joint Initiative on increasing multilateral economic cooperation in the field of tackling the consequences of the global financial economic crisis’ in 2009.8 This initiative calls on the SCO member states to speed up the implementation of its existing joint projects on infrastructure construction in order to lay the basis for greater economic cooperation and aid the member states through the economic downturn. It outlines the aims as being ‘to speed up synchronous construction of the Volgograd – Astrakhan – Atyrau – Beyneu – Kungrad and the Aktau – Beyneu – Kungrad motorways as part of the E-40 international transportation route, and development of the Osh – Sarytash – Irkeshtam – Kashgar,

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the Bratstvo – Dushanbe – Djirgatal – Karamyk – Irkeshtam – Kashgar transportation routes with the construction of a multimodal cargo terminal in Kashgar’.9 Indeed, the SCO has highlighted the importance of implementing these infrastructural projects for creating the conditions for further economic cooperation and also to engage its observer states in economic cooperation.10 However, in spite of this proclaimed intention to work faster to implement common infrastructural projects, the most practical element of the SCO’s response to the global financial crisis has been greater Chinese financial support for the Central Asian Republics. At the 2009 SCO summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to provide ‘a 10-billion-U.S. dollar credit loan to member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to shore up their economies amid the global financial crisis’.11 This illustrated Chinese dominance of the economic aspect of the SCO. Also, it shows that the other member states perceive China as economically superior, and see its role in the SCO as providing financial resources to the other members. Yet the global financial crisis may serve to improve China’s prospects of convincing the other member states of the benefits of a customs union, if it causes a significant shift in outlook about the main source of economic strength within the international system from the US to China. In fact this seems to be behind the Russian leadership’s proposal to move towards the introduction of a common unit of currency for financial deals among the SCO member states. Russian President Medvedev outlined that this unit would not be a supranational currency, but could act as a monetary unit that could be held as foreign reserves (Pannier 2009). Therefore although this idea falls short of a full-scale customs union, it does suggest a potential shift in attitude in Moscow regarding the benefits of such economic coordination. At the same time, the leaderships of Russia and the Central Asian Republics are unlikely to consider foregoing customs barriers in their economic relations with China in the near future, because, as has already been demonstrated by anti-Chinese protests in Kazakhstan after Astana announced the lease of Kazakh land to Chinese farmers, the political costs for such a move are likely to be perceived as too high by the political leaderships.

Common norms According to regional analysis, the fact that the SCO has been functioning as an organisation for almost a decade and little dissatisfaction has

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been heard from its members ‘indicates that its [SCO’s] basic principles and outlook are in accordance with the reality faced by Central Asia’ (Zhao 2006a, 107). The importance of regime security is ingrained within the SCO, and is compatible with an important vector in contemporary bilateral Russian–Chinese relations: the presentation of common views and positions on a variety of global issues. This Russian–Chinese diplomatic agenda is largely viewed by the leaderships of the Central Asian Republics to be in line with their interests. Indeed, the rhetorical promotion of norms has come to be seen as an important element of the SCO by some Central Asian leaders. As has been outlined, the role of the SCO in supporting the Uzbek leadership following the Andijan revolt is seen as very significant by Tashkent. In addition, this support from both Moscow and Beijing for the Uzbek leadership, was perceived favourably by the other Central Asian elites as indicating it could be relied upon as a vehicle to promote their regime security (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). However, not all aspects of the SCO’s rhetoric are viewed in a positive light by some Central Asian leaders, who consider the content of these narratives as being set by Russia and China. Against the background of economic weakness and manifold problems with stability in civil society, some of the leaderships of Central Asia consider it necessary to keep their foreign policy options open in order to attract as much investment and support from as many sources as possible. This explains the reluctance of most of the Central Asian Republics to endorse overt criticism of the West in the SCO declarations, for fear of losing the possibility of further investment and support from the West towards their ultimate aim of regime stability. The Kazakh and Kyrgyz leaderships have viewed some previous SCO statements as overly anti-US in nature, and not consistent with the pursuit of a multilateral foreign policy, including good relations with the West. Thus, while the Uzbek leadership followed up the common declaration at the Astana Summit by requesting American forces leave the Khanabad airbase, the Kyrgyz regime stepped back from this demand and, at present, the American base in Manas continues to function. The Kyrgyz leadership perceived the expulsion of US forces as putting undue pressure on other valuable aspects of their relations with the US, and hence considered solidarity with the common SCO statements as outweighed by maintaining relations with the West (Germanovich 2008). In addition, the Kazakh leadership has publicly vowed to prevent the SCO from becoming an anti-Western bloc (Maksutov 2006). In July

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2006 Kazakh Foreign Minister Tokayev stated that ‘as an active member, Kazakhstan would work to keep the SCO a universal and well-balanced organisation’.12 While there are some different perspectives among the member states on the promotion of norms within the SCO, there are also significant common perceptions on values and norms. These common views are centred on common perceptions of the importance of regime security, and the promotion of non-interference in domestic affairs.

Managing divergent interests The SCO agenda has been developed specifically with the aim of fostering cooperation between its states, and in order to ensure this it has at times deliberately ignored or excluded potentially divisive issues from its remit. This can be seen by the emphasis on non-traditional security in the initial phase of institution-building and then the addition of large-scale economic cooperation as a second pillar of the agenda in the second phase of expansion of the agenda, while the potentially divisive issue of free economic trade has been sidelined. The focus on this limited agenda has led the member states to view the SCO as a valuable mechanism for regional security. Its focus on addressing the ‘three evils’ is consistent with the conception of members’ leaders of the threat posed by radical Islamic and separatist groups and organised crime to the stability of their current regimes and the territorial integrity of their states. Equally, the members’ regimes consider cooperation on large-scale energy and infrastructural projects as beneficial. Beyond direct interests, the leaderships of all members associate themselves, to some degree, with the normative base of the SCO, and deem it as a beneficial platform from which to promote certain principles and views on the international stage. In this way, all activities within the SCO are in some way connected to the central idea of creating stability and security across the region in order to ensure the continuation and stability of the existing regimes. All the member states are in agreement that this should underpin the organisation, and thus the SCO’s limited agenda is enshrining it as an important component of the regional landscape in Central Asia. According to a senior Russian analyst, this approach has successfully achieved its aim: there are no contradictions at the top level of the SCO (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). Indeed, in the view of a conference of experts from all the SCO member states, the ‘Shanghai Cooperation Organisation plays a unique positive role in smoothing

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over contradictions between rivals and in integrating differing interests of Russia, China and Central Asian states’ (Portyakov 2008, 162/3).

Perceptions of China within the SCO Some studies have characterised the SCO as primarily a Chineseorientated organisation, with the other member states playing little role within the organisation (Kurtov 2008). Furthermore, some Russian experts assert that Russia plays a minor role in the SCO compared with China, and that in ten years’ time Russia will have become China’s junior partner (Malashenko, A., 2007, personal interview, 7 May). From this perspective, the SCO is seen as driven much more by Chinese interests than by Russian or Central Asian ones, and that this is reflected in the design of the SCO. The naming of the organisation after a Chinese city and the location of its main permanent body in Beijing are seen as demonstrating China’s hold on the organisation (Goldsmith 2005). Similarly, some Central Asian analysts interpret China as an unfamiliar actor, which is attempting to assert its dominance via economics. A common concern is that, taking into account the difference in economic capacity between the Central Asian Republics and China, regional cooperation takes place on an unequal basis, permitting China to implement its will in the region. However, such interpretations of a Chinese-centric SCO are exaggerated and largely unfounded. A central part of the Chinese vision of multilateralism is equality. In this context, the SCO is an organisation that is steeped in the spirit of multilateralism. According to the formal rules of the SCO Charter, all members have equal voting rights and all decisions are taken unanimously. Also, all the member states see it as advantageous to promote the SCO as an important model of multilateralism and a key component in their foreign and security policies. Indeed, although elements in each of the member states have argued that the SCO is primarily a Chinese organisation, a more considered majority believe that the contrary is evident. For the most part, neither Russian officials (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June) nor analysts (Lukin, A., personal interview, 2007, 4 May; Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 28 April) view the SCO as a Chinese-dominated institution. In fact the decision by the Russian leadership to establish an inter-agency commission in the SCO within its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in September 2004, is widely interpreted as evidence of the significance that the SCO

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has attained for Russia (Komissina and Kurtov 2005, 258; Troitskii 2007, 30). A leading Russian academic concluded from a survey of Russian opinion on the SCO that in Russia, ‘in general positive assessments concerning the character of the organisation and its role in international affairs are prevalent’ (Portyakov 2007, 2). Many Russian scholars reject the claim that China dominates the SCO, and that this is demonstrated by the location of the organisation’s Secretariat in Beijing. Lukin (2007b, 9) outlines that ‘it is impossible to assert that the US dominates the UN on the basis of the fact, that the majority of the organisation’s organs are situated in New York. Rather to the contrary, the US treats the UN as a necessary evil, and the Security Council and especially the General Assembly, situated in New York, often take a very different position from that of the Americans. A number of Central Asian analysts are also positive about the normative compatibility of the member states. The head of the SCO Division of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs argues that while the ‘Shanghai spirit’ is Chinese-inspired, it shares some important common values with Central Asia, in terms of the development of their civilisations, history and cultural links associated with the heritage of the Silk Road (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). In this way, in most aspects, the Russian and Central Asian leaderships interpret the SCO as a successful element of their foreign policies, and view the involvement of China as extremely beneficial in this regard.

The Russian–Chinese relationship As highlighted in the introduction, many accounts argue that the SCO is constrained by the long-term dynamic in the Russian–Chinese relationship, which is characterised as competitive. According to this view, the SCO will always be restricted by the inherent limitations in the relationship between its two most important members. However, as highlighted, Russia and China share several common or complementary interests in Central Asia and have come to consider the pursuit of these within the SCO as beneficial. Komissina and Kurtov assert that ‘there is a definite logic in the fact that Russia and China have found solutions that are of interest to both states’ problems in Central Asia’ (Komissina and Kurtov 2006, 90). As a result, the new Russian–Chinese ‘strategic partnership’ and the evolution of the SCO are perceived by both states’ leaderships as mutually reinforcing mechanisms, whereby the institutionalisation of the SCO is seen as providing a powerful mechanism for the maintenance

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and management of stable and favourable Russian–Chinese relations (Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Officials in both China and Russia highlight the importance of maintaining good relations with one another within the SCO, both for the good of the organisation and to provide a good platform for their wider relationship (Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). An official from the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2007, personal interview, 25 June) has argued that the SCO supplements China’s bilateral relations with Russia, and has come to be an important factor in further strengthening Russian–Chinese relations. Therefore the SCO is proving an integral vector of the Russian– Chinese relationship. A Kazakh analyst sees Russia and China as trying to replicate the German–French axis of the EU by driving forward the organisation, while at the same time consolidating their relationship in a positive trajectory (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007, personal interview, 10 May).13 Unlike China, the SCO is not Russia’s first multilateral venture. Although involved in other regional organisations, some of which comprise the same states as the SCO, the Russian government has been happy to share the lead role alongside China in the SCO, in part to exploit China’s growing international influence. In turn, Russia’s experience in developing multilateral mechanisms is seen by the Chinese leadership as important to the organisation’s development, and encourages Beijing to work in tandem with Russia as the two dominant powers of the group. In recent years, steps have been taken to tie the SCO and other postSoviet organisations closer together, such as the coordination between the SCO and CSTO in the recent ‘Peace Mission’ military exercises. To this end, the Russian leadership is attempting to reassure the Chinese leadership that these parallel organisations, in which Russia dominates, do not represent a challenge to the SCO or Chinese interests in the region. This illustrates that the SCO is enabling Russia and China to advance their bilateral relationship by building additional ties and greater confidence with one another, through sharing top-billing within the SCO. According to a Kazakh expert, ‘the success of the SCO will be to a large degree dependent upon the further development of Russian– Chinese relations, and there is a strong basis to suppose that in the foreseeable future the strategic cooperation, in all directions, between Moscow and Beijing will be consolidated (Kamzaeva 2007, 177).

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The Central Asian Republics’ perceptions of the SCO as a framework for cooperation As discussed previously, in some respects Russia and China provide most of the driving force behind the SCO. Some of the Central Asian leaderships consider themselves as highly dependent on Russia and China for key resources and financial support, and as such Russia and China have contributed significantly more resources to the development of the SCO than the other members. As a result, it is almost unavoidable that the SCO will develop broadly along lines that are conducive to what the Russian and Chinese leaderships consider their primary interests. On this basis, many Western analysts have argued that Russia and China have had a disproportionate influence over the SCO, because ‘in the eyes of Russian and Chinese policymakers . . . the SCO was a way to seal the strategic Sino-Russian dominance over Central Asia while engaging in friendly relations with their Central Asian neighbours’ (Yom 2002). However, although Russia and China are the major sponsors of the SCO, the approaches of the Central Asian Republics are vitally important to the progression of the SCO. As an Uzbek analyst highlights, ‘most of those who study the SCO phenomenon tend to ignore the importance of the regional countries’ positions’ (Tolipov 2004a, 9). Although wielding disproportionate power compared with the other members, both Moscow and Beijing consider that for the SCO to succeed the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships need to feel that they play a central role, in order to alleviate their regimes’ fears about being crowded out by the scale of the Russian–Chinese partnership. In this regard, the SCO is viewed by the Central Asian leaders as having proved to be a very valuable mechanism, as it has enabled them to engage with two extra-Central Asian powers simultaneously, ensuring that the agenda will not be dominated by one major external sponsor. As Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 14) argue, the value of the SCO in this context starts with the fact that it allows Central Asian leaders, at least formally, to take part in generating regional approaches to cooperation and security on an equal basis with the larger regional powers – an opportunity that Central Asia has not had before in modern times. The Central Asian leaders have more confidence about pursuing their interests within the SCO, than they would have in a framework containing only Russia or only China, because there is less pressure to fall in line

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with a single agenda of an external power (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May; Makhmudov, R., personal interview, 2007, 29 May). Against this background, the Central Asian Republics have proven adroit at exploiting the presence of Russia and China in order to influence the agenda of the SCO, in spite of lacking the necessary resources to see any cooperative programmes implemented. The Central Asian Republics view the growing strength of China and its potential to dominate the region with caution. Kazakh scholar Irina Chernykh (2007, personal interview, 17 May) argues that some Central Asian leaders have securitised the ‘China factor’ in domestic affairs. In the SCO, the Central Asian Republics consider that they can rely on Russia to support their attempts to avoid overdependence on China, such as restricting the remit of economic cooperation to stateto-state rather than free trade (Kukeyeva, F., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). In this respect, the perception of the Central Asian leaders is that it is more beneficial to be within the SCO than outside it, particularly in order to retain their ability to keep a range of foreign policy options open by avoiding overdependence on one external power. Also, according to some regional experts the SCO offers the Central Asian Republics the opportunity to be active players in an organisation with huge geopolitical prestige by virtue of the participation of two states widely considered as world powers (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Thus the Central Asian Republics consider the great power status of Russia and China as advantageous, especially in the context in which they perceive the SCO’s codified structure and norms as acting to prevent Russia and China dominating the organisation. As outlined, the Central Asian elites consider defending the legitimacy of the rulers of their regimes from internal challenges as a main priority. Hence, while often following policies aimed at balancing the influence of Russia and China against one another, the Central Asian leaderships also support the SCO being shaped by Russian or Chinese preoccupations, as long as this is in line with their main priorities (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May; Shi, Z., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). According to a leading Kazakh scholar, the Central Asian Republics ‘use the SCO structures (in particular RATS) to deal with their domestic problems and to obtain access to additional sources their economies could use’ (Syroezhkin 2008). In addition, it provides this support without any form of challenge to the political sovereignty of its member states’ leaderships. In summary, the Central Asian regimes perceive the SCO as of considerable value because of its utility for regime security and the opportunities and leverage it affords their interests at

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a regional level, which are otherwise not available in bilateral relations with external states or other regional organisations.

The multilateral–bilateral dynamic Since their independence, the Central Asian Republics have perceived bilateral relations as the most conducive method for achieving their foreign policy goals, seeking to avoid restrictive multilateral arrangements that might limit their independence. A leading scholar at the Carnegie Centre, Moscow, Alexei Malashenko (2007, personal interview, 7 May) argues that, in general, the Central Asian leaderships have limited faith or interest in multilateralism. At the same time, the SCO has had some success in demonstrating the value of multilateral cooperation and convincing its member states of the utility of its approach. The SCO is considered as a major tool in every one of its member states’ foreign policies. This alteration in perception among the Central Asian leaderships can be accounted for by the focus of the SCO on transnational security challenges. The leaderships of the Central Asian Republics have come to perceive many of the primary security threats that they face as having a transnational quality, and that these threats require a regionally coordinated response. According to many regional scholars, the Central Asian regimes have come to view the SCO as the primary framework for addressing these threats in a regionally coordinated manner (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). This has created more acceptance of the need for and value of a collaborative multi-state approach amongst regional elites (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Perceptions about the value of multilateralism differ among the Central Asian member states. A distinction can be identified between those Central Asian Republics that seek to pursue a more diverse foreign policy, and those more reliant on Russia and China as financial sponsors. The overarching approach of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan differs from that of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in terms of emphasis. The Kazakh leadership follows a definite multivector foreign policy, with relations in Central Asia and the SCO being only one of several vectors (Kukeyeva, F., 2007, personal interview, 17 May). Thus a senior analyst at the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies observes that, in some respects, the Kazakh leadership does not perceive the development of a distinct Central Asian or Eurasian cultural underpinning to the SCO as significant, because it considers its interests lie in other regions as well (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). Indeed, a Russian analyst argues that

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both Kazakhstan’s and Kyrgyzstan’s approach to international affairs stem from a bilateral mindset, whereby they are reticent to engage too deeply in multilateral cooperation for fear it may adversely affect their relations in another direction (Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007, personal interview, 28 April). In the case of the SCO, Almaty and Bishkek are concerned that if they are seen to be too dependent on Russia and China, it may discourage the US from prioritising bilateral relations with them. By contrast, having severed ties with Western actors after Andijan in 2005, the Uzbek leadership has emphasised relations with Russia and China. In the view of some analysts, the Central Asian leaderships’ pragmatic approach to foreign policy, emphasising balancing external powers against one another, restricts their capacity to play a constructive role in multilateral institutions. According to this perspective, the Central Asian regimes are focused on playing external states off against one another to maximise the benefit to themselves, making them difficult players within a multilateral format because their positions and policies are liable to rapid and radical change (Malashenko, A., 2007, personal interview, 7 May). In this context, the main use of the SCO to the Central Asian Republics is seen as a counterweight to bilateral agreements with other states. As one analyst notes, ‘the four states [Central Asian SCO members] try to balance Russian domination with China bi-laterally and in the SCO framework, so as to extract favours from both’ (Oldberg 2007, 34). Indeed, as argued above, the SCO offers the opportunity for the Central Asian Republics to balance external dependence between two big powers, providing them more room to manoeuvre and more leverage to extract the best deal from each of them.14 However, the SCO and multilateral cooperation offers more to the Central Asian leaderships than simply another bargaining chip to exploit, and this is evident in their outlook on the SCO. The Central Asian leaders consider that the limited capacity of their states provides a strong incentive for multilateral cooperation. Furthermore, the SCO’s promotion of non-interference in domestic affairs and its focus on regime security have led it to be interpreted as a reliable and effective actor in the crowded Central Asian arena. As a result, the SCO has made some progress towards ingraining itself within the Central Asian Republics’ foreign policy thinking, irrespective of their other policy options. For example, Uzbekistan has undergone several foreign policy ‘revolutions’ in its post-Soviet history, but while ‘at least two of Uzbekistan’s policy revolutions occurred after it had joined Shanghai

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cooperation structures . . . they did not affect the country’s participation in the Shanghai Five or the SCO’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007, 35). This suggests that the SCO is seen as a constant in Uzbek foreign policy, even if relations with individual member states fluctuate. In this respect, the SCO has been successful in convincing its members’ leaderships of the utility of multilateralism. The SCO is perceived as more convincing in this regard than other regional organisations in Central Asia, because of the involvement of two major external powers. This positions the SCO as a more independent and trusted mechanism in the mindsets of the Central Asian elites, than frameworks that are inextricably linked to the agenda of one external sponsor. In addition, the SCO has been able to build an image of reliability and independence by addressing the Republics’ concerns about regime security, but also by appeasing their reservations about restrictive multilateralism. As its agenda is expanded and its projects are implemented, the importance of the SCO for its members may be magnified. This process will familiarise and socialise the member states into multilateral cooperation with one another, so that reservations about such a format are forgotten. For example, in the economic sphere, whereas prior to the launch of the SCO Beijing and Moscow had to carefully calibrate their bilateral relations, the growing interdependence of the SCO member states will make trade negotiations a much easier and faster affair. (Benderskii 2005) The member states share significant common perceptions of interest, and the SCO is attempting to fuse these together into a community, whereby the incentives for cooperation are such that the member states come to consider that it is integral to the pursuit of their interests. However, at the present time the barrier of political tension between member states’ leaderships restricts the extent to which the SCO can be developed within a multilateral project. Due to concerns about losing the capacity to address internal challenges to the ruling authority, the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships are not prepared to concede any political sovereignty to a multilateral mechanism, and as a result there is limited impetus towards establishing collaborative approaches to these interdependencies. Therefore although the SCO has succeeded in carving out a secure position in the foreign policy of its members, the process of socialising its members into developing interdependent approaches to issues deemed to be of common interest has had only a limited impact at this stage.

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Enhancing bilateral relations The SCO aims to encourage greater cooperation and communication between its member states via facilitating various forms of cooperation under its auspices. A senior official within the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs outlined that this has helped to strengthen bilateral relations, by enabling natural combinations of member states to come together on particular project issues, without the tensions sometimes present in direct bilateral relations (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 16) argue that ‘the very fact that all these efforts can now be handled in a multilateral framework rather than requiring ad hoc deals for bilateral assistance (which are difficult to balance politically and are never without a quid pro quo) represents a huge step forward in itself’. A practical consequence of this open and flexible structure is that bilateral or trilateral projects are often subsumed within the SCO and labelled as multilateral projects. SCO officials acknowledge that there is an overlap between bilateral and SCO projects, including Kazakh–Chinese transportation link projects and the Kazakh–Uzbek–Chinese energy agreements (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). Such projects may be initiated beyond the auspices of the SCO and later be repositioned within them, or may be conducted as an SCO project from the outset. As a result, there is a rather blurred conception of what is a genuine SCO multilateral project and what is essentially a bilateral undertaking being placed under the SCO umbrella to ensure a more positive outcome. The SCO is not an intrusive regional organisation, in the sense that it does not have the power to enforce policy implementation on its member states. As a result many of its projects are conducted alongside and even in conjunction with bilateral projects. For example, economic projects are often supported by a raft of bilateral agreements, such as the Russia–Uzbek Business Forum which runs parallel to the SCO Business Council. The interaction of bilateral and multilateral dynamics can have both positive and negative consequences for a multilateral organisation. Negatively, these bilateral relationships can overshadow multilateral programmes, and while this may sometimes provide impetus for the organisation it may also threaten to alienate the other members excluded from these programmes. On the positive side, it can facilitate greater trust between its members, resulting in greater cooperation thereafter. Russia and China in particular consider the SCO as a useful vehicle for pursuing common interests and programmes of cooperation in

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their bilateral relationship at a regional level. A number of essentially Russian–Chinese bilateral programmes have now been placed within the framework of the SCO. A regional analyst notes that ‘Russian–Chinese security cooperation paradoxically manifests itself as bilateralism within the SCO multilateralism’ (Tolipov 2006a, 164). The proposed SCO Energy Club can be interpreted at least partially as a Russian–Chinese project, seeking to ensure the smooth development of their economic relationship15 as energy provider and consumer respectively, and to bind the energy policies of the Central Asian Republics into the Russia–China orbit (Luzyanin 2007a). In this context, the resources necessary for the implementation of many of the SCO projects must be considered. The Central Asia Republics, with the exception of Kazakhstan in some areas, do not have the financial resources to get projects off the ground, and as a result the organisation is often reliant on the capabilities of Russia and China. Indeed, the main reason that Russian–Chinese cooperative projects are often so prominent in the SCO is that the organisation has only meagre resources at its disposal and, as noted in Chapter 2, programmes are dependent on the contributions of member states on an ad hoc basis (Lukin 2007a). Although potential exists for conflict and repetition of projects between bilateral relations and the SCO, multilateral cooperation contributes to the development of the region in a way that bilateral relations cannot. The head of the SCO division of the Kazakh Ministry for Foreign Affairs has pointed out that, among the region’s policy-making elites, bilateral relations are a lot easier and better understood, but at the same time, elites were persuaded by the need and advantages of multilateral cooperation in many areas (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). In addition, ‘SCO does not preclude and may indeed promote bilateral cooperation’ (Oldberg 2007, 34). According to the Special Representative of the Russian President to the SCO, Leonid Moiseev, this formula of combining multilateral, bilateral and national implementation is a successful one for the SCO’s member states: ‘A lot of problems get resolved through the SCO. Every individual country is responsible for logistics on the national level – it builds and widens the road, builds bridges and interchanges; the SCO as a whole is responsible for completing the formalities involved in arranging for transit and routing’ (Moiseev 2010, 52). However, the ongoing presence of a variety of parallel bilateral cooperation projects complicates, challenges and at times undermines the

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principle of multilateral collaboration within the SCO. For example, agreements between Russia and Kyrgyzstan on the creation of a common bank conflict with the SCO projects on a common banking system for the region. National strategies and SCO collective strategies are not always in tandem, but nonetheless all member states have at least shown willingness to try and bring their cooperation in line with the SCO. Analysts and officials of every member state are quick to point out that bilateral relations outside the SCO are very important, but they are equally quick to acknowledge that the SCO has shown some worth in facilitating cooperation between its member states. This suggests that bilateral relations continue to dominate the Central Asian landscape, but there is a growing recognition by the SCO member states of a role for multilateral organs. In this respect, the SCO will not replace bilateral cooperation as the basis of the region’s international relations, but in the areas in which the SCO works, it is coming to be viewed by its member states as an irreplaceable factor in their wider foreign policy.

Conclusion The perceptions of the member states’ regimes about security priorities and wider national interests are quite disparate in some areas. For example, China, as an emerging superpower, perceives the SCO to be an important tool for its wider foreign policy, while Tajikistan considers it in terms of the amount of resources it can extract from participation. Nonetheless, the SCO has managed to identify significant areas in which all its membership sees their interests as coinciding. All the leaderships are in agreement about the central place of regime security on the agenda of the SCO, and this has formed the basis for the expansion of the SCO’s agenda since 2004. The focus on regime security is seen by the Central Asian leaderships as contributing to their overriding security aim, and is also viewed as important by the Russian and Chinese leaderships in terms of increasing regional stability and addressing the threat of secessionist movements. In this way, contrary to the assumptions of many Western analysts, the SCO is not driven by a common anti-Western purpose or designed to counter an external threat, but is based upon a shared interest in supporting regime security. To this end, the SCO’s focus on tackling the ‘three evils’ is considered to be valuable by the region’s elites, and a high degree of harmony is evident between the members in relation to how they see the SCO contributing to security. However, there is more divergence in terms of

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the SCO’s other major priority, economic cooperation. This is reflective of a wider division in perception between China and the other member states. China is more enthusiastic about a rapid progression of economic cooperation, while the leaderships of Russia and the Central Asian members seek to restrain this, because they consider that it could lead to a loss of control over their domestic economies. These concerns explain the participation of Russia and the Central Asian Republics in other regional organisations in Central Asia focused on what their leaderships’ consider as key strategic areas: military cooperation and economic trade. Many analysts have labelled the SCO as little more than an additional element to the Russian–Chinese relationship. However, this greatly exaggerates the degree to which Russia and China influence the SCO, and is incorrect in the assumption that the SCO does not serve the Central Asian Republics’ interests. The leaderships of the Central Asian Republics consider the maintenance of independence and control over their state sovereignty as of paramount importance, and hence do not wish to become dependent on any single external power. In this light, the Central Asian leaderships are strong proponents of the SCO, because its structure and main principles ensure that they do not have to participate in programmes that are not in their interests. In this context, although the Russian–Chinese relationship provides much of the driving force for the organisation, the SCO agenda is not dominated by any single state or relationship between two states. The Central Asian Republics consider that they have significant opportunities to influence the agenda and ensure their interests are included. The perceptions of the member states towards both multilateral cooperation and each other can be seen to have been slightly altered by the relative success of the SCO. Even the Central Asian leaderships that view multilateral frameworks with the greatest suspicion now acknowledge the value of the SCO in providing a regionally coordinated approach to security and economic cooperation. Indeed, the SCO has been extremely significant in demonstrating the value of multilateral regionalism to the Chinese leadership and in promoting their interests at a regional level. Yet, distinct limits on the role of multilateralism in the region exist, because of the political unwillingness of the member states, especially Russia and the Central Asian Republics, to allow regional cooperation to develop unchecked, and because of concerns that this would undermine their state sovereignty. At the same time, the SCO has provided a forum for greater communication and cooperation between its members at a bilateral level. This is particularly significant in the eyes of the Chinese leadership as a relative

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outsider to the region, because they see that the SCO has enabled them to reach important agreements with both Russia and individual Central Asian Republics, which otherwise would not have been realised. However, the SCO has been less successful in fostering greater cooperation between the Central Asian Republics.

5 The SCO’s Approach to Regional Security: Conceptions, Foci and Practices – Regional Security Governance in Eurasia?

The collapse of the Soviet Union transformed the Eurasian security landscape, altering security concerns and priorities across the former Soviet space. In post-Soviet Central Asia a number of major security events have occurred and security challenges developed, including a full-scale civil war in Tajikistan (1992–97), armed incursions by antiregime groups into the Ferghana Valley (taking and holding sovereign territory of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 1999 and 2000), a number of terrorist bombings and leadership assassination attempts, the functioning of terrorist and separatists groups, the US-led NATO operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan from 2002 onwards, the ‘Tulip Revolution’ and civil unrest in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and 2010, the Andijan uprising in Uzbekistan in 2005 and the development of everexpanding networks of organised crime and the narcotics trade across the region. Many of these security dynamics are non-traditional in nature, in that they do not arise from other states, and as a result do not function on a traditional state-to-state basis. Therefore they present a different set of problems than traditional interstate security relations, and as such need to be addressed in a different manner: ‘in the post-Cold War landscape of challenges emanating from hard-to-identify and hard-to-locate terrorist, separatist, criminal, and extremist organisations, states in Eurasia have sought to spur international cooperation through reinvigorating collective security organisations’ (Gleason and Shaihutdinov 2005, 274). The presence of diverse non-traditional security challenges in Central Asia 100

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has provided fruitful ground for regional coordination in addressing these challenges. As already identified, security is the key driving force for cooperation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and as cooperation has developed, so too has its focus on security. The Shanghai mechanism was initially created in order to resolve border issues stemming from the collapse of the Soviet Union, between the Central Asian Republics and China, with the inclusion of Russia. After reaching a consensus on the new borders, the scope of security collaboration was extended to include another major perceived common interest among the SCO member states: tackling the non-traditional security challenges that beset the Central Asian region. The Central Asian elites, and to lesser degree the leaderships of Russia and China, consider internal security as the most important concern to their regimes, because of the perceived threat such internal dynamics pose to both the legitimacy of their regimes and the territorial integrity of the state. Hence the SCO is a cooperative vehicle, which is judged by regional elites primarily on its ability to address these concerns. This depiction of the SCO is in contrast to interpretations of the SCO as simply a geopolitical vehicle focused on repelling Western influence in the region (Zaderei 2008). Indeed, this study argues that the SCO concentrates on issues of security that are internal to the region, rather than on external factors. It also asserts that, taking this into account, the SCO should not be interpreted as an ‘alliance’ structure, in the sense that its primary purpose is as a traditional military pact to defend its members in case of attack from an external force. Instead, by participating in the SCO its member states are accepting that most of the security threats to their regimes stem from sources that function within, between and across national borders, and that a regionally coordinated approach to address these challenges is necessary. In this context, the SCO highlights the ‘three evil forces’ as the main security challenges facing the region – terrorism, separatism and extremism – but the scope of cooperation also extends to organised criminal activity and illegal narcotics trafficking. In spite of its focus on non-state actors rather than interstate rivalry, the region’s elites hope that the SCO, similarly to traditional security alliances, will contribute to the stability of the existing regimes. Taking into account the nature of the security challenges it seeks to address, this book characterises the SCO as an attempt to develop a state-centred system of regional security governance, covering a wide range of security challenges beyond traditional state-to-state military confrontation.

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Conceptions of security multilateralism for addressing non-traditional threats New security approach The SCO claims to represent a new approach to regionally coordinated security in Eurasia. Indeed, the SCO can be seen as taking a different approach to security from previous regional organisations in the postSoviet space. A deputy director of the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences characterises the SCO as distinct from a classic alliance organisation, because it is not orientated against other states (Luzyanin, S., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). Furthermore, SCO officials proclaim that it is not a defensive or military structure, because there is no direct military threat to any of its member states, and as a result there is no political will to create one (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). In fact the SCO has sought to emphasise that while being consistent with all internationally recognised norms and standards, it represents a comprehensive and ‘new concept of security, based on mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation’ for the region.1 Therefore, contrary to certain interpretations, the SCO is not primarily concerned with defending the status quo from revisionist external powers. Instead, according to many regional scholars, the SCO’s aim is to solve regional security issues and, in particular, what is perceived by the leaderships of its member states as the key problem of the three evils (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Since its inception, the SCO has placed great importance on emphasising the ideological basis driving the security element of the organisation. The Director of the Centre for East Asia and SCO at the Moscow State University of International Relations, Aleksandr Lukin (personal interview, 4 May), cites a common belief among the member states in resisting the creation of a military element to the SCO, and a preference for a looser approach based on the ‘Shanghai spirit’. Indeed, in its official documents and rhetoric, the SCO has adopted a conceptual basis consistent with contemporary understandings of a widened, if not deepened, conception of security, which includes more actors than the state and covers more areas than military coordination. An analyst from the Centre for SCO Studies at the Shanghai Academy for Social Science (2007, personal interview, 17 July) argues that there are five principal foci of cooperation on non-traditional security in the SCO: tackling the ‘three evils’, the illegal narcotics trade, Afghanistan, oil and gas, national stability against ‘colour revolutions’.2

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The SCO acknowledges that security can no longer by viewed strictly in terms of territorial divisions, and that instead security dynamics are a lot more fluid and hard to pin down. As noted in a common declaration, SCO member states believe that no country in the world can ward off present-day terrorism, the drugs threat or other trans-border challenges at a time of the growing globalisation of political, economic and social processes.3 In this way, the SCO argues that a multi-level approach is necessary to address security dynamics of a sub-state and transnational nature, and that because these dynamics are not fixed territorially, a traditional military response is not appropriate to combat them.4 An expert from the Chinese Institute of International Studies likened the SCO to Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), because of its focus on the normalisation of internal relations and new security (Chen, X., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). While a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official suggests that the question of ‘what does security mean?’ has been central since the inception of the SCO. He argues that a ‘wide understanding of security’ is taken by the SCO, which embraces political stability, economic prosperity and social stability (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Similarly, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official (2007, personal interview, 25 June) has noted that all aspects of cooperation in the SCO, on security, economics and culture, are of equal importance because all are necessary for the creation of a stable and secure regional environment. Therefore the SCO can be seen as attempting to foster an identity as a ‘new security organisation’, encouraging its membership to adopt non-traditional thinking on tackling intrastate security challenges. In the context of such an approach, for the SCO to be effective as a security organisation its member states must embrace a regional approach to security. The leaderships of its member states tend to consider the maintenance of national control over all functions of their states as a priority. Yet there is a growing acceptance of the value of regional security coordination to meet the terrorist and sub-state threats active in the region, in the light of attacks and insurgency activities in Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000, the impact of the September 11 attacks on the international system, and the events in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 2005. Kazakh analyst Bultan Sultanov emphasises the interconnected nature of challenges to regime security, stating that ‘according to certain data, Uighur Separatist groups actively participated in the Kyrgyz “tulip

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revolution” and Andijan events in Uzbekistan’ (Sultanov 2008b). Thus, within the region it is widely perceived that insecurity in one state can impact on security in another. This understanding of the need for multilateral collaboration to achieve national security has been underlined as follows: The Heads of States believe, that answers to modern complex calls whether it is international terrorism or regional conflicts and crises can and should be found on bases of multilateralism and cooperativeness without division of states into various categories, and with adherence of norms and principles of international law. Only such an approach will provide international security and stability in conditions of globalisation.5 This conception is not completely consistent with the views espoused by all the member states’ national governments. A Kazakh official noted that a preference for bilateral relations is still evident, but, at the same time, the Central Asian leaderships are aware that this approach is not very effective in tackling the contemporary security situation and that a multilateral coordinated approach is necessary for their security (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). The Shanghai Convention is based on a belief in the need for a region-wide coordinated approach, and states have accepted ‘that joint efforts by the Parties within the framework of this Convention are an effective form of combating terrorism, separatism and extremism’.6 In light of this, the Central Asian regimes have come to view the SCO as making a valuable contribution to both regime and regional security. Kazakh government researchers Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva acknowledge that ‘due to the transnational nature of these threats and the low level of independence of the Central Asian Republics, the region’s problems cannot be resolved in isolation’. As a result, ‘the significance of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation should be singled out, because it is taking unusual approaches toward resolving the problems of the Central Asian countries, including in regional security’ (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006). Holistic view of security The regimes of the SCO member states have thus come to consider it necessary to develop a regional approach to security, which embraces more nuanced understandings of ‘new’ security challenges, a wider concept of security and a coordinated approach:

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such concerted efforts must be of a multidisciplinary nature, must make a tangible contribution to the reliable protection of the territories, populations and key life-support systems and infrastructure facilities of the member states from the destructive impact of the new challenges and threats and to the creation of the conditions necessary for sustainable development and poverty eradication in the SCO area.7 This conception of security is based on a holistic view of non-state security threats, whereby all aspects of localised sub-state and transstate criminal activity must be targeted. The threat of terrorist groups is regarded as the most important challenge, but there is recognition of the significance of the links between terrorists and other transnational sub-state criminal activity. Increasingly, the member states’ elites view overlapping linkages between anti-regime groups and organised crime in the region, primarily in terms of these groups financing their activities through profits they make from the illegal drugs trade that is flourishing in the region. Khudaiberdiev (2007) argues that for the SCO to be successful its needs to launch ‘an effective fight against international terrorism and extremism’, which ‘requires measures to be adopted to fight not only terrorism itself, but also ideological, financial and other sources of its proponents’. The transformation of the traditional Silk Road route of trade into a transport corridor for drug smuggling from Afghanistan to Europe is identified by the SCO as a major source of finance for a number of terrorist and separatist groups operating in the Ferghana Valley and other problematic areas in the region (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). It is claimed that this challenge was demonstrated by the 1999 and 2000 armed incursions by terrorist groups into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which is considered primarily not as a display by these groups of their capability and opposition to the existing regimes, but a means of ensuring the supply routes for the delivery of the heroin poppy harvest. The SCO has noted these interconnections (Akmalov 2005). As stated at the 2007 summit in Bishkek, ‘common understanding was expressed over the need to step up counteraction against funding of terrorism and illegal money laundering’.8 A holistic approach has also been noted with regard to other linkages between security governance and regional cooperation. The development of economic cooperation is considered by all member states’ leaderships as imperative for achieving security governance (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry

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for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). A leading Russian analyst writes: SCO policy of promoting effective cooperation between its member states in the economic and humanitarian spheres, if properly implemented, is capable of improving the socioeconomic situation and stabilising the domestic political situation in the Central Asian countries, and thereby considerably lowering the destabilising influence of radical Islam and western ideology fraught with the danger of ‘orange revolutions’. (Portyakov 2007, 1) From a similar perspective, a leading Chinese expert argues that security and economics are complementary tracks, identifying that while security needs in the region may decline, successful economic cooperation will lead to demands for further economic cooperation on a longerterm basis (Zhao, H., 2007, personal interview, 18 July; Zhao 2006, 25). However, Zhao (2006b, 25/6) also notes that ‘it is operationally rather difficult for an international or a regional organisation to perform the dual functions of security cooperation and economic cooperation at the same time’. The SCO attempts to address security and economics in a holistic manner, seeking to target the ‘three evils’ by simultaneously addressing associated problems of social disillusionment and poverty: poverty is a major source of instability in Central Asia and Xinjiang province. Therefore, beginning with the 2003 summit in Moscow, the SCO has expanded to embrace economic cooperation in the form of encouraging trade, investment, and infrastructure development among member countries and cracking down on the trafficking of illicit arms, ammunition, explosives, and particularly narcotics from Afghanistan. (Hua 2005) To this end, there is some evidence of a functional role for the SCO in tackling the narcotics problems in the region. At the Tashkent summit of 2004 a ‘Cooperation Agreement among the SCO Members on Fighting against Narcotics, Psychotropic Drugs, and Their Precursors’ was concluded, and anti-drug campaigns are a prominent part of the SCO cooperation framework.9 According to officials, the SCO is working towards the coordination of the internal policies of its member states to present a region-wide united response to the illegal

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drugs trade, aimed at coordinating intelligence and the activities of the respective states’ internal security forces (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May).

Afghanistan As part of the aim of tackling the threat of the narcotics trade, the SCO has recognised that the nature of low-level security requires it to cast its net beyond the immediate area of its member states, and in particular to Afghanistan as the major source of the flow of illegal narcotics into the Central Asian region. To this end, the SCO has sought to foster positive and cooperative relations with the new regime in Kabul, and President Karzai has attended the SCO annual summits and discussed strengthening counterterrorist cooperation among them. Currently, the issue of instability and the flow of drugs, crime and extremism from Afghanistan is high on the agenda of the SCO (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, emphasises that the SCO member states perceive the situation in Afghanistan as important to their security, by stating that ‘it is only natural that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which incorporates practically all of Afghanistan’s neighbours, could not remain aloof from participation in the collective efforts’.10 Afghanistan has always been a top priority for security in the region, because of the increasingly porous nature of its borders with the region. There was a lull in the intensity of security challenges emanating from Afghanistan in the wake of the US-led NATO operation in the early 2000s, but in recent years concerns have grown rapidly about the amount of cross-border drug smuggling taking place and the activity of Islamist-inspired groups and fighters, who have been able to operate and seek refuge on the Afghan side of the Pamir Mountains. As Paramonov and Stolpovskii (2009) highlight, ‘none of the Central Asian states feels completely safe being located next to one of the most unstable zones on the planet – Afghanistan’. This concern has become magnified in recent years as Central Asian perceptions of the success of the NATO operation in stabilising Afghanistan have altered, whereby, ‘in the opinion of certain experts, it is possible for the radical Islamists to return to power. In this case the possibility cannot be excluded of their expansion

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into Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan and even to Kazakhstan’ (Sultanov 2008b). In this context, the SCO’s member states have been very critical of NATO and its operation in Afghanistan. At the Bishkek Summit in 2007, it was noted that ‘expressing concern over the threat of narcotics coming from Afghanistan and its negative effect on Central Asia, the heads of state call for consistent strengthening of anti-narcotics cooperation in the framework of the Organisation, combining international efforts on the creation of anti-narcotics belts around Afghanistan’.11 Several regional analysts highlight the fact that the member states’ leaderships increasingly perceive the developing of a regional approach to Afghanistan as a top priority, because of concerns that a NATO withdrawal would once again leave them exposed to the lawless regions of North-Western Afghanistan. Scholars and officials emphasise that although the SCO is primarily focused on the internal security affairs of its members, events beyond its membership’s territory could force a reaction from the SCO, in particular the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. According to some regional analysts this could lead the SCO to act beyond its membership and play an important role in the ongoing stabilisation and nation-building projects (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). On this basis, there is growing momentum among the member states for the SCO to develop a coordinated approach to, and play a bigger role in, Afghanistan (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Indeed, in 2007 the SCO declared that its ‘member states stand ready to participate in the efforts to normalise the political situation in Afghanistan, to develop economic cooperation with the country’ and announced intentions to intensify cooperation within the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group.12 In addition, in March 2009 a special conference on the security situation in Afghanistan was held under the auspices of the SCO, which was attended by the SCO’s member states, observer states, officials from the US and other G8 countries, as well as officials from various multilateral organisations including NATO and the EU. The Special Representative of the Russian President to the SCO, Leonid Moiseev (2010, 55), states that ‘The SCO has earned the right to be regarded as an influential international organization. We believe the SCO could be the most suitable venue for discussions on Afghanistan because it brings together all its neighbours.’ This highlights the development of collective mentality within the SCO towards the numerous challenges the region faces from its south-western neighbour.

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A ‘new conception’ of security? The SCO embraces the logic of new approaches to security, whereby mutual collaboration between states is central to presenting a coherent regional response to non-traditional security threats. Up to this point, the SCO has not been concerned with traditional military force; instead it has concentrated on intelligence gathering and effective internal policing of terrorist and criminal groups: SCO member states, recognising the transnational nature of today’s terrorism and being in the forefront of the fight against its practical manifestations, are following a course of mutual cooperation and vigorous participation in the efforts of the world community in the struggle against terrorism, in particular, in stopping its financing channels. In this matter they assign an important role to close collaboration between the law enforcement agencies and secret services, and also the defence agencies of the SCO member states.13 The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is working towards developing a harmonised legal basis for the SCO’s activities, which will be applicable across all of the SCO’s member states’ territories (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). This is very significant for the development of a coordinated approach amongst the member states. Taking into account the reluctance of member states to give up any state sovereignty, attempts at harmonising legal codes illustrate a degree of preparedness by the member states’ leaderships to change their domestic political behaviour in the name of a common approach to security governance. Indeed, harmonisation of its members’ domestic policies has become a focus since the completion of the institution-building phase of SCO development. Following the Astana Summit of the SCO in July 2005, the Russian government stated that, one of the main directions of the activity of RATS of the SCO in 2004 was the further organising of a normative legal basis for the cooperation of member states of the SCO in the struggle with terrorism, separatism and extremism.14 One element of this harmonisation is the development of compatible processes for identifying, addressing and punishing those actors that violate the SCO conventions across the member states, as well as establishing common methods for combating sub-state security threats. In this way, the SCO positions itself as a vehicle to address transnational

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and non-traditional issues at a regional level. It provides a mechanism for a regionally coordinated interpretation and response to security dynamics, which are not restricted to strict definitions of national boundaries. A Russian official characterised the SCO as a mechanism for furthering common understanding between its members, describing it as a slow process of learning to listen and understand one another, allowing all parties to come to an agreement on common interests and ways of approaching problems (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). Furthermore, Omelicheva highlights that the SCO ‘contributed to the locally bounded understanding of terrorism’, and ‘the governments of the SCO member states accept each others’ understandings of security concerns’ (Omelicheva 2007, 899). Therefore, as suggested earlier, although the SCO has often been presented in Western analysis as a new ‘Warsaw Pact’, this characterisation does not match up with its security agenda. As distinct from a traditional military pact against an external threat, the SCO’s focus is on non-traditional challenges, operating within its member states’ domestic affairs. As a result, an important raison d’être of the SCO is to provide the most efficient avenue for the Central Asian Republics to cooperate with one another on these issues. As Torjesen (2008, 189) argues, the ‘SCO has become a channel through which Central Asian states can engage with China, and Russia, on a common security agenda in order jointly to address common threats’. Although the wide-ranging nature of non-traditional security challenges facing the region is acknowledged by the SCO, as outlined previously its members’ leaderships perceive specific challenges as priorities. As a result, cooperation in the SCO is overwhelmingly focused on addressing terrorism, separatism and extremism. As yet, significant practical cooperation in areas other than tackling the ‘three evils’ remains limited because of the perceptions of its members’ leaderships that the ‘three evils’ have an immediate and direct impact on regime security. While such a focus does indeed encompass something of a ‘new’ conception of security for regional cooperation in Eurasia, it cannot be said to be comprehensive. In spite of regularly declaring intentions to deal with organised crime, narcotics trafficking and a variety of societal issues, the SCO only really seeks to impact on terrorism, extremism and separatism. This is because the ‘referent object’ for security within the SCO remains the national leaderships, and thus it seeks to address the concerns of its members’ leaders and, for the most part, does not address the security concerns of the wider civil society in Central Asia. Therefore the

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SCO represents a new approach to security within the confines of the security picture perceived by the existing elites.

SCO and the ‘War on Terror’ As outlined above, the SCO has been focused heavily on tackling the ‘three evils’ from its inception as an organisation in 2001.15 As part of this agenda, it has sought to present itself as part of the international coalition against terrorism or ‘War on Terror’, emphasising the commonality between Central Asian regional challenges and international ones, and contributing to international approaches to dealing with such challenges. Against this background, the role of the SCO in stabilising the region is criticised by some analysts as unhealthy: ‘while constructive regional cooperation could play an important role in defeating terrorism, there is good reason to worry that the organisation simply reinforces members’ worst practices’ (Human Rights Watch 2006). Agreement over definitions of the ‘three evils’ within the SCO is seen as providing justification for actions by its member states with an agenda other than anti-terrorism. According to Human Rights Watch, the ‘SCO helped China gain international acceptance for its portrayal of Uighur strife as inspired by, and linked to, international Islamic terrorism. Beijing had long equated independent religious and political activities with “separatism,” but never before has it explicitly linked all dissenting voices in Xinjiang with terrorism’ (Human Rights Watch 2006). The ‘Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism’ identifies any ‘act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian’ including the intention ‘to organise, plan, aid and abet such act, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, violate public security or to compel public authorities or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act, and prosecuted in accordance with the national laws of the Parties’ as a terrorist action.16 This definition leaves a lot of leeway in interpreting what constitutes a terrorist act or even the intention to facilitate such an act. The definitions of separatism17 and extremism18 are equally broad. They emphasise the importance of state sovereignty and territorial integrity as the defining elements of the international system, and a regime’s right to act against a threat to the sovereign integrity of its nation state. These definitions place regime security at the heart of the SCO, and offer significant scope for the regimes to act pre-emptively to nullify any

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threat to the integrity of their states. As Goldsmith (2005) points out, ‘under this convention, terrorism, extremism, and separatism are given broad definitions, providing its signatories with wide latitude to repress dissidents and insurgents alike’. Taking this into account, there is validity in the assertions by some critics that the member states’ leaderships perceive the SCO’s focus on tackling terrorism as providing support for acts of repression. Although vague and widely criticised, these definitions of the ‘three evils’ demonstrate a common perception among the SCO’s member states about the nature of the threats facing the region and what is an appropriate response to them. There are no internationally recognised definitions of what these terms comprise, and definitions are often a source of contention between governments, but the SCO members addressed this issue early and established common interpretations that suit all of their interests. As Lukin (2007a, 142) states, the reaching of agreed common definitions of terrorism, extremism and separatism ‘is very important, considering that problems in agreeing on definitions often prevent international cooperation in combating these phenomena’. As a result, this common broad-ranging interpretation of the ‘three evils’ provides an important element of solidarity between the SCO’s member states. There is little evidence to support the accusation that the SCO’s focus on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks is simply window-dressing. The fight against terrorism has long been a primary raison d’être of the organisation. Common regional approaches to terrorism were already on the agenda before 2001. The ‘Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism’ was signed three months before 9/11 at the 2001 SCO summit in Shanghai, and was the culmination of two years’ work on its development. In fact the SCO had already been pushing for a united global approach to international terrorism and extremism long before September 11. The SCO’s member states provided rhetorical and material support to the US-led NATO operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan in 2001/02, suggesting that the discourse on the common international threat of terrorism was not an entirely empty vessel. While the SCO did not opportunistically develop an emphasis on terrorism and extremism, its member states have nonetheless considered it useful to tie its activities to the so-called global ‘War on Terror’. The rhetoric of the ‘War on Terror’ provided the SCO with greater diplomatic weight to pursue policies it was already intent on following in its own interests. At the same time, the degree of commonality between the

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approaches of the SCO and the US-led ‘War on Terror’ does not extend much beyond agreement on the importance of tackling terrorism. The SCO made no attempt to coordinate its actions and programmes with any other states or organisations acting under the umbrella of the global ‘War on Terror’. However, the SCO’s approach to terrorism is based on a significant degree of commonality in perceptions held by its own member states’ regimes. This approach can be seen as being in direct contrast to that of the US, which ‘puts emphasis on military strikes against international terrorist centres and attacks against states supporting terrorism (these may be any states unwelcome to Washington)’, while the SCO’s member states ‘see direct links between international terrorism, on the one hand, and separatism and religious extremism, on the other’ (Lukin 2007a, 142). Several of the SCO’s member states’ leaderships perceive themselves as facing internal challenges to political and societal cohesion, and as such consider terrorism as more explicitly linked to existential challenges to regimes, in the form of separatist and anti-regime movements inside and across their states. For established Western states, terrorism poses a significant threat to human life and disruption of society, but it is not seen as challenging the fundamental tenets of the state or the existing political regime in the same way. In this context, the SCO’s approach to tackling the ‘three evils’ simultaneously likens itself to and distinguishes itself from the global ‘War on Terror’, as it focuses, on the one hand, on ‘coordinating their actions with the US in combating international terrorism’, while on the other hand continuing to ‘act according to their own programmes and in their own interests, closely linking this struggle with counteraction to separatism and Islamic extremism’ (Lukin 2007a, 142). All the member states of the SCO cooperated with the US and NATO with regard to the operation against the Taliban in Afghanistan, sharing intelligence and allowing the US to establish military bases in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as part of this operation (which both Russia and China, while holding reservations about the presence of US troops in the region, endorsed). At the same time, security concerns about terrorism afflicting their own domestic affairs are dealt with unilaterally or in coordination with other SCO members. China and Kazakhstan, for example, have cooperated on tackling Uighur separatist groups. At a global level, the SCO promotes an approach that is in line with the US-led ‘War on Terror’; within its own regional jurisdiction, it has another interpretation, which is by and large shared by all its member states’ leaderships. An approach to regional cooperation against terrorism is adopted whereby ‘SCO

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members seek to ensure their territorial integrity and the preservation of secular regimes in power in Central Asian countries’. Therefore tackling terrorism and the ‘War on Terror’ are conflated with regime security.

Rhetorical support for regime security: The impact of Andijan The central place of regime security within the security priorities of the SCO member states is best illustrated by the events in and surrounding Andijan. In May 2005, the Uzbek authorities suppressed an uprising in the city of Andijan, an event which came on the back of the ‘Tulip Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan a month earlier and other ‘colour revolutions’ in the former Soviet space. As a result, these events were seen to have wider implications, as part of a spate of regime changes across the post-Soviet space. Although ‘these events did not cause the situation in Central Asia to spiral out of control, they were a warning sign to its states and neighbours, giving them reason to think seriously about how to deal with the growing snowball of regional problems’ (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006). Indeed, the fallout caused a significant realignment in the perceptions of the region’s leaderships and impacted heavily on the SCO and its role as a security provider in the region. According to a leading Kazakh scholar, these opposition uprisings affected the Central Asian leaders’ interpretations of how best to preserve regime security, and reaffirmed their perceptions that the most salient threats to their regimes stem from within their own societies or the regional landscape (Kukeyeva, F., 2007, personal interview, 17 May). The impact of Andijan led to a reassessment in the Central Asian Republics concerning which external states could be relied upon to support their regime security. The criticism from many Western quarters of the methods used by the Central Asian leaderships to ensure the maintenance of their regimes, and a perception amongst many in the region that Western governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) provide support, tacit or otherwise, to opposition groups in the region, led to a loss of faith in the West as a guarantor of security for the regional ruling regimes: the ousting of Akayev [President of Kyrgyzstan] made the remaining members of the ‘Post-Soviet Presidential Club’, wary of the United States’ influence in their countries. This wariness was further compounded by the subsequent heavy western criticism levied

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against Karimov’s repressive methods during the Andijan upheaval. (Chargynov 2006, 33) In the case of Andijan, under great international pressure and condemnation, the Uzbek government looked to its neighbours, and primarily the member states of the SCO, for support. Russia, China and other Central Asian Republics provided diplomatic support to the Uzbek government, including rejecting calls for international investigations into what they considered to be a domestic Uzbek incident. As a result, the Central Asian leaderships are perceived to have moved closer to Moscow and to a lesser extent towards Beijing as the primary guarantors of their security: Washington’s abrupt cancellation of aid to Uzbekistan in 2005 because of its human rights record, combined with widespread regional suspicion of American involvement in the overthrow of Kyrgyzstan president Akayev and the Andijan riots, seems to have made Central Asian governments believe that sticking with China and Russia will better ensure the longevity of their regimes. They [the Central Asian Republics] appreciate that Beijing and Moscow have designed the SCO to preserve the status quo and, unlike the United States or other Western countries, have refrained from stipulating any market or democratic reforms.’ (Chung 2006, 12) For the leaderships of Central Asia, the SCO is seen as providing a significant political role ‘of protective integration – the solidarity it offers provides symbolic political legitimacy and equality to Central Asian regimes that struggle to assert this on the broader international stage’ (Allison 2008a, 196). The principle of non-interference in domestic affairs is central to security cooperation in the SCO. This involves solidarity over the need to defend the prevailing regimes in the region and legitimises exceptional measures to achieve this end. From this perspective, member states are entitled to pursue whatever domestic security policy they deem appropriate, and the organisation and its members will offer support for whatever form this may take. Indeed, Russia and China strove to emphasise this common principle in the wake of the Andijan incident, and the SCO featured prominently in this regard. Although Russian–Uzbek relations were not perceived as particularly favourable by either side at that time, the Russian government immediately sprang to the defence of the Uzbek authorities’ actions in Andijan. Along with China, it sought to tie this support

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to a sense of commonness within the region and condemned illegal intervention in the region’s stability by extra-regional actors. The aim was to paint a picture of a region that is best safeguarded by actors who share a similar outlook on the region and its security challenges, and understand the centrality of non-intervention in domestic affairs and the importance of regime security. To this end, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ‘sought to widen the implications of the events in Uzbekistan to the region and beyond’, linking these events to the common security challenges facing all of the member states (McDermott 2005). In addition to strong Russian support, Chinese solidarity with the Uzbek government was also notable: indeed, Beijing’s quick response in this case was no less than that of Moscow, which is traditionally regarded as the most involved (or dominant) foreign power in the region . . . only a week later, Chinese President Hu Jintao invited Karimov to visit China as a sign of solidarity towards the Uzbek leader following the repression of the Andijan uprising. In his first foreign trip after the violence in Andijan, Karimov reportedly received not just praise, but also expressions of delight for his handling of the uprising. (Chargynov 2006, 33) An even clearer indication of the importance of the SCO in presenting a common regional front was evident at its annual summit a month after Andijan. The accompanying annual joint declaration of the SCO summit called for the withdrawal from its member states’ territories of the forces and bases relating to NATO’s coalition force active in Afghanistan. This statement should be interpreted not just as a common show of support, but as signalling the SCO’s member states’ dissatisfaction with the West’s criticism of the actions of the Uzbek government towards regime security. This illustrates the common perception among the member states’ regimes that the principle of non-interference in domestic security affairs should be upheld, and intrusion in the internal affairs of sovereign states is unacceptable. The events surrounding Andijan also demonstrated that within the SCO regime security is paramount, and that the SCO would be used in order to support its member states in this regard. Hence the SCO is seen as very valuable by the Central Asian regimes, because it creates ‘a basis for political solidarity between state leaders and their protection against or resistance to a perceived interventionist agenda of democracypromotion by Western states, international organisations and donor agencies’ (Allison 2008a, 188). Thus, as well as seeking to develop practical coordination aimed at regime security, the SCO also offers

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rhetorical support and protection from the international community for its member states’ regimes internal actions to guarantee regime security. Allison (2008a, 186) argues that, for the Central Asian leaderships, rhetoric aimed at ‘reinforcement of regime security and legitimacy . . . . has priority over other security, economic or trade goals’. Taking this into account, the events surrounding Andijan were important in the Uzbek leadership’s decision to refocus towards Russia, China and the SCO, and away from the West. As argued earlier, the prioritisation of regime security by the member states creates distinct barriers to regional integration, whereby anything perceived as detrimental to regime security is not to be complied with, including the ceding of national sovereignty to a regional body. However, in other respects the two functions, of a coordinated approach to regional security governance and rhetorical support for non-interference in domestic affairs, are complementary. The concerns of the leaderships of the Central Asian Republics about challenges to their ruling authorities and the potency of non-traditional security challenges in the region mean that the agendas of regional security and regime security can, in some instances, be more or less collapsed into one. From this perspective, the provision of guaranteed mutual support against the wider international community serves to enhance political stability in the region, from which a common approach to security can be developed more easily. Voluntary participation of members is required for a multilateral coordinated approach to security to be effective. To encourage participation, it is necessary to provide incentives to adhere to a coordinated approach. The most obvious incentive is that it will contribute to an actor’s primary security aims. By providing support against pressure from above, the international community, the SCO contributes to regime security. However, this does not contribute to addressing the more consistent threat to regime security from below, domestic challenges to regime legitimacy. Therefore the incentives to participate in a coordinated approach to regional security are still strong, and the provision of support against international criticism is an added bonus, rather than the ultimate aim that disincentives the need for regional coordination. As it seeks to address both levels of threat, the SCO is very attractive to the Central Asian Republics as a provider of regime security.

Military cooperation Although the SCO has emphasised its non-traditional focus and new conception of security, there has been some evidence of a movement

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towards a more traditional military collaborative element within the organisation. In the past, the SCO has played down any prospect of developing a military element to its regional framework. To some extent, this has been explicitly to rebuke claims that it is in essence a traditional multilateral military alliance, whose raison d’être is to create a united front against the West. As a result, the SCO has sought to highlight that military collaboration is not an essential part of its approach to maintaining security in the region, because in order to tackle the ‘three evils’, military action is not a central element. In fact, as outlined above, the SCO defines its identity as that of a non-traditional security organisation. Nonetheless, Portyakov (2007, 3) notes that ‘some Russian experts pose the question on the need for closer cooperation of defence and security departments within the SCO’s framework, including for the purpose of fulfilling peace-keeping functions’, which would require a joint military component. However, the Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism does not envisage the creation of a permanent SCO counter-terrorism military unit or joint military operations. Yet the SCO’s approach to security does not exclude military action either, especially in terms of rapid reaction to emergency situations. Torjesen (2008, 188) notes that recently ‘there have been more efforts to develop a more effective political and military structure’. Indeed, an agreement was reached between the SCO member states in June 2007 to hold regular joint military exercises. Since this agreement was signed, the Peace Mission 2007, 2009 and 2010 military exercises have taken place, although not all member states participated in all of these exercises. In comparison with the early exercises in 2003 and 2005, the Peace Mission exercises from 2007 onwards have been afforded substantially more political and diplomatic rhetoric.19 Major General Zhu Jiany of China states that the signing of the 2007 agreement on joint exercises was ‘a milestone in the history of the SCO’.20 The Peace Mission 2007 took place in conjunction with the annual summit in Bishkek, so that the SCO members’ heads of state could attend the last day of the exercises in the southern Russian region of Chelyabinsk, suggesting a clear attempt to increase the stature and profile of military cooperation within the SCO. An analyst points out that ‘the preparations for Peace Mission 2007 were detailed and painstaking, reflecting the high level of political importance that Beijing and Moscow had attached to the exercises’, and that ‘the Chinese conducted an intense media campaign intended to portray the SCO exercises as the “most open exercise

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ever” and to establish the international image of a modernised Chinese military’ (McDermott 2007a, 19). However, the greater attention apportioned to the 2007 and subsequent Peace Mission manoeuvres does not signal any concrete progress towards a collaborative SCO military force, because the member states’ leaderships do not perceive this as a priority. In addition, despite some progress in reducing tensions between the Central Asian Republics within the SCO, suspicions still linger among their leaderships vis-à-vis each other and as a result they are reluctant to tie themselves militarily to one another. Russia and China also consider the development of a common military force as counter to their interests, because the military leaderships in both countries continue to consider that the other could become a threat in the long term, so that military cooperation ‘is limited by the unwillingness of the SCO states to exchange hard intelligence material’ (Allison 2004, 479). Instead, the Russian leadership appears to favour the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) as a mechanism of multilateral military cooperation in Central Asia. Furthermore, a senior Russian official, who works closely on SCO matters, notes that the SCO is not and will not be a military–political bloc because of two main reasons: the organisation and its member states are not ready for this, and the organisation is based on the Chinese principles of ‘peaceful coexistence’. Therefore the focus on developing harmonised and coordinated legal and normative solutions to non-traditional security in many ways excludes the need for a common military force (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). In this context, the significance of the Peace Mission military operations lies in the development of another method to foster closer cooperation between the SCO’s member states. In this regard, Peace Mission 2007 was notable as it marked the first SCO military exercise to include participation from all member states, although the Uzbeks sent only staff officers as observers.21 However, in line with the Karimov regime’s refusal to participate in joint regional military arrangements, such as the Collective Operational Reaction Force created within the CSTO, the Uzbek military has not participated in any capacity in Peace Missions since 2007. The 2007 Peace Mission exercises were also significant as it was the first time that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army took part in a joint counterterrorism military exercise outside of China. As a multilateral mechanism, the SCO offers the opportunity for its member states (with the exception of Uzbekistan), which would not otherwise voluntarily cooperate with one another militarily, to coordinate and gain experience together in practical military activities. The value

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of the 2007 Peace Mission in creating greater familiarity among the member states’ militaries was played up by Lieutenant-General Vladimir Moltenskoy, Deputy Commander of Russia’s Ground Forces, when he ‘suggested that a documentary film of the exercises would be produced and used as a training aid for the militaries of the SCO member states’ (McDermott 2007a, 10). For the SCO, the importance of the operation was in creating greater trust and collaboration between its members, as seen by the fact that China’s armed police (PAP) and Russia’s interior forces carried out a joint counterterrorism exercise dubbed ‘Cooperation 2007’ only a month later. The Peace Missions of 2007, 2009 and 2010 were held under the banner of anti-terrorist response training. The exercises were designed to lay the groundwork for a common response to non-traditional security challenges, rather than any external military orientation: ‘Peace Mission 2007 must be understood as part of an evolving effort to strengthen the security dynamics within the SCO, not marking a drive toward forming a military bloc’ (McDermott 2007a, 23). In this context, Colonel-General Yurii Baluyevskii, Russian Chief of the General Staff, explained the aims of Peace Mission 2007 as serving ‘to prepare the SCO members to counter terrorism, extremism, drug trafficking, organised crime, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the problem of “information security”’ (McDermott 2007a, 18). While ‘Peace Mission 2010 assembled 5,000 servicemen, aimed at displaying advances in the series of exercises and portraying the SCO as an organization with the potential to counteract emerging security challenges on the territories of members’ (McDermott 2010a). In this way, these exercises reflect the established security aims of the SCO, including a heavy focus on regime security. According to some analysts, the Peace Mission 2007 was designed to counter the threat of an armed uprising against the existing regimes in Central Asia, whereby the main scenario involved ‘retaking a town that has been overrun by militants. Reports claim that Russian officials developed the scenario based on the events in Uzbekistan’s Andijan Province in 2005 . . . . this scenario displays how the SCO views its role in collective security terms for the region’ (Wolfe 2007). McDermott (2010a) states that the Peace Mission 2010 scenario ‘envisaged the arrival of several massive groups of militants supported by “combat aviation,” gradually penetrating the territory of an SCO member state’. On the basis of this apparent focus on developing coordinated methods for tackling internal insurgencies, some regional analysts have raised the question of ‘how should the SCO react . . . if stability in Central Asia is being jeopardised

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by sharpening disputes between states or the domestic political strife in a member state or other issues than terrorism?’ (Zhao, 2006b, 26). The scenarios of the Peace Mission exercises suggest that the SCO foresees a situation in which it may act militarily to defend an existing member state’s regime from a serious internal challenge. If it were to act in this way, this would mark a major departure from its guiding principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, which permeates the SCO and serves to reassure its members’ leaderships that their political sovereignty will not be challenged. However, in the view of certain scholars, interference may be necessary to ensure the development and effectiveness of the SCO as a provider of regime security. A number of regional experts argue that ‘it is necessary to draw up plans of militarypolitical measures in case of the emergence of crises in the region’ (Morozov 2009, 174). From this perspective, the principle of non-intervention in sovereign affairs runs counter to the SCO’s stated aim of ensuring regional security and stability. A challenge to regime security in one member state may undermine the SCO’s capability of fulfilling its responsibility of ensuring stability in the region and regime security for other member states. As a result, some regional experts have argued that to preserve regime security in the majority of its member states, the SCO may need to intervene in the domestic affairs of a member state to protect the other member states (Zhao 2006b; Portyakov 2007; Morozov 2009). After Russia’s military clash with Georgia over South Ossetia in 2008, there was some speculation that, as well as seeking rhetorical support for its actions from the SCO, Russia might push for the SCO to develop a greater collective military component, which could be utilised if a similar situation with Georgia or another former Soviet state emerged in the future. However, there is no evidence of any such change in direction, because the other member states, and importantly China, do not see this as being in their interests. In addition, as noted above, most analysts consider that Moscow views the CSTO as the primary multilateral arrangement for developing a collective military component in the former Soviet space. Furthermore, Weitz (2010) argues that despite the SCO leaders’ general agreement that the organisation should defend its incumbent governments against foreign-inspired Internet or terrorist threats, they’ve been divided over whether to respond collectively . . . . In particular, the SCO governments continue

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to disagree over whether the organisation should protect its members against further coloured revolutions. It has been suggested that some of the Central Asian leaderships do not view the SCO as a military option to defend their regimes; McDermott reports that, during the disorder in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 following the removal of Bakiyev, ‘Tolendy Makeyev, Kyrgyzstan’s SCO coordinator made no request for assistance either with law and order or peacekeeping, and instead restricted his appeals to financial aid’ (McDermott 2010b). By contrast, Tajik President Emomalii Rahmon, at the 2010 SCO summit, stated that ‘what happened [in Kyrgyzstan] once again proves the necessity to create effective SCO response mechanisms’.22 The different perspectives of its members’ regimes, as well as its perceived lack of practical military capability, has led some analysts to criticise the SCO as ineffective, pointing to its inaction in relation to the removal of Bakiyev as President in Kyrgyzstan in April 2010 and subsequent instability in the country, in particular the large-scale riots, civil disorder and ethnic clashes in Osh in June (Weitz 2010). Although the SCO heads of state discussed the issue of the security situation in Osh at the annual SCO summit, which coincided with these events, it was outlined that the SCO is not focused on acting militarily regarding another sovereign member state’s affairs (Melvin 2010). Indeed, the SCO has sought to reiterate that military intervention in internal conflicts and security breakdowns is not its main goal; instead it is interested in continual work on countering terrorism, extremism and separatism. Nikolay Patrushev, the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, has argued that events in Kyrgyzstan serve to highlight the importance of the SCO for its member states, stating that in light of the ‘ “more complicated” [regional security situation] following the events in Kyrgyzstan’, the SCO ‘is emerging as the main regional anti-terrorist platform’ in Central Asia (McDermott 2010b). Although the Central Asian leaderships’ concerns about regime insecurity have grown since the ‘colour revolutions’ and events in Kyrgyzstan, they continue to prioritise the maintenance of the principle of non-inference in domestic affairs over a multilateral approach to regional stability that involves direct intervention. Therefore, as emphasised by a leading Russian scholar, for the SCO to act in the defence of a regime under threat from internal uprising, it would have to be invited to do so by that regime (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May). Taking this into account, in the eyes of the member states the main perceived benefit of military cooperation in the SCO is in terms of its

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boost in legitimacy for internal regime security strategies. McDermott (2007a, 23) considers that, Such a scenario [SCO involvement in a security operation in one of its member states] makes sense if the operation in the minds of the planning staff actually involved quelling a rebellion; a joint military response might legitimise an operation that could illicit greater international outcry if undertaken by a single state. Therefore the main military utility of the SCO may be in reducing the scope for criticism of actions taken by its member states’ leaderships towards regime security. In this way, the military aspect of the SCO is aimed at contributing to regional and regime security, but its role in this regard is secondary to other methods, such as the development of a harmonised normativelegal approach and the provision of rhetorical support at an international level. The member states are aware of the wider consequences of developing greater military cooperation, in terms of raising concerns in the West about the aims of the organisation. As a Kyrgyz analyst states, ‘it is hardly possible that the SCO member states, which are individually interested in improving relationships with the West, will readily accept the factual strengthening of the organisation’s military potential’ (Omarov 2007). As a result, the introduction of a greater military component could create ‘destructive trends within the SCO itself, which is primarily related to the relative polarisation of the positions of its member states regarding US military presence in the region’ (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006). Therefore the member states perceive little advantage in the development of a common military force in the SCO. The presence of mutual suspicion between its members’ military establishments and the maintenance of the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs make the development of a military aspect to the SCO of peripheral importance. Taking these limitations to military cooperation within the SCO into account, Dodikudoev and Niyatbekov highlight that ‘the very fact of military exercises that involved the defence ministries of five states shows that the SCO is gaining international and regional weight’ (Dodikhudoev and Niyatbekov 2009). In this respect, the primary benefit of the SCO military exercises is the generation of greater trust and familiarity among its members, whereby their military establishments can be socialised away from viewing one another as threats and towards thinking of each other as partners.

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The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure As outlined, the SCO proclaim to provide a broad collaborative approach to regional security. To this end the SCO seeks to function as a conduit for in-depth and regular collaboration between the different security agencies of its member states.23 In conjunction with its focus on the ‘three evils’, the SCO created a Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) as a hub for security cooperation within the organisation. The RATS is widely considered by the member states’ leaderships as an important step in the SCO’s security strategy. As Chotaev (2006) points out, the armed incursions into the Ferghana Valley by Islamist separatists in 1999 and 2000 had the effect of demonstrating to the regional elites that the, threat of spreading terrorism and extremism was very real indeed for the Central Asian countries and China (the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region), as well as Russia. This made regional security and an antiterrorist structure designed to combat terrorism, extremism, and separatism two major priorities on which the cooperating countries pinned their hopes. The main goal of RATS is the coordination of non-military actions relevant to addressing the sub-state security threats of terrorism, separatism and extremism. The former Director of the Executive Committee of RATS, Vyacheslav Kasymov Temirovich, stated that the RATS had been designed in order to develop a ‘single approach for the SCO states in the fight against terrorism and other problems of the modern society’.24 In this way, it is at the forefront of the SCO’s proclaimed ‘new’ conception of security. It is focused on tackling the ‘three evils’ via the development of common structures, harmonising approaches and undertaking joint operations. Indeed, the SCO’s ‘participating states more or less (and with various degrees of success) managed to work out a common approach and sign the relevant agreements and treaties’ for these areas, but ‘the issue is their [agreements, treaties and programmes] implementation, which has not always been successful however’ (Abdyldaev 2007). Although only established in 2004, the RATS is already an integral part of the SCO, both in terms of practical cooperation against terrorism and rhetorically as a vehicle to address new security challenges. As highlighted by Wooley (2004), ‘RATS is an important recognition that terrorism in Central Asia is a regional issue that requires a regional response’. On this basis, the RATS is viewed positively by the member

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states. The deputy Kazakh Foreign Minister, Nurlan Ermekbaev, stated that ‘we [Kazakh leadership] positively assess the measures of the Regional anti-terrorist structure of the SCO on the formation of an international-legal basis, allowing effective and efficient reactions to acts of terror and opportunely warn us [of imminent attacks]’.25 The RATS is an attempt at creating a clearing-house for information and intelligence on actors identified as representing a threat to the region’s security, be it on a region-wide scale or within a specific state. Komissina and Kurtov characterise the RATS as a ‘practical centre for the coordination and exchange of the component organs of the member states in the struggle with terrorism, extremism and separatism’ (Komissina and Kurtov 2006, 89). As a hub for intelligence, the RATS seeks to act as a forum for research and analysis of terrorism in the region, and dispense this information in the form of training and policy advice to individual state apparatus.26 Therefore it is a regional organ for practical coordination of national government mechanisms. The RATS enables the individual states to coordinate their national legislation on terrorism and internal security procedures, and to develop a region-wide approach that will maximise the effectiveness of counterterrorist measures. A leading Russian scholar states that ‘a great deal of organisational and legal work has been done to establish cooperation between the SCO’s member states in fighting the “three evils” – terrorism, separatism and extremism, as well as against illegal drug-trafficking’ (Portyakov 2007, 3). The RATS seeks to establish and maintain ‘working contacts with the main administrative bodies of the SCO’s member states’,27 have direct contact with the relevant authorities of each member state and act as a coordinating vehicle in their policy. A Kazakhstani Intelligence Officer stated that the actors within the RATS ‘are not a paramilitary, counterintelligence, or intelligence subdivision’ but ‘are in some sense an intellectual, information and research staff interacting with the parties’ competent authorities’ (Dzhumanbekov 2005). Officials within the organisation have chosen to liken the approach of the RATS to that of Interpol (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Interpol ‘facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organisations, authorities and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime’.28 The SCO is pursuing similar methods to tackle the ‘three evils’ in the region, by acting as a focal point of knowledge and expertise for its members to function on a region-wide basis. Like Interpol, the SCO attempts to balance the need for a neutral central operating body and maintenance of the ultimate independence and authority of its members’

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national legal systems and authority. To achieve this, the representatives from the member states to the RATS are supposed to function as representatives of the organisation and not of their member states. Thus the RATS is an attempt at creating an independent body for the gathering of intelligence and resources from its member states in a single location.29 This is similar to the central organs of Interpol. Therefore, in many respects, the RATS is an archetypal regional security institution, created to contribute to national security by coordination of national resources at a regional level through a common body. However, a major restriction on the effectiveness of the RATS is that it has no jurisdiction to enforce its policy recommendations on its member states’ domestic affairs. This is in keeping with the ‘nonintervention’ philosophy of the organisation. As a result, as with other organs of the SCO, it is dependent on its member states’ governments to approve any development in its work. This inhibits the range and speed of activity within the RATS. In spite of such limitations, it has been able to achieve some tangible results in the direction of creating a regional approach to security. According to officials, the RATS is now focused on what it terms ‘inter-operability’, in order to harmonise the approaches of the member states and create a truly common regional approach (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). To a certain degree, the SCO is developing, slowly, towards a common normative vehicle for cohesion of national approaches. Despite this progress, some analysts remain unconvinced about the practical level of cooperation. They are sceptical about the level of intelligence sharing that takes place, and argue that in particular there remains little understanding and trust between China and the other member states in terms of sensitive security issues: ‘despite these apparently positive developments, the Central Asian members do not necessarily share China’s security focus or views on regional threats, and as such grudgingly – because of their bilateral problems with Russia – appreciate Russia’s membership, which, to them, acts as a counterweight to China’ (Bogaturov 2004, 2). While there is a history of intelligence and other communications exchange between Moscow and the Central Asian Republics since the Soviet period, no such mechanisms and processes exist between China and the Central Asian Republics. Against this background, the Central Asian leaderships consider exchanging privileged information with Beijing as potentially threatening their regime security. However, as noted in Chapter 4, the Chinese leadership views cooperation with regard to the Central Asian leaderships’ main security

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concerns, extremism and separatism, as a priority within the SCO because of their continuing concerns about the Uighur separatist movements in Xinjiang province. Beijing values the coordination that has taken place with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in this regard, under the umbrella of the SCO. Indeed, the Chinese leadership values intelligence cooperation in an open fashion as it perceives this as dispelling the reservations of the other members about sharing sensitive information with China, and as an important part of their strategy for demystifying China’s presence in the region in general. An official from the Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs (2007, personal interview, 25 June) has noted that the RATS has provided a successful platform for collaboration between member states, including the drafting of a number of common legal agreements, cooperation on joint law enforcement, coordination of military exercises, information exchange and joint research. To a significant degree this has served to reassure the other member states, as the RATS is perceived favourably amongst elites in the whole region, who consider it to have had some impact on the relative decline in terrorist and extremist activity in recent years. Leading officials in the Russian, Chinese and Kazakh Ministries of Foreign Affairs state that the RATS is functioning successfully and can claim some success in reducing the level of threat from terrorists and extremists (Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). Indeed, even the isolationist regime in Uzbekistan acknowledges the value of cooperation in the RATS, with its Ministry for Foreign Affairs noting that ‘RATS is a very significant practical actor, enabling cooperation between specialist and legal systems. It is both addressing the acts of terrorism, extremism and separatism directly, but is also working to challenge ideology of the three evils that affects so many young people in Central Asia’.30 According to the SCO, over 250 terror attacks were prevented by the RATS in 2005.31 Moreover, about 400 suspected terrorists are on the agency’s wanted list, according to Sergei Smirnov, the Russian Federal Security Service’s Deputy Director (Tolipov 2006a, 168). Although the impact of the activities of the RATS is difficult to ascertain because of the sensitive nature of its work and the restrictive approach of its member states to this aspect of security, it seems clear that some progress has been made towards coordinating intelligence and approaches to the ‘three evils’ within the RATS. In the view of a Russian analyst, the work of the SCO in reducing security threats in the region is even acknowledged by the US: ‘Washington is quite satisfied with the

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activity of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Centre (RATS) organisation and the SCO–Afghanistan contact group, which makes it possible to step up cooperation in fighting international terrorism’ (Morozov 2009, 172). The RATS has successfully created common norms for conceptualising and addressing the ‘three evils’, with a certain degree of intelligence shared by its member states and the creation of a joint list of actors who pose security threats across the region. However, for a common normative approach to regional security to be effective, these norms need to be universally applied across the member states. There is evidence of some impact on policy. As a result of cooperation in the RATS, Kazakhstan has altered its policies and outlook on terrorism in its eastern border regions, following the other member states requests to this end. In respect of Kyrgyzstan, Omelicheva emphasises the influence of the SCO on the domestic practices of its member states through collaboration within the RATS, arguing that ‘through the membership in the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] and the SCO, Kyrgyzstan translated into its domestic legislation and practices counterterrorism measures promoted by these groups of states. Various security agreements signed by Russia, China, and the Central Asian republics laid juridical grounds to demand from the Kyrgyz government that it takes decisive steps to prevent the recruitment of individuals for terrorist activities in other states’ (Omelicheva 2007, 903). However, the framework of the SCO restricts the organisation’s ability to enforce the implementation of its policies within its member states’ domestic affairs. As a result, the RATS is attempting to develop a harmonised legal approach to cooperation between its members, in order to ensure common norms are implemented in the member states. This differentiates the approach of the SCO to the ‘three evils’ from other aspects of its agenda, as it represents an attempt by the member states’ leaderships to upgrade cooperation from an overwhelmingly normative status to a partial legal status. In this respect, Omelicheva (2007, 901/2) states that ‘Kyrgyz counterterrorism legislation mimics Russia’s counterterrorism laws and model legislation adopted within the CIS and the SCO frameworks’. Since 2007 the SCO has focused on the implementation of agreed programmes, and in this way the SCO is trying to establish common legal approaches and standards to terrorism, extremism and separatism across its member states; to a limited degree, progress has been made towards harmonising their legal codes. According to officials, work on agreeing common processes for prosecuting terrorists in the national structures of the member states is near completion (Officials in the Secretariat

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of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Also there are efforts to combine the approaches of the members’ law enforcement agencies (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). At the same time, officials in the member states acknowledge that their aim of tackling the ‘three evils’ is not an easy task and will be a longterm project (Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June). The attempt to develop a harmonised legal framework on terrorism is restricted in scope by the reluctance of the member states to concede any aspect of state sovereignty and their attachment to the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. Yet it does represent a new willingness to coordinate domestic structures to a regional approach, even if this is only to a very limited extent. The RATS thus plays a very important role in the SCO and is considered vital to the wider evolution of the organisation: ‘RATS is increasingly showing that it is the pragmatic arm of the SCO. In divergence from the power-politics involved in exercises such as Peace Mission 2005, the RATS seems to engage in exercises that could prove valuable for anti-terrorism in the future’.32 Balapanova and Zholamanova support this view by arguing that the agreements reached within the RATS in 2005 ‘significantly intensified the “practical potential” of the SCO to reduce the influence and growth of non-traditional threats’ (Balapanova and Zholamanova 2006, 208). Although it has not yet been successful in developing a legal element to complement normative coordination, the attempt singles out anti-terrorism as the most advanced aspect of the SCO, because its members are open to allowing its activity to impact on their own political structures. Although, as yet, the RATS has not achieved the level of integration required for a truly effective multilateral intelligence agency, its progress should be seen as a qualified success. Any coordination in sensitive security matters between the member states of the SCO is a significant achievement. In this way, the RATS is putting the tools and structures in place to become an effective security provider in the region. Although its activity is not as exhaustive as it could be, the RATS is able to act as a relatively neutral body with unequalled information and expertise on issues of terrorism, extremism and separatism; issues that are of great importance to the member states. As a result, a degree of acceptance of a region-wide coordinated approach to security is evident amongst its members’ leaders, and the RATS has a degree of influence over the domestic affairs of member states, including in the legal sphere (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews,

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July). Therefore the SCO is developing the outlines of a comprehensive common approach to tackling the ‘three evils’, with collaboration between relevant internal agencies (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Unnamed Official, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 2007, personal interview, 25 June; Seleznev, V., 2008, personal interview, 4 June; Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May).

Eurasian security governance? As noted in the introduction, the concept of regional security governance has been developed in response to the increased focus on transnational and non-state security threats since the end of the Cold War. Currently, much of the literature on security governance focuses on the EU framework of regional security governance. At the same time, a similar trend towards developing a multilateral coordinated response to transnational and non-state security challenges is also evident in the SCO. However, the nature of the SCO’s approach to regional security governance is different from that of the EU. This divergence is in large part because the two organisations have evolved in quite distinct regional contexts, and are comprised of state leaderships with different perceptions about security and multilateralism. Due to the differences in the European and Central Asian state leaderships’ perceptions about security and their divergent expectations of regional organisations as providers of regional security governance, the SCO should be judged differently to EU security governance. The SCO represents an attempt to develop a distinct regional security governance model for Central Asia, which reflects the political realities of the region as seen by its political elites. Indeed, the SCO claims to offer an approach to regional cooperation based specifically on the region of Eurasia, which comprises new normative and ideational elements, as well as altering contemporary international ones to fit its own unique approach. The political elites in Western Europe consider their states as functioning in a post-Westphalian political landscape with open pluralistic political systems. By contrast, state leaderships in Eurasia, by and large, continue to perceive the key precepts of the traditional Westphalian system as fundamental and emphasise hierarchical political systems, which permit only a limited space and role for pluralism in civil society. As a result, the approach of the SCO’s member states’ elites to regional security governance differs from that of Europe because of their reluctance

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to devolve any responsibility for security to actors beyond the state. The dual aim of maintaining the elements of a traditional Westphalian state and adapting to form a collective regional response to transnational and non-state security challenges is, to a large degree, a contradiction. Sperling (2007, 283) argues that, just as the structural characteristics of post-Westphalian states are favourable to the institutionalisation of security cooperation, the characteristics of the Westphalian state provide a significant barrier to security cooperation. This highlights a key dilemma in the development of the SCO: its member states are adamant about protecting state sovereignty, yet charge it with developing a regionally coordinated response to a variety of security threats that do not respect these principles and function across and beyond state boundaries. In this way, the SCO is attempting to offer a solution to a problem identified in a recent study of security governance in the Eurasian region, which argued that, [an important] barrier to a Eurasian system of security governance is the absence of an institutional fabric that is both thick enough to meet the challenge of governance and consistent with indigenous (rather than European) norms and beliefs about the practice of statecraft and even national governance. (Sperling 2003b, 6) Hence in the SCO, regional security coordination is based on statecentred cooperation. However, this does not exclude the SCO from playing an important role as a regional security provider. Its members’ leaderships do appear to be accepting of a wider definition of what security entails, which is more in keeping with ideas of ‘security governance’ than traditional security. To this end, rather than trying to affect events on the ground directly, security cooperation has concentrated on intelligence sharing and harmonisation of norms and, to a limited extent, law. In fact collaboration between the SCO’s member states against transnational security threats is creating new actors in regional security, primarily the RATS, which function at a regional level, seeking to coordinate the policies of its member states and also allowing greater low-level collaboration between the member states’ security and other state agencies (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Within the RATS and other SCO work on tackling the ‘three evils’, there appears to be an increasing level of functional

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contact between agencies below the top level, and the member states’ political leaderships seem more prepared to contemplate harmonising their normative-legal approaches within their domestic affairs. In this way, the perceived importance of the SCO for regime security is creating the conditions for a slight alteration in the mindset of the regional elite, from prioritising interstate action to accepting more influence from a regional body in their domestic affairs. Thus, the SCO is managing to find an effective balance between targeting non-state actors and ensuring its member states feel that their sovereignty is never questioned. In summary, there is some evidence of regional security governance within the SCO. The region’s leaderships have been prepared to cooperate with one another in harmonising some elements of legislation, for equivalent agencies of security to meet their counterparts and for the creation of structures, such as the RATS, to coordinate approaches to security in the region. As a result, relevant structures and norms for creating an effective approach to regional security are detectable and tangible, albeit confined to competing with the SCO’s role in providing international legitimisation of regime security. Nonetheless, it represents a quantifiably different approach to regional security cooperation from that of other multilateral actors in the region, and entails a higher degree of security cooperation than before.

Conclusion Regional security in Central Asia is conditioned by the perceptions of its member states’ leaderships about the prioritisation of security threats, which emphasises regime security and maintenance of state sovereignty. Nonetheless, Central Asia is a favourable environment for constructing a regional approach to security. In spite of their concerns about giving up state sovereignty, the regional elites consider it advantageous to participate in a coordinated strategy because of the benefits for regime security. As a result, the SCO outlines a vision of regional security consistent with the primary interests of its member states’ leaderships. For them, regional coordination is an appropriate method of tackling nontraditional security challenges. Indeed, the active involvement of the SCO’s member states in the security programmes of the SCO represents a significant recognition, by very state-centric actors, that their security is best addressed at a regional level. As well as practical coordination towards addressing transnational security challenges, the SCO’s

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role as a provider of regional and regime security has been to offer rhetorical support to its member states’ regimes right to pursue regime security strategies as they see fit. The member states’ leaderships value the support offered by the SCO to counter pressure from the Western community about their domestic security policies. Therefore the SCO, as a security actor, is driven by internal concerns of regime security amongst its membership and is not a military bloc to counter the presence of the West in the region. Indeed, rather than a military focus, its approach to security is centred on the development of a harmonised normative-legal region.

6 External Policy: Common Narrative, Other Eurasian Organisations and Expansion of Membership

As noted in the introduction, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is often characterised as little more than a Russian–Chinese geopolitical device to counter the increased US presence in Central Asia. From this perspective, the intraregional focus and functions of the SCO are considered to be relatively empty and unimportant as compared with its role in keeping the Central Asian Republics within the Russian– Chinese orbit. In the preceding chapters, this study has sought to challenge this concept, by arguing that the main driving dynamics of the SCO come from addressing the common concerns of its member states about domestic and regional security, complemented by an organisational framework that facilitates common norms but does not question the member states’ control over state sovereignty. However, this book does not exclude the SCO from having a role in the wider regional landscape of Central Asia or the international system, but it does argue that this role is of secondary importance to its own internal dynamics. The participation of Russia and China, permanent members of the UN Security Council, is widely seen as giving the SCO a high international profile. Indeed, its member states use the SCO as a forum for pronouncements on regional and world affairs for the consumption of the international community. The SCO has in recent years constructed a narrative on international affairs that is seen by its members’ leaderships as of increasing value to their foreign policy. However, this narrative should not be interpreted as expressly anti-Western, but as a reflection of the norms within the internal framework of the SCO. Another focus of the SCO’s external policy is managing relations with other regional organisations. The SCO is not the only regional actor in the Central Asian landscape. Indeed, the SCO has sought to establish 134

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official links and channels of cooperation with other regional organisations in Central Asia. In addition, as noted earlier, the perceived success and progress of the SCO in the last few years has also attracted the attention of a number of states in nearby regions. The SCO has recently allocated observer status to a number of countries beyond Central Asia – India, Pakistan, Iran, Mongolia –, dialogue partner status to Belarus and Sri Lanka, and the presidents of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan have been guests at SCO summits. In this context, an important issue for the evolution of the SCO has become the merits of a possible expansion of membership by offering full membership to these states.

Prevailing norms in the international system Following the ideational turn in International Relations theory, the impact of discourse on international and regional affairs is being increasingly recognised. It is now argued that rather than just an add-on, ‘rhetoric is a performative act . . . . shapes collective understandings of that context and the identities of the actors involved’ and ‘can even change their very interests and self-perception’ (Lucarelli 2006, 4). Taking this into account, the normative environment in which a national leadership must operate is an important variable in the formulation of an actor’s foreign policy. As a result, all actors have an interest in expressing their views and influencing the shape of the normative context of the international system, because it may both enable and restrict their range of behaviour. Often actors attempt to shape the normative environment through the development and pursuit of specific strategic narratives. In this context, strategic narratives can be interpreted as ‘compelling story lines . . . . designed or nurtured with the intention of structuring the responses of others to developing events. They are strategic because they do not arise spontaneously but are deliberately constructed or reinforced out of the ideas and thoughts that are already current’ (Freedman 2006). By virtue of the added legitimacy generated by representing multiple actors, multilateral organisations are often utilised by state actors to promote certain ideas, values and norms. For most of the twentieth century, the principles as laid down in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 have been regarded as the normative bedrock of the international system. However, in the last two decades the key principle of non-interference in the sovereign affairs of a nationstate is seen as having been questioned, by a shift in behaviour of Western states towards legitimising intervention in sovereign states’ affairs, in order to protect a ‘universal’ principle of human rights

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(Manners 2002, 239; Haukkala 2008). This reconceptualisation of the principle of interference in sovereign affairs is altering the fabric of the norms of behaviour on which the international system is based. The members of the SCO, as well as many other members of the international system, argue that the West has attempted to rewrite the norms of the international system and present its version as the moral and correct definition of normality. Makarychev (2008, 1) notes that although some ‘norms may be viewed as political instruments. Since norms construct agents, including states, they perform a political function and enhance political subjectivity by differentiating between Us (the followers of norms) and Them (the violators of norms).’ The Western community is often criticised by non-Western actors for assuming its values and norms have a universal quality, regardless of whether the rest of the international system accepts this or not. In this way, ‘if we [the West] associate a normative foreign policy with a “good” or an “ethical” foreign policy, then we have to take great care not to slide into an imperialistic imposition of what is subjectively considered “good” on the grounds of its presumed universality’ (Tocci 2007, 3). This leads to perceptions among other actors in the international system that there are conflicting standards for the West and the rest of the world, whereby the West determines what is acceptable while the rest of the world cannot. In this light, as argued in the introduction, it is not possible to understand the perceptions and norms driving an actor’s behaviour by reference to generic concepts regardless of context. Actors may behave according to different sets of norms. Therefore it is necessary to take into consideration how an actor frames its own context, in order to assess the normative basis to its view on the world. For example, Womack argues with regard to China that, if we allow for the possibility that ‘our’ norms are not the only possible norms, and perhaps not the only valid ones, then the distance between China’s behaviour and that of the West may not be a measure of China’s moral defects, but rather of the distinctiveness of China’s perspective in its external relationships. Understanding China on its own terms as an international actor should be a prerequisite to understanding China as a normative foreign policy actor. (Womack 2008, 1) The SCO’s member states promote their own norms and values, which are a reflection of the perspective from which they view the

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international system, and, as noted in this study, regime security features very prominently within this.

The SCO’s narrative on international affairs As already outlined, many regional experts characterise the ‘SCO as an organisation of a new type . . . . The SCO has been set up not “against somebody or something”, but, on the contrary, it is oriented to the broadest cooperation’ (Portyakov 2007, 3). Although the SCO consistently asserts that a fundamental principle of the organisation is that it is not orientated against any other actor, it does make proclamations and statements on the nature of the international system. Hence the impact and aims of the SCO extend beyond addressing internal security concerns within the Central Asian region. Indeed, most regional analysts argue that the SCO plays a wider role in international affairs simply by virtue of its growing status and the importance of Russia and China within the international community. The foci and ideas developed within the SCO are often advocated to a wider international audience. The Director of the Centre for SCO Studies at Fudan University, Zhao Huasheng (2007, personal interview, 18 July), considers that although the SCO is not involved directly in international affairs, it has clear principles that it promotes within the international system. Furthermore, a Kyrgyz analyst argues that the ‘SCO has positioned itself as an independent force with its own vision of the world order that is not necessarily consistent with the views of leading Western powers’ (Omarov 2008). Therefore the SCO can be seen as attempting to impact on events and discourse beyond the scope of its own programmes of cooperation. The main methods by which the SCO seeks to express its views on the international stage are by the issuing of statements with regard to international events and, more importantly, the common declarations issued at the annual summit meetings of the heads of state. There is little common expression beyond this, although individual member states often use the SCO in name when making unilateral or bilateral statements, and thus implicitly and explicitly tie the organisation to these statements. In fact the SCO’s member state governments have come to consider that the SCO has some value in providing extra legitimacy to their messages on the international stage, as seen by the importance placed on the annual summit statement in the aftermath of Western criticism of the Uzbek government’s actions in Andijan in 2005.

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Normative positions on international affairs In the view of certain analysts the narrative outlined by the SCO is inherently anti-Western and driven by Moscow and Beijing (Blank 2005; Cohen 2006; Tisdall 2006). According to the literature on norms and multilateralism, normative agendas tend to reflect the internal identity of an actor, and taking this into account the depiction of the SCO as simply a vehicle for anti-US rhetoric does not match up with the evolution of its internal norms and focus up to this point. Indeed, regional analysts point to the political mileage exploited by Western commentators in portraying the SCO as a direct threat to the West, in accounting for the emergence of this perspective. A Kyrgyz analyst notes that, the image of an ‘intimidator’ which is getting stronger to confront the West is a typical ideological cliché of certain politicians who propose and promote such an image. This is beneficial for them both from the point of view of strengthening the military potential of the countries they represent as well as of protecting and reinforcing NATO as a counterbalance to the ‘threat’ from the East. (Omarov 2008) According to this view, a number of politicians and analysts in the West are seen as political opportunists in whipping up fears about the purpose of the SCO. The SCO’s discourse also contains elements of political expediency, but it nonetheless has considerable importance for the development of the SCO and, as argued in previous chapters, it is based on tackling intraregional concerns and not on extra-regional geopolitics. In contrast to the perception of the SCO as a counteraction to the West, the Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexei Borodavkin, notes that, SCO does not operate to spite or suit someone. It advocates reinforcing security and stability, developing many-sided partnerships for the good of the peoples of our countries and forming an institutional architecture of international relations based on mutual respect, due consideration for the interests of each other, and equal cooperation.1 At the same time, the member states of the SCO consider that certain ‘norms’ and values should form the basis of international relations. Whilst certain declarations and statements issued by the SCO contain criticism of the behaviour of the West, and the US in particular, these are always framed as from the commonly perceived normative

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standpoint of its member states. The SCO declarations are not simply geopolitically driven rhetoric, but reflect the consistently held views and values of its member states and are compatible with the norms of the SCO, which serves the common interest of all its members, not just Russia and China. In this way, the membership of the SCO would prefer to see some of their commonly held values and positions at the centre of the international system, in place of what its elites perceive as certain ‘Western’-inspired norms. In this respect, Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva declare that, when analysing the results of the Organisation’s summits, as well as statements made in the format of bilateral meetings of the member state leaders, the following program theses can be seen in them: the absence of any intention to build another military bloc; the striving to reduce unilateralness in international relations; the rejection of a hegemonic policy; and non-acceptance of unipolarity. (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006) Over the last decade the SCO has pursued several consistent positions on international issues, which often run counter to those advocated by the Western community. At the same time, the SCO also sought to underline that it is neither a military bloc nor orientated against any particular external actor, but instead seeks to express the commonly held views of its membership. Non-interference in domestic affairs As discussed earlier, the common values and norms that underpin the SCO are termed the ‘Shanghai spirit’, which places the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs at the heart of the SCO. However, the principle of non-interference is just as relevant to the external policy of the SCO. A Tajik official notes that the ‘Shanghai spirit’ is not only important because of the role it plays in ordering the internal practice of the organisation, but also because of ‘the attention drawn to itself by its clear aims and principles’ (Alimov 2008). Furthermore, Chinese officials ((2007, personal interview, 25 June) often suggest that the ‘Shanghai spirit’ is not just compatible with the SCO’s member states’ perspective on the world, but is also applicable to all countries in the world. Taking this into account, the SCO’s normative framework has a dual function: the inward-looking one of providing a basis for members to work together productively, and the outward-looking one of challenging

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what at least some of these states see as a threat of both strategic and philosophical unipolarity in international relations. (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 6) The SCO champions the centrality of the Westphalian principles of international relations, which place state sovereignty and territorial integrity as the cornerstones of the international system. This should be seen in the light of the fears expressed by the leaderships of all the SCO member states, about the propensity of Western states to interfere in the domestic affairs of non-Western states. According to this perspective, the West argues that it is the duty of national governments to protect human security across the world, and this duty can override the principles of state sovereignty. Following on from this, intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign governments is therefore legitimate in order to prevent human repression and atrocities. The member states of the SCO express reservations about this growing trend amongst some sections of the international community. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999, the US-led coalition’s military operation in Iraq in 2004, and the 2003–05 ‘colour revolutions’ were perceived by the leaderships of the SCO’s member states as undermining the prevailing norms of practice in international relations and generated significant misgivings about the changing landscape of norms in the international system. The SCO argues that this represents contradictory behaviour by the very states involved in fashioning the principles of Westphalia, and serves to exacerbate inequality within the international system because Western states have appointed themselves the judges of when it is justified to violate the norms of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. The events of the ‘colour revolutions’ and Western reaction to the Andijan incident in 2005 had a significant impact on the interpretations of regional officials and analysts about the Western vision for the region. These events emphasised the large discrepancy between Western models for democracy and what is considered the prevailing political culture of Central Asia by regional elites, which, this book argues, stems from concerns of regime security. A Kazak expert argues that, in the context of an increasing Western involvement in the region, ‘it seems that in anticipation of Colour Revolution methods being applied [by the West] in their countries, the local leaders preferred “authoritarian Russia” and no less authoritarian China as their strategic partners’ (Syroezhkin 2008). In this context, the SCO member states, especially Russia and China, were critical of many Western states’ recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral

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declaration of independence from Serbia in February 2008, and none of its members have since recognised Kosovo’s independent status. Hence the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs is promoted as the bedrock of the international system. In response to certain Western discourses advocating active involvement in the development of democratic systems and practices in other states, a former Secretary General of the SCO Secretariat stated that ‘the process of democratic reforms is an internal business of each state and it is not possible to introduce these reforms from outside’.2 The SCO’s leaderships fear active intervention by external actors in their domestic affairs, as well as international condemnation and punishment for their domestic policies aimed at regime security. Multipolar world As part of its promotion of the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, the SCO also extols the virtues of a multipolar world, condemning the increasing propensity of the US to act in a unilateralist manner without endorsement by the UN, and argues for the reassertion of the UN as the moral authority of the international system. A joint declaration at the 2006 annual summit the SCO stated that SCO holds that the United Nations, being the universal and the most representative and authoritative international organisation, is entrusted with primary responsibility in international affairs and is at the core of formulating and implementing the basic norms of international law.3 Furthermore, the SCO seeks to emphasise the potential for cooperation between itself and the UN. The 2010 SCO summit declaration stated that we [SCO] emphasize the importance of cooperation at different levels on issues related to international peace and security, in accordance with Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations. This could include areas such as conflict prevention and resolution; the fight against terrorism; preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery; combating transnational crime, including trafficking in illicit drugs and the illicit arms trade; addressing the problems of environmental degradation; disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness and response; and promoting sustainable economic, social, humanitarian, and cultural development.4

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The promotion of a multi–polar world within the SCO has also been tied to other cooperative mechanisms in the international system and it is argued that the SCO’s stance about the benefits of multipolarity is winning it favour in all corners of the world. The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated that, the Yekaterinburg SCO and BRIC summits became a vivid example of multipolar diplomacy and convincing evidence that multipolarity is neither chaos nor a programmed showdown among major world powers. We see the attractiveness of the SCO rise, as more and more countries want to join its security and development projects.5 As a result of its consistent promotion of the principle of noninterference in international affairs, the SCO is seen as a potential alternative model of norms by some states in the international system.6 Indeed, this idea is promoted by the SCO. Sergei Lavrov stated at the Council of the SCO Foreign Ministers in 2008 that ‘more and more people the world over are becoming supporters of the principles on which it [SCO] bases its activities: equality, mutual respect, and consideration of mutual interests and of historical, national, cultural, and civilisational specificities’.7 The SCO has, to some degree, sought to position itself as an alternative normative authority within the international system. The Director of the Centre for East Asia and SCO at the Moscow State University of International Relations argues that the SCO is capable of providing a different option to Western liberal democratic models (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). According to this argument, which is echoed by many analysts from the SCO member states, there is a high degree of dissatisfaction with the current international system, characterised by US dominance, among many ‘less developed’ states, and the SCO’s model of international relations, which is balanced by two major powers, is seen as an attractive alternative (Lukin, A., personal interview, 2007, 4 May; Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May; Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May; Expert, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 28 June). In fact Moscow and Beijing have both sought to encourage the perception of the SCO as an alternative vision of international relations: ‘as shown by declarations and actual policy the SCO further aspires to coordinate foreign policy and to become an actor on the international arena’ (Oldberg 2007, 17).

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Regional perspective The SCO’s narrative on international affairs is often directly related to the specifics of the Central Asian context and the interests of its member states. In accordance with its promotion of the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs and a multipolar world, the SCO advocates a greater place for regional diversity of norms within the international system, whereby in Central Asia the SCO’s member states set the norms of behaviour as the actors with the most knowledge, experience and resources to do so. The 2007 Bishkek Summit declaration states that the member states support an international system of security guided by norms and practices that ‘guarantee the right of every state to choose independently its way of development based on its unique historical experience and national features, to protect its state integrity and national dignity, to participate equally in international affairs’.8 Tolipov outlines the view of the Kazakh leadership: ‘the sovereignty of Kazakhstan and its Central Asian neighbours should be regionally determined’ (Tolipov 2006b). This reflects the perception among the SCO members’ regimes that they are forced to live within ‘normative constraints’ inappropriate to their context. In this way, it is argued that while the SCO acknowledges that it was born in an era of globalisation, it promotes a common and balanced globalisation whereby the world should not the dominated by one power or culture (Chen, X., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). The SCO’s elites view a combination of globalisation and the aggressive promotion of Western values as threatening the capacity of states with a specific culture and values to maintain their unique historical identities. Two Tajik analysts argue that ‘until recently it was believed that security threats were limited to armed aggression. Today everything has changed: subversive information is spread through the Internet and there is information on “the ancient and unique culture” of this or that nation designed to fan nationalism’ (Dodikhudoev and Niyatbekov 2009). The common declaration at the 2010 SCO summit noted that ‘information security is closely linked with ensuring the state sovereignty, national security, social and economic stability and interests of citizens. All countries have the right, in accordance with their internal realities and on the legal basis, to operate the Internet, while enhancing cooperation in the spirit of equality and mutual respect’.9 The leaderships of the SCO’s member states, especially Russia and China, view the West as applying double standards in their expectations of them, compared with those for their own behaviour.

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The SCO has highlighted what it perceives as the ‘double standards’ of the international community, which discriminate against their interests and approaches to international behaviour. At the SCO annual summit in 2006, it was stated that it [SCO] discards ‘double standards’ . . . . Diversity of cultures and model of development must be respected and upheld. Differences in cultural traditions, political and social systems, values and model of development formed in the course of history should not be taken as pretexts to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs. Model of social development should not be ‘exported’.10 The SCO is critical of the West for its approach to Central Asia, which it considers does not take into account the prevailing security or political context. A scholar from the Institute for Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2007, personal interview, 3 May)11 has argued that liberal democracy as defined in the West is not a viable model for the states of Central Asia, because of the degree of radicalisation and Islamisation in the region, as well as the existing authoritarian political systems of the Central Asian Republics. Furthermore, a Chinese official states that ‘certain Western countries, without taking into account concrete specific features of Central Asian states, consider “democratic transformations” to be the main aim of their relations with the region, and even encourage “colour revolutions” in an attempt to broaden their political and military influence, which leads to greater instability in the region’ (Portyakov 2008, 162). The leaderships of the SCO’s member states consider that within the existing Western-inspired normative landscape there is no room for recognition of this, and that the Western-inspired model of liberal democracy is pushed upon them regardless of circumstances. A former Secretary General of the SCO highlighted this viewpoint, stating that, democracy is a good thing, but its exercise in practice depends on the concrete situation on the ground in each region and each country. It is unacceptable to apply absolutely the same approach everywhere and inadmissible to transplant democracy by force, thus bestowing a doubtful benefit upon someone.12 Against this background, the member states’ regimes consider the SCO as an important supporter of their domestic security policies which attract criticism in the West.

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The SCO advocates the inalienable right of its members to pursue internal security policy as they see fit, even though this has often been in direct opposition to criticism from the wider international community. In March 2008, the Chinese government came under close scrutiny by the international community for its actions to suppress demonstrations by ethnic Tibetans in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. In response, the SCO issued a statement expressing its member states’ solidarity with the Chinese government: The latest reports of disturbances in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China cannot remain unnoticed by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The government of the PRC is known to have taken the necessary measures to prevent unlawful actions and normalise the situation in this autonomous region. The SCO member states consider Tibet to be an inalienable part of China, and proceed from the fact that settlement of the situation in the TAR is an internal affair of China.13 The principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs underpins the faith of its member states that the SCO is a reliable partner in the defence of their regimes. On this basis, the SCO is recognised as a mechanism for creating a preferable normative environment, in which the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs remains paramount. Thus the SCO attempts to promote its intraorganisational norms and perceptions on a wider international stage, with the aim of ensuring sufficient space for the Central Asian Republics to pursue their domestic security policies without the prospect of Western intervention and condemnation. However, the member states have not always behaved consistently with the principles that the SCO promotes. The most notable example was Russia’s military action in Georgia in August 2008. These actions contravened the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. Therefore the SCO was presented with a difficult situation, in which one of its members exercised the same ‘double standards’ for which it criticises the West. This was further complicated by Russia looking to the SCO for support in the face of intense Western criticism about its actions. Furthermore, in the wake of the South Ossetia conflict, the Russian leadership decided to formally recognise South Ossetia and also another breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, as independent states and encouraged other states to follow suit. In spite of this pressure from Moscow, none of the other SCO member states have formally recognised South Ossetia or Abkhazia as independent entities. The SCO’s

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response was one that sought to sweep the issue under the carpet. The Heads of State Common Declaration at the annual summit stated that the member states ‘support the active role of Russia in promoting peace and cooperation in the region [South Ossetia]’, but at the same time emphasised its established position of ‘the need to respect historical and cultural traditions of every state and every people and the efforts aimed to preserve in accordance to international law unity and territorial integrity of states’.14 This indicates that the SCO’s member states’ solidarity on international affairs can survive incidents of contravention by a single member. Russia was neither forced to leave the organisation, nor has the organisation altered its position on non-interference in domestic affairs. It also demonstrates the process of socialisation among the member states, whereby the preservation of the SCO is given priority over disagreements on individual issues. In this way, the leaderships of China and the Central Asian Republics perceived that solidarity in the SCO was important enough to offer support to Russia via the SCO to a point, in spite of their reservations. At the same time, Russia did not consider it worthwhile to risk disrupting this solidarity by seeking to push the other member states into bolder statements, instead accepting a compromise which keeps the momentum of the organisation intact. Nonetheless, if its member states violate the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs on a regular basis, then its utility in providing solidarity within the international system will be lost. Different visions of the narrative This book argues that the SCO’s rhetoric on international affairs is seen as having significant value by the leaderships of both Russia and China. According to some analysts, Russia is the driving force behind this narrative. As Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 28) argue, it is in particular a Russian aim – but one to which other SCO members have acquiesced – to profile the organisation as a counterpart and a source of alternative ‘values’, not just vis-à-vis NATO (for which CSTO is a closer equivalent), but for the whole part of the world system that Russia sees as dominated by US power and ideas. As noted previously, this aspect of the SCO is also of significance for the Chinese government and its increasing interest in soft power. Within the SCO, Russia and China have expanded further their solidarity on international affairs developed in their bilateral relationship. According

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to Li Fenglin, ‘although they [China and Russia] take different roads, their strategic tasks coincide. Such unity between strategic partners is a challenge to the old world order within whose framework our countries have been given a role of secondary importance’.15 Indeed, the SCO is viewed as a unique undertaking for both Moscow and Beijing, because it is an attempt to develop a common narrative vision among partners of equal geopolitical stature. Although both the Russian and Chinese leadership view the SCO’s narrative on international affairs as important, Moscow and Beijing have tended to focus on different elements of this narrative. According to many Chinese scholars, Beijing is more focused upon the development of a viable regional organisation infused with Chinese-orientated values, which could in the future be replicated elsewhere (Expert, Shanghai Academy for Social Science, 2007, personal interview, 17 July). Moscow, meanwhile, is more interested in the opportunity the SCO offers to voice its dislike of Western double standards and the constraining nature of the Western-inspired international system (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). Nonetheless, it is the promotion of the narrative as a whole by both leaderships that is the source of its wider resonance beyond the immediate region of Central Asia, and why it attracts the interest of states in neighbouring regions. However, this narrative is not fully accepted by all of the Central Asian regimes. The Central Asian leaderships see value in the promotion of the SCO’s narrative, but are more selective in adopting it. They are reluctant to embrace the wider anti-hegemonic elements and the promotion of the SCO as an alternative conception of international affairs, for fear of alienating their existing Western partners who are very important in terms of economic development. For example, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan put their names to the Astana summit declaration calling for a timetabled withdrawal of US troops from the region, but later took steps to distance themselves from this statement, considering it as threatening their good relations with the US. Nonetheless, both regimes deemed the other rhetorical positions taken in the Astana declaration significant enough to go along with its anti-US sentiment in the initial statement. In the view of some Kazakh analysts, ‘Kazakhstan had to support the statement initiated by the SCO at the summit in Astana. Otherwise, all the integrated efforts of our Republic would have fallen by the wayside, and this, of course, does not meet its interests’ (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006). This illustrates that the Central Asian Republics play an active role in certain aspects of the SCO’s external rhetoric and a moderating one in others. Indeed, Kazakhstan has often made it clear that it ‘would

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prevent China and Russia from generating anti-US policies in the SCO’ (Maksutov 2006, 9). As a result, it is unlikely that a sustained antiWestern agenda would emerge in the SCO discourse, because all the member states consider the maintenance of solidarity on other aspects of the agenda of greater value than anti-Western rhetoric. The development of the SCO’s external narrative is a dual process. There is a distinct intraregional focus on the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs, aimed at supporting the preservation of existing regimes in Central Asia and directed against intrusion by actors external to the region. In addition, the SCO has also developed, albeit as a lesser priority, a narrative applicable to the global system of international relations and affairs. The intraregional aspect is highly valued by the Central Asian Republics. The Central Asian leaders perceive domestic security as more of a fundamental priority to regime security than do the elites of Russia and China, who are considered as important players on the world stage and thus feel a greater expectation to give their opinions on international issues. As a result, a clear distinction between the perspectives of the regimes of the Central Asia Republics and the extra-Central Asian powers of Russia and China is evident. As a regional analyst notes, within the SCO ‘China and Russia, as in terms of world politics, are in a higher league’ and ‘for the Central Asian Republics, their own problems are more important than the political problems of all Eurasia’ (Slepchenko 2008). Taking this into account, the SCO’s narrative on international affairs can be characterised as driven primarily by Russia and China, albeit with the clear limitation of ensuring it remains acceptable to the Central Asian regimes.

Relations with other regional organisations in Central Asia As noted in the introduction to this chapter, the SCO is not the only multilateral regional security organisation active in Central Asia. Shoislam Akmalov (2005) notes that ‘today Central Asia is one of the most unique regions of the world, since it has several institutional formations in which essentially all of its countries participate’. These frameworks include initiatives set up by Western organisations, such as NATO Partnership for Peace and Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), as well as the growing involvement of the European Union and the US. However, the most prominent actors on a regional level in Central Asia, apart from the SCO, are composed solely of postSoviet states: the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC). The Central Asian regional

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landscape, at least in terms of institutionalisation, is to a large extent the product of the SCO, CSTO and EurAsEC. As argued earlier, although they share a common Soviet legacy, the Central Asian Republics view one another with a degree of suspicion. As a result of this tension, the region’s leaderships have tended to perceive the development of a regional cooperative sponsored by an external power as preferable, as this to some extent downplays inter-Central Asian rivalry and attracts greater resources to the region (Allison 2004, 468). Russia has been the external sponsor of a number of frameworks. On the basis of its geographical proximity, as well as historical interdependence, Russia is interpreted by the Central Asian Republics as a natural sponsor for regional cooperative frameworks, even if they wish to ensure that they are not left dependent on Moscow. This is reflected in Russia’s dominant influence within the CSTO and EurAsEC, as the major power and guiding influence in these organisations. As organisations based on post-Soviet states, there is significant overlap in membership between the SCO and both the CSTO and EurAsEC. Until recently, Russia and the four Central Asian members of the SCO were also members of the CSTO and EurAsEC. However, Uzbekistan withdrew from EurAsEC in November 2008. The CSTO is centred on security collaboration, while EurAsEC is focused on developing economic cooperation between its members. In this respect, these aims coincide with the primary working areas of the SCO. Indeed, the overlap between the organisations has been identified by regional analysts, and the Uzbek President has voiced his opinion that the organisations replicate one another unnecessarily, stating that ‘Uzbekistan’s view, EurAsEC and CSTO have very similar agendas and duplicate each other in many respects’.16 In spite of obvious similarities in membership and focus between the SCO and these other post-Soviet groupings, there has been little collaboration, and often tension, between them. On the surface the CSTO and the SCO are natural bedfellows. The CSTO was formed in 2002 with the aim ‘to address new threats and challenges through a joint military command located in Moscow, a rapid reaction force for Central Asia, a common air defence system and “coordinated action” in foreign, security and defence policy’ (Allison 2004, 471). Although broadly similar, there are clear distinctions in the activities of the two organisations, both in terms of their focus and institutional culture. The CSTO agenda is simpler and less ambitious in scope, and was initially able to develop quickly by focusing on a more restricted aim. Du Mont (2004) states that ‘from the outset,

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CSTO had very clear strategic objectives: to create rapid deployment forces in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and South-Eastern Europe, to carry out coordinated military exercises, and to create a permanent institution for coordinating military action among the member states’. A number of regional analysts emphasise that the CSTO has a clearly defined militarycentred approach, which is in sharp contrast to the wide-ranging agenda of the comprehensive security concept of the SCO (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May; Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May; Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007, personal interview, 28 April). An official from the SCO Secretariat stated that the CSTO has a distinct military focus, facilitating military-technical trade between its members and providing training and education for its member states’ militaries at low prices, whereas the SCO is more concerned with policing operations and a wide variety of non-military functions (Official in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interview, July). While the SCO does not have a permanent military force, the CSTO has been more active in pursuing the creation of a common military potential. In 2009 the CSTO reached agreement on creating a Common Operational Reaction Force (CORF), and prior to this had developed a Common Reaction Defence Force (CRDF) during the mid2000s. This suggests a greater focus on impacting on events on the ground directly, a mindset that is not as prominent in the SCO, given its central principle of non-interference. However, the lack of institutional development and the predominance of Russia, especially in the CRDF and CORF,17 mean that the CSTO ‘continues to be basically an instrument for coordination of national militaries . . . and limited in design to promote interoperability and serve as a mechanism for military transfers’ (Gleason and Shaihutdinov 2005, 281). An SCO official compared the CSTO to NATO, in that it is changing from traditional military to soft security challenges and trying to develop new structures (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). However, the CSTO, unlike the SCO, has not sought to develop structures for exchanging information at lower levels. The agenda of the CSTO is centred on ‘mutual defence’, involving the coordination of the military apparatus of its members and the supply of military equipment to its weaker members, in order to ensure organisation-wide military operability and strength (Weinstein 2007). Although involved in coordinating ad hoc joint anti-narcotics and organised crime raids, the CSTO’s focus is more on traditional military coordination, and less on comprehensive security as embraced by the SCO.

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Taking this into account, the CSTO functions as more of a state-centric institution than the SCO: ‘despite initiatives to address the matter, CSTO remains primarily a regional organisation that helps its member states to defend its southern borders, rather than a collective security body in the full meaning of that term, that implies an organisation that is capable of addressing both external threats and problems within the member states, such as terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, drugs and human trafficking’ (Oldberg 2007, 9). The SCO advocates a more holistic and lower-level focus in its approach to regional security, aimed at precisely those threats which, as noted in Chapter 5, encompass a wide range of coordinating agencies. Nonetheless, the focus and agenda of the two organisations on non-traditional security does coincide. There is significant replication in the work of the CSTO and the SCO. For example, the creation of an anti-terrorist centre by both organisations means that ‘today, the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) and CSTO’s Collective Rapid Reaction Forces (CRDF) represent largely overlapping and at the same time competing military subunits’ (Marat 2007, 3). While the CSTO replicates security functions, EurAsEC works on programmes of economic cooperation, some of which overlap with the SCO. EurAsEC was established in 2001 by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, having grown out of the failing Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Customs Union. In 2005 it simultaneously granted Uzbekistan membership status and merged with the Central Asian Cooperation Organisation. Uzbekistan has since announced its withdrawal from EurAsEC in late 2008. In recent years, EurAsEC has taken up the challenge of reinvigorating multilateral economic cooperation in the post-Soviet space, following stagnation of CIS in this regard, albeit with a more limited number of members. Most significantly, in 2007 an agreement was reached in EurAsEC to form a long-discussed customs union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, which came into force in 2010 and is expected to develop into a ‘Single Economic Space’ by 2012. EurAsEC is thus focused on economic cooperation and harmonisation. Regional analysts argue that there is a two-level concentration on economic harmonisation, led by China in the SCO, and by Russia and the Central Asians in EurAsEC (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007, personal interview, 10 May). However, the content of cooperation in EurAsEC is distinct from the SCO’s on two grounds: the focus and membership composition. Firstly, it is focused on low-level customs harmonisation. By contrast, economic cooperation in the SCO

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has centred primarily on large-scale infrastructural projects. Secondly, EurAsEC’s agreement to form a customs union only involves one Central Asian Republic, Kazakhstan, at present. Therefore it cannot be considered as a direct replication of any future SCO customs union, as the coverage of an SCO free-trade area would be significantly wider. However, some areas of overlap between the two do exist. For example, the SCO Business Council and Interbank Association seem to pursue very similar aims to those of EurAsEC, even if the overall focuses are different. The chairman of the SCO Business Council, Dmitrii Mezentsev, states that the ‘SCO Business Council is also oriented toward cooperation with EurAsEC Business Council’.18 Although it does not directly replicate the focus of the SCO, EurAsEC nonetheless restricts the realm of SCO activity. According to many, EurAsEC is closer to a mainstream economic mechanism with greater potential for integration, and its membership shares more similarity in economic principles than the SCO membership. The removal of trade barriers and a focus on customs harmonisation in EurAsEC may lead some SCO members to perceive similar programmes within the SCO to be an unnecessary replication of functions, especially among those involved in the three-way customs union. Indeed, this has been recognised by both organisations, and EurAsEC now invites China to attend its annual summit. In spite of focusing on similar goals, the SCO’s relations with the CSTO and EurAsEC are not very strong. With regard to the CSTO, Safranchuk (2008) argues that ‘the zones of responsibility of the SCO and CSTO overlap considerably from the functional and geographic points of view . . . However, this overlap does not make relations between the two entities any easier.’ In recent years there have been attempts to enhance cooperation between the organisations. On 8 May 2006 and 5 October 2007, the SCO signed memorandums of understanding with EurAsEC and the CSTO respectively. In addition, limited practical cooperation has taken place. The CSTO was invited to observe the SCO ‘Peace Mission 2’ military exercise in August 2007, and Marat (2007, 3) notes that, as result, for the first time the two organisations were partners ‘rather than representing overlapping multilateral structures seeking to fight terrorism, extremism, and separatism in Eurasia’. At the same time, many analysts remain pessimistic about cooperation between the organisations, emphasising problems in communication. The problematic relationship between the two organisations is seen by many regional experts as in part down to personal relationships, whereby officials often perceive the defence of their own organisation vis-à-vis the others as their main priority.

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Parallel organisations The maintenance of these organisations, which have similar memberships, justifications and purposes, in parallel to the SCO, is to a large extent a reflection of the perceptions of the leaderships of Russia and the Central Asian Republics about military and economic coordination with China. As outlined, the Russian leadership views Central Asia and other areas of the post-Soviet region as holding great importance in terms of security, economics and also prestige. From this perspective, Moscow is wary of the SCO developing into a format within which it considers that it will lose influence in Central Asia to China. Therefore the Russian leadership considers it advantageous to promote the CSTO, EurAsEC and the three-party customs union in parallel to the SCO. Indeed, in the view of a Russian scholar, in spite of the evident overlaps in function, Russian elites perceives the CSTO and the SCO as different bodies, with each fulfilling a distinct element of their agenda and interests (Expert, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 3 May). At the present time, the Russian leadership believes it necessary to invest resources and political will into the CSTO and to maintain CSTO and the SCO on different tracks, military and non-traditional security respectively. In the view of certain analysts, this is to ensure the continued dependence of the Central Asia Republics on Russia in terms of military assistance, and as a fallback option if Russia loses influence within the SCO. Some regional analysts foresee a dual-track system, whereby ‘a diverse security system may be created in Central Asia with the SCO’s help, in which the primary [military] role would be assigned to CSTO, especially considering the recent establishment of the Collective Rapid Response Forces’ (Luzyanin 2009, 102/3). This is a formula that would be seen favourably in Moscow. From a similar perspective, the development of EurAsEC is, in many respects, the result of Russian perceptions of the need to strengthen its position as the main economic partner of the Central Asian countries, in the context of growing American and Chinese presence in this traditional Russian zone of influence. With this aim in mind, the Russian leadership has seen the development of the three-party customs union as a priority. The leaderships of the Central Asian Republics, with the occasional exception of Uzbekistan, to a large extent also see the benefits in the preservation of the CSTO and EurAsEC. The Central Asian regimes also perceive military and low-level economic cooperation as highly sensitive areas, and consider themselves as more accustomed to, and arguably more comfortable with, working collaboratively in these areas

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with Russia than China. The Central Asian Republics have significant linkages with Russia, the maintenance of which are viewed by their leaderships as a priority. Furthermore, Russia is perceived as a reliable supporter on the international stage in the event of international condemnation, and the natural inclination of elites, many of whom are from the Soviet era and were educated in Moscow, is to look to Russia as a partner (Expert, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 2007, personal interview, 28 April). Therefore, to some extent, the Central Asian leaderships accept the strength of Russian influence in the CSTO and EurAsEC because they see this as preferable to greater Chinese influence via the SCO in certain areas that they perceive as strategic. In particular, EurAsEC is viewed as balancing their dependence on China in terms of economics (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 14; Troitskii 2007, 35). Indeed, a Kyrgyz analyst characterises ‘such a format of cooperation between the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, EurAsEC, and the SCO’ would appear to a design to prevent ‘excessive activeness by China’ (Imanaliev 2006). At the same time, the elites of the Central Asian Republics also perceive overdependence on Moscow and Russian-led regional mechanisms as detrimental to regime security. Indeed, excessive Russian dominance, without another external power to balance this, is the reason why Uzbekistan did not join the CSTO until 2006 but joined the SCO in 2001 (Expert, Centre for Political Studies, 2007, personal interview, 29 May). In the same way as the CSTO and EurAsEC are considered to act as a check on Chinese dominance of the region, the SCO is seen by the Central Asian regimes as having a degree of utility as a balancing mechanism on Russia. Within the SCO, it is considered that Russia is unable to dominate the agenda to the same degree as in the CSTO and EurAsEC because of its structural design and the membership of China. In this context, the CSTO, EurAsEC and the SCO are, to some degree, exploited by the leaderships of the Central Asian Republics as balances against excesses of power in any single organisation, and as a consequence by any single actor. As a result of the presence of several organisations, no multilateral mechanism overwhelmingly dominates the regional landscape. The Central Asian leaderships view this positively as no one organisation can leverage disproportionate power over their domestic affairs. Muratbek Imanaliev (2006) states that ‘commitments taken by participating states in the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and EurAsEC have a certain influence on their stance in the SCO’.

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Although China is not a participant in the CSTO or EurAsEC, the Director of the Center for SCO Studies at the Chinese Institute of International Studies argues that the Chinese leadership is not overtly hostile to their presence and activity in the region: ‘the Chinese view of CSTO is that it can be mutually supplementary and can cooperate with the SCO even if China is not in it’ (Cheng, Y., 2007, personal interview, 26 June). A Russian expert highlights China’s respect for the interests and strategic role of Russia in the region is shown, as we see it, in the Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China of March 26, 2007, which mentioned the intention of both sides ‘to contribute in every way possible to the expansion of the SCO’s ties with the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation’, that is, with the bodies in which Russia plays the leading role. (Portyakov 2007, 6/7) According to some sources, the Chinese leadership turned down the opportunity to join the CSTO as it considers it preferable to concentrate on the SCO, which it sees as its own project. This suggests that the Chinese elites are happy for the CSTO and EurAsEC to contribute to the stability of Central Asia, especially as these organisations are viewed as lessening concerns among the other member states about China’s role in the region and its aims for the SCO. An important element of the SCO, from a Chinese perspective, is increasing understanding of China’s interests and intentions, in order to demystify the deep-seated historical reservations about China that exist in the region. In this context, neither the SCO nor China are significantly threatened or undermined by the CSTO or EurAsEC (Mikheev 2006). Indeed, it is possible to argue that the SCO is increasingly establishing itself as the dominant regional actor in Central Asia: now the SCO positions itself as a Euro-Asiatic organisation of a universal type. Its inter-departmental councils are mushrooming and their activity embraces an ever-greater scope of problems, as they de facto replicate CIS agencies with a similar status. (Safranchuk 2008) The SCO has emerged as the senior partner in its relationship with the CSTO, which is begrudgingly beginning to take a back seat to the SCO on aspects other than military cooperation, even acting as an observer at the SCO Peace Mission II in 2007. A Central Asian analyst notes that

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‘both organisations clearly do not want open competition, but this competition can only be avoided at the expense of one of the organisations. Right now it looks like CSTO will be making step by step concessions to the Shanghaians’ (Safranchuk 2008). In this way, the SCO is positioning itself as a different model for cooperation from the CSTO or EurAsEC, with a more comprehensive agenda, a more balanced membership with much greater resources and, as a result, a more functionally valuable framework than the other multilateral actors in the region. Luzyanin (2009, 101/2) states that the SCO has a wider agenda in terms of both scope and jurisdiction, which distinguishes it from other post-Soviet Central Asian organisations and has positioned it as an integral part of the regional security, political, economic and cultural architecture; ‘both dimensions [of the SCO] – Central Asian (narrow) and Eurasian (wide) – do not contradict but rather supplement each other, as they are parts of the SCO’s long-term development strategy. At the same time, such a structure gives the SCO advantages over the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), which focus solely on the Central Asian region.’ For these reasons, a number of regional analysts consider the SCO to have become an extremely important factor in the Central Asian regional landscape. Indeed, ‘there is a quite widespread justified opinion in the expert community that today only the SCO and no other international formation is capable of providing the Central Asian states with the opportunity to create the most adequate model of interaction with each other and with the main foreign centres of power for ensuring security and development’ (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006). Nonetheless, the role of the CSTO in military cooperation and EurAsEC in customs coordination will continue as the leaderships of Russia and the Central Asian Republics are reassured by these alternatives to the SCO, and because at present the Chinese leadership is unperturbed by the existence of other regional organisations of which it is not a member.

Expansion of membership As a result of the growing profile of the SCO, a number of states in regions surrounding Central Asia have expressed interest in membership or have become associate members. The initial impetus in this direction was provided by the decision to allow certain countries to participate as observers at the SCO annual summits, following the completion of

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the institution-building phase of the SCO’s development. The first state to be granted official observer status was Mongolia at the 2004 summit in Tashkent. At the same summit, Afghan President Karzai was invited as a guest, and has attended several SCO annual summits. At the following year’s summit in Astana, observer status was granted to India, Pakistan and Iran. In 2007, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan attended the 2007 summit in Bishkek, and at the Yekaterinburg Summit in 2009, the SCO formally created a third tier of association to the organisation, known as dialogue partners, with Belarus and Sri Lanka granted this status. The creation of associate member status and the attendance of other states’ leaders at the SCO summits have raised the question of expansion of the SCO membership to include these states. An official from the SCO Secretariat has stated that although in the future the observer states will play an increasing role, at present there is no common legal understanding about what ‘observer status’ entails (Official in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interview, July). In the view of a leading Russian scholar, the observer states only have involvement at the high-political level (Expert, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 3 May). As a result, observers do not have much of an active role in any of the SCO programmes, but are involved in consultation and indirect participation in specific SCO programmes (Officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, 2007, personal interviews, July). Nonetheless, as a Russian scholar notes, ‘cooperation among the SCO observers (Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia) is obviously deepening. These countries are highly interested in the development of cooperation with the SCO in energy, transport, investment, technological exchanges, and other areas’ (Luzyanin 2009, 108). The involvement of these states from surrounding regions is in many ways a logical consequence of the focus of the SCO on questions of transnational security. As noted, the region of the Central Asian former Soviet Republics cannot be considered as independent of security in South Asia and Afghanistan (Khodjaev, A., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Therefore, for the SCO to impact effectively on regional security, it needs to be able to influence developments further afield. Equally, there are potential benefits from wider economic cooperation building on geographical proximity and traditional trade links. In fact some analysts note that this is what is motivating other states to seek membership of the SCO, since these states are interested ‘in the opening up of trade across Central Asia in general and joint approaches to (and possible

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Chinese investments in) trans-Asian energy deliveries and infrastructure links in particular’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 18). At present, the SCO has as many official observer states, and states that regularly participate in its annual summit, as it does permanent members. The inclusion of new members, however, would have a dramatic impact on the organisation. Although the current observer states are geographically located on the periphery of Central Asia and to differing degrees share common interests with the SCO’s agenda, what is not clear is how the nature of these states and regimes would fit into the current SCO formulae – not least because of the differences between the observers themselves. As Bailes and Dunay (2007b, 19) note, the SCO observer states ‘form a disparate group, especially in terms of their degrees of democracy and of international acceptance and the nature of their other group affiliations’. Observer states and participants Iran Iran is considered the most enthusiastic observer state about full membership. In March 2008 it declared an application for full membership, which the SCO declined, stating that at present it does not have procedures in place for accepting new members. Furthermore, at the 2010 annual summit, the SCO heads of state approved a draft document on the ‘Rules of Procedure and the Statute on the Order of Admission of New Members to the SCO’. The nature of these criteria is unclear, but it was spelled out by Russian President Dmitrii Medvedev that any state that is currently the subject of UN sanctions cannot become an SCO member state.19 On this basis it was announced that since it is currently facing UN sanctions regarding its nuclear programme, Iran could not be considered for full membership of the SCO. The release of this draft document emphasises the widespread uncertainty among the member states about the effect that the inclusion of Iran would have on perceptions of the organisation in the international community. If the geopolitical context of Iranian membership is ignored, then Iran is in many ways an ideal new member for the SCO. Iran could contribute to one of the SCO’s main areas of focus, economic cooperation, especially with regard to energy. Indeed, Russia is already active in cooperation with Iran over energy, and is playing a role in negotiating between Iran and the West over the issue of the Iranian nuclear development programme.20 Also, the theocratic authoritarian leadership of Iran is likely to be supportive of the SCO’s loose framework for

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cooperation which does not threaten state sovereignty and serves regime security. However, the existing members’ leaders perceive the compatibility of Iran in these respects as outweighed by the effect that Iranian membership would have in terms of perceptions in the rest of the world, because of its antagonistic relationship with the West. The Iranian leadership accuses the West of trying to isolate Iran within the international system.21 Indeed, many Western governments label Iran a ‘pariah’ state and condemn it for sponsoring terrorism around the world. Iran was included in the then US President Bush’s infamous speech about an ‘axis of evil’.22 Iran and the Western community have been locked in a political stand-off with regard to Iran’s interest in developing a nuclear energy programme, which the Western community wants to ensure is not used to develop a nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian leadership has challenged what it perceives as Western dominance of the international system, promoting its right to pursue whatever domestic politics it deems fit. Indeed, analysts have argued that the perception of the SCO as a model of cooperation that emphasises the principle of nonintervention in domestic affairs and stands up to the West, is the main attraction for Iran. Thus, what is most ‘relevant to Iran in its current embattled situation over its nuclear programme vis-à-vis the UN and Western powers is the character of the SCO as an “alternative”, multilateral model based on mutual non-intrusion and national interest’ (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 19). However, this ambition to turn the SCO into a symbol of challenge to the hegemony of the West, is the source of significant reservation about Iran’s membership amongst the existing members of the SCO. Despite seeing the value of the SCO as an alternative model for cooperation, and even for challenging Western ‘double standards’, none of the current members see presenting the SCO as a direct challenge to the West as being in their best interests. All of its member states have better working relationships with Europe and the US than with Iran, and even those member states most dissatisfied with the approach of the Western international community see little benefit in further disrupting their relationships with Western countries. The Central Asian leaderships in particular, several of whom maintain strong ties with the US, consider that allowing Iranian membership would undermine their foreign policy strategy. A leading Kazakh analyst states that the Kazakh leadership would veto any inclusion of Iran, in order to preserve good relations with the US (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). At the same time, the Russian and Chinese leaderships are also reluctant

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to embrace Iran and its stand-off with the US because, in spite of their diplomatic problems with the US, maintaining economic cooperation is considered extremely valuable (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May; Chen, X., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). Taking these matters into account, the prospects of Iran being granted full membership of the SCO in the near future are remote. India and Pakistan India and Pakistan both became SCO observers at the same time, primarily to placate perceptions of historical geopolitical alignment between these states and Russia and China. Following the Sino-Soviet split during the 1960s, the tension between Moscow and Beijing was reflected in their support of opposing powers in South Asia; the Soviet Union was aligned with India, while China supported Pakistan. In spite of the greatly improved relations between Russia and China in the last two decades, this pattern of relations has continued whereby Russia continues to have a strong relationship with India, as a major supplier of military hardware and technology to Delhi. Similarly, China continues to provide military assistance to Pakistan and in return Islamabad is a loyal proponent of Beijing’s position on Taiwan. In this context, to avoid generating suspicions between Russia and China within the SCO, it was considered wise to invite both of their traditional allies in South Asia to take up observer status. At present, Pakistan is the state more consistently enthusiastic about full SCO membership; however, it is Indian membership that is considered by the existing member states as the more interesting (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007, personal interview, 10 May). The SCO member states’ regimes view the prospects of Indian and Pakistani membership differently, but, as is the case with Iranian membership, it is considered that both would bring significant geopolitical ramifications and increased political complexity. From the perspective of the SCO’s ability to impact on dynamics relevant to Central Asian regional security, the inclusion of Pakistan would be highly beneficial. The western flank of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, especially the Waziristan region, is the source of a wide range of non-traditional security threats which destabilise Central Asia (Fayyaz 2007). In these areas, the Pakistani government is seen as exercising little control, and Taliban and other extremist groups are able to function freely and cross at will between Pakistan and Afghanistan (Khan 2004). Indeed, this situation is a priority for the US and NATO in their operations in Afghanistan. It is also an increasing priority for the

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SCO, as its members’ leaderships identify the key role played by the unstable situation in Afghanistan in their own security, especially in light of the resurgence of the Taliban in recent years. In this context, Pakistani membership of the SCO may give the organisation jurisdiction to expand its struggle with the ‘three evils’ to the point of origin of many of these threats. However, as noted, the porous nature of the Pakistani–Afghan border is a major security challenge to both Central and South Asia. Without the simultaneous inclusion of Afghanistan, attempts to tackle the ‘three evils’ in Pakistan would most likely be futile. Taking into account the heavy influence of NATO forces in Afghanistan, the SCO member states consider the prospects of Afghanistan becoming an SCO member to be slim, even though its leadership often attends the SCO annual summits. Against this background, the unstable domestic situation in Pakistan is a security problem that the member states view themselves as ill-equipped to deal with, especially given that the existing membership is not geographically adjacent to Pakistan and the prospects of Afghan membership are remote (Makhmudov, R., 2007, personal interview, 29 May). Indian membership is also seen as providing additional security challenges. The Indian government faces its own battles with extremists and separatists, not least from its borders with Pakistan. Yet this issue is not widely considered by the SCO member states’ leaders in assessing the potential membership of India. Instead they are focused on the effect that Indian membership would have on economic cooperation. The potential benefits of increased economic cooperation and trade between India and the SCO members is viewed as huge, combining the developing economic powerhouses of India and China (Luzyanin 2007b). In keeping with the current focus on macroeconomic projects within the SCO, large-scale infrastructural projects that establish communications between the SCO’s member states and the subcontinent would be mutually beneficial. Indeed, the idea of a ‘strategic triangle’ between Russia, China and India has gained prominence among some regional analysts in recent years (Yakovlev 2002), based on the efforts of these three leaderships to develop certain elements of economic compatibility (Klimenko 2006). The three states are to some degree ‘militarily interdependent’, whereby both China and India are heavily dependent on Russian weapons, and buy around 70 per cent of Russia’s total arms exports (Price 2007). There are also significant prospects of large-scale energy pipeline deals to link up the regions of Eurasia, Asia-Pacific and South Asia. The Chinese

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leadership see greater access to India as opening up a vast market for its goods, and the Russian leadership consider the involvement of India would provide a second major emerging economy, which it could tie itself to and which at the same time would balance economic dependence on China. From the Central Asian perspective, the inclusion of India is seen as providing a new source for foreign investment. At the same time, Central Asian elites view the involvement of another major power as threatening their interests in the SCO (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). It has also been noted by regional analysts that Indian membership would generate problems for the current structures of the SCO. The Indian leadership is focused more on electoral appeal than on regime security. In this respect, the presence of India might put pressure on the other SCO members to further democratise their own political systems. Such pressure would not be viewed favourably by the existing member states’ leaderships, which also see changing the existing focus and structure of the SCO as detrimental to their pursuit of what they perceive as the priorities of the SCO (Expert, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007, personal interview, 3 May). In addition, although sometimes critical of the US, India has a much closer relationship to the West than the SCO’s member states, and is to a large extent seen as part of the wider Western international community. This differentiates India from the SCO’s member states which, in spite of some members having strong and stable relationships with Western states, consider themselves outside the Western fold. Indeed, the fear of losing its status as a partner in the West limits, to some extent, India’s interest in the SCO. Ultimately, the existing member states do not consider India as compatible, either politically and geopolitically, with the SCO. In spite of the enormous economic benefits India could bring, it is widely perceived among the SCO elites that this might be at the cost of other aspects of the organisation – the focus on regime security, a narrow geographical focus on Central Asia, and a relatively clear sense of ‘identity’ as a Eurasian organisation (Nursha, A., 2007, personal interview, 10 May). If India were to become a full member, the SCO would have to alter its identity, from an increasingly cohesive organisation to a looser Asian grouping, with a less distinct agenda. Turkmenistan The ‘permanent neutrality’ of the late President Niyazov ensured that Turkmenistan was the only post-Soviet Central Asian Republic not

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among the SCO’s membership. Taking into account the extent of the personality cult of the self-proclaimed Turkmenbashi (Niyazov), his grip on power and insistence on the policy of permanent or positive neutrality, the prospects of Turkmenistan becoming a member of the SCO under Niyazov were remote. However, in December 2006 Niyazov passed away and the new leadership in Ashgabat has slightly altered the country’s approach to external relations. Although the policy of ‘positive neutrality’ remains, under the new president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the isolationist tendencies have softened and bilateral relations with the SCO members have, as a result, greatly strengthened (Pomfret 2008). A number of large-scale economic deals with the SCO’s member states have been concluded, including an agreement on the construction of a major gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan to China in 2007, following years of negotiation (Šír and Horák 2008, 86), and the conclusion of another gas pipeline deal with Russia and Kazakhstan, also in 2007. In addition, the decision by President Berdymukhammedov to accept an invitation to attend the annual summit in Bishkek in 2007 appears to indicate that Turkmenistan may soon be ready to end its policy of permanent neutrality and consider membership of the SCO. If Turkmenistan applies for membership, then it is likely the SCO’s member states will welcome the country with open arms (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May; Chen, X., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). Turkmenistan does not have many problems with Islamic extremism and separatism, so is seen as contributing little in terms of the struggle with the ‘three evils’. However, Turkmenistan has significant natural resources and its participation in the proposed SCO Energy Club and in other large-scale infrastructural projects would be considered very beneficial by the SCO’s member states, in particular Russia and China. In the context of increasing Western interest in exploiting the natural resources in Turkmenistan, the leaderships of Russia and China view involving Turkmenistan in the SCO as a way of encouraging Ashgabat to centre its energy policy on them. As well as providing economic advantages, the inclusion of Turkmenistan would be unproblematic. The Turkmen political system is viewed as driven by considerations of regime security (Anceschi 2008). Furthermore, existing political, economic and cultural links to the other Central Asian Republics and Russia would mean that Turkmenistan would not disrupt the current structures and dynamics of the SCO. Indeed, to some extent, Turkmenistan is already socialised into the approach of the SCO to international relations as a consequence of its burgeoning bilateral relationship with China. The issues discussed in

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this relationship are consistent with the main aims of the SCO, and the language is identical to that emanating from the SCO. A recent visit of the Turkmen President to China produced a joint statement which emphasised the central elements of the SCO: the struggle with the ‘three evils’, principles of equality and centrality of non-interference.23 Turkmenistan is thus the most compatible of the existing observers and participants with the SCO. Mongolia In spite of the fact that it offers little in terms of the main focus of the SCO, Mongolia was the first country to be given observer status. Mongolia has very limited capacity in terms of economic resources, but at the same time it is not afflicted by concerns of separatism and extremism.24 As a result, it neither shares the concerns of the SCO members about Islamic extremist groups, nor can it contribute significant financial investment to common SCO projects or provide a market for increased trade. Therefore the benefits of Mongolian membership are not perceived as significant by the member states’ leaderships. At the same time, its inclusion in the SCO would be relatively unproblematic and uncontroversial, because Mongolian membership is not considered to involve any significant geopolitical consequences for existing member states’ relations with the West, and Mongolia is geographically adjacent to the existing SCO area (Lukin, A., 2007, personal interview, 4 May). It is conceivable that the reason Mongolia has been kept out thus far is that the inclusion of one state would necessarily involve considering others. Member states’ views on expansion Within the SCO’s community of officials and experts there exist very divergent views on the value of an expansion of membership. Those who are enthusiastic about an expansion of full membership tend to be so because they envision the creation of a huge economic framework, bringing together large and small states, suppliers and consumers of energy, manufacturers and customers, modern and traditional trade (Shi, Z., 2007, personal interview, 20 June). The Russian economic analyst Frolenkov (2008, 77) argues that a number of commentators have noted the economic benefits of expansion: among a number of Central Asian experts, there is no doubt in the capability of Central Asian countries . . . and certain countries with the observer status, such as India, Iran, and Pakistan, to work together in

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an energy-centred community. In their view, these countries could easily pool capital and natural resources, the human potential, their technological and industrial capacity, to create a 21st century energy market. This logic and the potential gains from wider cooperation in the sphere of energy have led to discussion within the SCO about the prospect of enhanced cooperation with the observer states in this field. According to a leading Kazakh analyst, ‘during the discussion of other documents at the Bishkek summit [2007], the Kazakh President Nazarbaev noted that the potential of the observer states could be connected to energy cooperation’ (Mukhamedzhanov 2008). The focus on energy is because the potential gains of such wider cooperation appear obvious to the leaderships of the member states, but also because they consider that cooperation in this field could be managed without offering full membership to the observer states. Although there are voices of optimism, at the present time there are far more doubters than advocates about expanding membership. Significantly, these doubts tend to originate from the governments of the member states that exert the greatest influence over the organisation. According to a Kazakh official, the main concerns are either geopolitical or technical in nature (Shamishev, E., 2007, personal interview, 22 May). The member states’ leaderships are concerned about the geopolitical effects on both their own bilateral relationships with the West and also the perception of the SCO among the international community. In the view of some regional experts, [the] SCO could gain the reputation of a structure gathering nuclear states under its wing: on the one hand, Russia and China, on the other, India and Pakistan. And this will all happen against the background of Iran’s attempts to create its own nuclear weapons. In the event this scenario pans out, the SCO could become seen as a greater source of threat to international security than a tool for fighting it. (Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva 2006) In particular, the Central Asian leaderships are concerned about the impact of including states with complex relations with the US into the organisation, for fear this may impact on their bilateral relations with the US. A Kazakh analyst outlined that Kazakhstan is against expansion because it does not want to spoil its relations with the US by the inclusion of Iran (Expert, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies,

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2007, personal interview, 10 May). The fear of many Central Asia analysts is that the SCO would be altered from an organisation focused on the domestic security of the Central Asian Republics, to an antiUS orientation, which would devalue the SCO in the eyes of the Central Asian Republics. The establishment of a draft criterion for membership at the 2010 summit that excluded states under UN sanctions, neatly allowed the SCO member states to avoid the issue of omitting Iran, which threatens to be divisive between the member states. Also, the member states’ regime and regional elites are concerned about the impact of expansion on both the prevailing positive dynamic among the existing member states and the institutional model of the SCO, by exporting external political conflicts, as well as different political systems and cultures, into the SCO. In this way, it is perceived that the existing positive dynamic among the member states could be disrupted and, at the same time, an increase in membership may overwhelm the existing institutional mechanisms of the SCO. A leading Russian scholar notes that ‘although there is a temptation to enhance the geopolitical prestige of the SCO by admitting new members, it is outweighed by understanding that for now the organisation should concentrate efforts on its own consolidation, and that new members may bring [the] additional burden of their own problems, sometimes broader and heavier’ (Portyakov 2007, 4). A major challenge to cohesion would be the inclusion of both India and Pakistan, and their tense bilateral relationship. India–Pakistan relations are defined by the dispute over the status of Kashmir, a stand-off which has led to open conflict on several occasions, and the severity of which is exacerbated by both countries possessing nuclear weapons. A number of leading analysts have voiced their concern at the prospect of the SCO taking on such a controversial geopolitical issue, emphasising the organisation was neither capable nor needed to take on these issues (Chufrin, G., 2007, personal interview, 3 May; Luzyanin, S., personal interview, 2007, 3 May). An additional complication to Iranian membership would be the incorporation of an Islamic theological autocracy into the SCO, whose member states are secular and have very different political systems. In this regard, the democratic systems of India and, to a lesser extent, Pakistan are considered as potentially difficult to accommodate alongside the autocratic regimes of Central Asia. Hence many regional analysts consider the granting of full membership status to the current observers could introduce a number of new political dividing lines into the existing environment. In this

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context, it is considered that if the SCO maintains its current model of cooperation, including the principle of consensus, the organisation could be left paralysed by political disputes. The Kazakh regime has ‘spoke[n] firmly against accepting new members, arguing that this would be difficult even in technical terms since the SCO lacks mechanisms to effectuate quick membership’.25 The speaker for the Kazakh Senate and former foreign minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev have highlighted that ‘Kazakhstan finds it necessary to temporarily refrain from the SCO enlargement, because the organisation lacks the legal basis for regulating the procedures for admitting new members’.26 Indeed, in the view of many of the member states’ officials, the SCO’s identity and robustness need to be consolidated before expanding its composition. Furthermore, the Kazakh Foreign Minister Nurlan Ermekbaev (2007) states that ‘today, the issue is not about expansion but about fortification of the organisation’s effectiveness’. Taking this into account, the debate around an expansion of membership is centred on a fundamental question for the SCO: what is the scope and aim of the organisation? To answer the expansion question conclusively, the SCO needs to clarify its own ‘identity’ to determine whether it is to remain a limited regional organisation focused on Central Asia and based on a well-defined agenda of regime security within a sovereign-enhancing framework, or whether it should become a wider Asian regional framework, embracing a wide-ranging and loose agenda. The SCO has yet to answer this question definitively. To some extent there are differences between the existing member states on the issue of expansion and its impact on the identity of the SCO. The Central Asian leaderships are perhaps more ardently against expansion than Russia and China: there have been clear signs of reluctance among the Central Asian members (a) to admit any new members at all, because they would include additional economic competitors and would threaten to spread the prospective profits of membership more thinly, (b) to dilute the present already very wide geostrategic focus of the group, (c) to offend the USA and others by giving full status to Iran, and (d) to import the India–Pakistan confrontation into a group that has enough security problems and potential divisions already. (Bailes and Dunay 2007b, 19) The Central Asian leaderships perceive that an expansion of the SCO would alter its focus on Central Asia. The view of many of the elites

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in Central Asia is that ‘admitting new members would diminish these states’ own significance within the SCO and reduce their benefits by diverting more diplomatic and economic resources to the more strategically attractive new members’ (Maksutov 2006, 26). From the perspective of the Central Asian leaderships, the SCO would cease to be orientated towards their primary concerns and interests, and become a wider geopolitically defined actor, which would lessen its value for their short-term interests. Shaimergenov and Tusupbaeva (2006) argue that South Asia, to which Iran, India, and Pakistan belong, is an even more contradictory region than Central Asia, with its rather acute and complicated differences of opinion and confused and protracted conflicts. Therefore it is very likely that as a result of these states joining the SCO, other accents in the Organisation’s activity will also shift, with possible distraction of attention toward the problems of South Asia. The current member states see themselves as having relatively compatible and consistent positions with regard to the principles of noninterference and regime security. The admittance of new members could serve to dilute this commonality, shifting the emphasis from the regime security of the Central Asian Republics to a more general economic focus across a wider territorial space. A further difference is evident between the leaderships of China and Russia. A wider membership of the SCO is interpreted by many analysts as a distinct aim of the Chinese leadership (Shi, Y., 2007, personal interview, 1 July). As noted, the SCO is seen by the Chinese leadership as an experiment in developing a model for regional cooperation, which can be replicated elsewhere to establish China as a major regional player in Asia (Expert, Shanghai Academy for Social Science, 2007, personal interview, 17 July). Indeed, the growing presence of China in regional affairs in East Asia, South-East Asia and Africa is notable. In this context, a Central Asian analyst argues that the expansion of the SCO to include India and Pakistan ‘would also bring China closer to realising its larger Asian aspirations, thus inevitably distracting it from Central Asian affairs’ (Maksutov 2006, 26). In this way, the other member states consider that an expanded SCO could become a Chinese vehicle for advancing its economic interests and expanding its influence via the means of ‘soft power’ on a wider Asian scale. As a result, the current priorities of the SCO – addressing security threats and economic weakness – would become secondary, greatly diminishing the value of the organisation in the eyes of Russian and Central Asian elites. Unlike

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China, neither the Russian nor the Central Asian regimes consider that they have the capacity to develop large-scale economic exchanges and linkages with the rest of Asia. Although the Russian leadership considers the inclusion of states from other regions in Asia to be attractive in some respects (economically and geopolitically), Moscow is less enthusiastic than Beijing in this regard. The Chinese leadership perceives the SCO as an expression of how it believes international relations should be conducted and has a wider demonstrative relevance. In the view of the Russian leadership, its value is more limited. At present, the Russian leadership see themselves as the dominant external influence in the post-Soviet Republics of Central Asia, and the SCO is seen as playing an important role in this respect. From this perspective, expanding the SCO is seen as diluting its utility for Central Asia and, at the same time, downgrading Russia’s influence in the region. The Russian leadership is thus reluctant to expand the SCO under a format that it considers could advance a Chinese vision of regional cooperation (Malashenko, A., 2007, personal interview, 7 May). In this context, Russia perceives it necessary to continue to support the development of the CSTO and EurAsEC in order to guarantee its capacity to influence the Central Asian region multilaterally, in case the Central Asian focus of the SCO is lost. Taking all these factors into account, from at least the perspective of the Central Asian leaderships, the accession of either Turkmenistan or Mongolia is more realistic than that of Iran, India and Pakistan, because their inclusion is viewed as unlikely to drastically challenge the existing identity and utility of the SCO. A Russian scholar argues that the ‘priority with regard to the possible admission to the SCO is given to the less troubled countries – Mongolia and India. Considering the unresolved nuclear problem in Iran and the aggravation of the political crisis in Pakistan, Tehran and Islamabad are not yet considered as candidates for full membership’ (Luzyanin 2009, 108). The geopolitical consequences of Turkmen and Mongolian membership are also seen as negligible, as would be their impact on the geographical focus, political culture and agenda of the current SCO format. Therefore the Central Asian leaderships might come to view acceptance of Turkmenistan or Mongolia as new member states in a positive light because they do not perceive that this would challenge their current role in the organisation and its focus on their primary interests of regime security. The Chinese leadership is the most enthusiastic about a wider expansion of membership, seeing it as part of a wider foreign policy goal of increasing China’s influence in Asia. However, if Beijing considers that

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such an expansion would threaten the goodwill of the Central Asian regimes towards the SCO, and by extension China, then it is unlikely that they will deem such an expansion as worthwhile. Therefore, up till now, the Chinese leadership has been unwilling to risk alienating the other members by pushing them into a wider Asian regional framework. As the discussion above has indicated, the issue of membership expansion is viewed by the SCO member states’ leaderships from different perspectives, with all aware of the geopolitical and technical impact a significant expansion would have on the orientation, functionality and, ultimately, identity of the organisation. Hence, should the SCO choose to expand its full membership to include Iran, India and Pakistan, it will likely precipitate a change in identity, from a framework focused relatively narrowly on regimes in Central Asia to a wider Asian regional grouping centred on large-scale geoeconomics.

7 Conclusion

In analysing the development of the SCO and its role within the regional security landscape in Central Asia, this study has challenged some prevailing interpretations about the SCO and certain assumptions about the nature of security and regional cooperation within International Relations theory. Many existing perceptions of the SCO tend to overemphasise geopolitical aspects and do not take into account the regional context of Central Asia. Therefore, in order to provide an alternative perspective, this book has analysed the SCO in light of the regional context in which it has developed and the perceptions of its key actors, the leaderships of its member states. This concluding chapter outlines the key findings of the preceding analysis, highlighting their relevance for our understanding of the SCO, before discussing the implications of these conclusions for the theoretical sub-literatures of Security Studies, Regionalism and Regional Organisations.

Regional framework for cooperation As noted in the literature review, the nature of regional cooperation within the SCO has been questioned on several fronts. It is often assumed that the SCO is overwhelmingly dominated by China and Russia and that the Central Asian Republics have negligible influence on the organisation. However, this study argues that the SCO is primarily focused on addressing regime security, in particular the regime security of the Central Asian Republics. In this way, the SCO is orientated towards what the Central Asian leaderships consider to be their primary security aim, and, as a result, they interpret it as a very important part of their foreign and security policy, and not as a Russian–Chinese tool to dominate the region. 171

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In addition, as outlined in the introduction, an implicit assumption exists within many theoretical approaches to international cooperation that sustained and institutionalised cooperation is only possible between established liberal-democratic political states as found in the West. The member states of the SCO are not characterised as Western liberal-democratic states. Yet, in the SCO, these states have made substantial progress towards establishing a mechanism for sustained regional cooperation in Central Asia. China, Russia and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan The Central Asian leaders perceive the SCO’s focus on addressing regime security as in line with their primary aim for regional security, and as such see the SCO as orientated to their interests as much as to those of Russia and China. Yet this is not to say that Russia and China do not wield a larger influence over the structures of the organisation. Moscow and Beijing have certain structural advantages over the other member states in the SCO. This is a reflection of the significantly greater power resources at the disposal of Russia and China in comparison with the Central Asian Republics. As Russia and China contribute more resources to the SCO’s projects, both have more representatives within its structures and as a result their initiatives have a greater chance of reaching implementation. Yet, in spite of these structural advantages, the content of the SCO’s agenda is largely determined by whether it is consistent with the Central Asian Republics’ perceived interests. This trend is a product of both the strategies of the member states towards the SCO and the design of the organisation. Russia and China both consider the maintenance of domestic political stability in the Central Asian Republics as a key objective within their regional strategies for Central Asia, and the regime security of the Central Asian Republics as impacting on their own domestic security concerns. In addition, both also view the preservation of favourable relations with the Central Asian regimes as a priority. To this end, the Russian and Chinese leaderships consider that it is important that the Central Asian leaderships do not perceive their state sovereignty and influence on the agenda undermined within the SCO, in order to retain their interest in the organisation. Until recently, China has been viewed as largely uninterested in foreign policy. However, a different perception is now emerging of the Chinese leadership pursuing a more active and nuanced approach to

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foreign policy. The role of ‘soft power’ techniques aimed at socialising the other SCO member states into accepting the presence and influence of China in Central Asia is perceived as very important by the Chinese leadership. Although possessing the potential to impose its will on the SCO, Beijing’s approach has been one of conciliation and cooperation, even in the light of developments not consistent with the Chinese leadership’s view on the SCO. Indeed, this approach is widely regarded as a success by Chinese foreign policymakers and analysts. Some of the negative perceptions of China within the region have been challenged as a result of the SCO establishing itself as an integral part of regional cooperation in Central Asia. In light of this success, China continues to emphasise the principle of equality in the SCO’s institutional framework, aiming to ensure the Central Asian Republics consider the organisation’s agenda as relevant to their priorities and interests, in order to dispel further the myth of the Chinese threat of dominance that is prevalent in the region. In the same vein as China’s move to increase its influence in Central Asia, since the mid-1990s Russian foreign policy has emphasised the importance of reinvigorating cooperation with the Central Asian Republics, in order to reassert Russia’s primary role in the region. In this respect, the SCO is a deviation from other parts of this strategy. The development of strong bilateral relations, as well as Russian-dominated multilateral mechanisms (Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC)), is seen by Russian political elites as establishing a direct and unfettered line of communication between Moscow and the region. However, at the same time, the Russian leadership perceives the development of the SCO, which contains another major world power, as an important part of its Central Asian strategy, which suggests that Russian foreign policy in Central Asia is based on a more nuanced approach than many analysts have anticipated. In the context of Moscow’s increasing frustration at what it perceives as disrespectful treatment by the West, the SCO reflects the Russian leadership’s aim to develop relationships and partnerships in Asia as an alternative vector to its relations with the West. While Russia often considers itself at odds with many of the normative positions taken in Western institutions, the norms and values that have evolved with the SCO are considered to be more compatible with its perspectives. In this way, Russian political elites see the further development of the SCO’s evolving framework for cooperation as beneficial. Therefore the Russian leadership is not inclined to force its will on other

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members of the SCO, but to reassure the Central Asian Republics that they are equal partners in the organisation. The Central Asian Republics view the Central Asian region as facing numerous conventional interstate tensions and non-traditional security challenges. As recently independent states attempt to build nations from ill-defined borders, their leaders’ prioritisation of dealing with security threats is often filtered through a prism of the perceived need to protect their own positions and regimes. As a result, the Central Asian Republics are opposed to sovereign ‘pooling’ methods of regional integration, considering this to be a serious threat to their control over state apparatus and capacity to pursue regime security strategies. However, at the same, the Central Asian political elites are not opposed to regional cooperation within frameworks that reflect what they deem to be their primary interests. Taking this into account, the leaderships of Russia and China regularly emphasise that the SCO presents no threat to state sovereignty and does not place any limits on the Central Asian leaderships’ ability to determine their own foreign policies. Against this background of reassurance, the Central Asian leaders have come, to a large degree, to view the SCO as contributing to their primary interests. Consequently, a process of socialisation is evident, whereby regional cooperation has come to be seen as an important tool in their foreign policy armoury. In this way, interpretations of the Central Asian Republics as passive actors, which only function as a prize to be fought over as part of a ‘Great Game’, misconceive the Central Asian regional landscape. Instead, the Central Asian Republics are active in defining and altering their foreign policies in line with what they consider as security priorities. In general, the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships have deemed the SCO’s agenda as in their interests and, at least partially, defined by their interests. In addition to the efforts by Moscow and Beijing to reassure the Central Asian Republics that the SCO does not threaten their sovereign independence, legal-structural limitations exist within the SCO’s framework to prevent one member from overwhelmingly dominating the agenda. As Chapter 2 details, the structures of the SCO are designed to ensure equality. As its member states can opt out of any programme, the SCO needs to find consensus to act as a cohesive body. As a result, Russia and China have to make efforts to ensure the Central Asian leaders are given a voice in the organisation, in order to ensure their participation in the SCO’s policies, statements and programmes, and reassure them that they will not be trapped into policies and programmes which they do not consider to be in their interests.

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In light of the perceptions of the member states’ leaderships, as well as the institutional and normative framework that has developed within the SCO, the interpretation of the SCO as simply a Russian–Chinese vehicle does not accurately reflect either the dynamic between its member states, or the structural design of the SCO, both of which are ingrained in regional consensus and equality.

Non-sovereign binding evolution The SCO’s loose non-binding framework is considered by many regional analysts as a key factor in accounting for the management of the divergent interests among its membership, and how its members have come to view cooperation with one another as advantageous. By developing a loose framework with a limited legal capacity to enforce policy, the leaders of the member states are comfortable that their political authority is not challenged, and that they will not be forced into a cooperative project that they deem to be not in their best interests. As a consequence, the SCO is overwhelmingly dependent on its member states to provide it with the capacity to implement its programmes. It relies on its member states to contribute the necessary resources and voluntarily implement its policies within their domestic jurisdiction. This limits the effectiveness of the SCO as a security provider and a framework for cooperation. Yet, taking into account the scepticism towards multilateralism among the region’s elites, a non-sovereign binding framework was necessary in order to build any form of regional cooperation. The SCO framework acknowledges that its member states perceive ceding sovereignty to a multilateral organisation as being out of the question, and has thus focused on constructing a common set of norms and values among its members’ leaderships, in order to socialise them into voluntarily implementing its programmes. A key trend in the formal and informal functioning of the SCO has been that it has evolved in line with the political will of its member states’ leaderships. As noted already, the Chinese and Russian leaderships have sought to alleviate the fears of the Central Asian Republics’ leaderships about being dominated by the political agenda of Moscow or Beijing, by emphasising that the SCO is a non-legally binding structure. Indeed, to ensure that the SCO’s agenda and development are seen as relevant and of value by all the leaderships, the member states have all advocated an evolutionary process towards institutional design, agenda building and implementation. Hence the members’ elites agreed that these three facets of the development of the SCO should evolve

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consecutively, in order to ensure that the development of the agenda does not outpace members’ political will. In this way, the agenda was widened only once the member states had settled on the norms of practice and institutional structures that compose the SCO. Similarly, having agreed to expand cooperative programmes beyond terrorism, extremism and separatism to wider security cooperation, economic projects and cultural coordination, the SCO has shifted its focus to the implementation of agreements in these new areas of cooperation. Thus the evolution of the SCO has revolved around ensuring its member states have all been consulted and have agreed on the direction the SCO is heading in, before it has advanced to the next stage in its progression. In this way, its officials and the leaderships of the member states consider that political goodwill towards the SCO can be retained, and on this basis, the SCO will become enshrined as an important element in their perceptions on security, and political, economic and cultural policy. China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan represent a relatively diverse group of states, in terms of their size, international significance, political structures and primary concerns. Nonetheless, within the SCO they have found a certain degree of common interest and a framework within which they are willing participants. The design of the SCO’s organisational framework, with its focus on socialisation and developing common norms, rather than legally enshrined political integration, has created an environment in which this fairly diverse group of states has found a common purpose around regime security. It has created norms of behaviour and values conducive to the main aims of its national leaderships, while taking into account their positions that regional multilateralism should enhance rather than devolve state sovereignty. In this way, the SCO has sacrificed a certain amount of effectiveness in favour of generating greater trust in the format of multilateral regional cooperation, so that cooperation in the SCO is deemed as positive by its members’ leaderships, even if bilateral relations between members remain tense. As well as highlighting the perceived common interest in regime security between the members’ leaderships, this study has identified divergent interests on some aspects of the SCO agenda. A major cleavage in this respect is between China and the other member states. The Chinese leadership considers the further development of the SCO’s agenda, especially with regard to free trade, to be advantageous. However, the other members’ leaderships view such a development warily, because it would involve China’s participation in areas of state policy

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that they consider as strategically important. In their eyes, if the economic strength and growing political influence of China is allowed to permeate throughout the region unchecked, this could lead them to lose a degree of control over their national affairs. As a result, different positions are evident between China and the other member states on issues of free economic trade and expansion of membership. However, this divergence is not threatening to undermine the current agenda, because the Chinese leadership considers the SCO as having significant value in demystifying perceptions of China in the Central Asian Republics. To supplement this process, the Chinese leadership’s approach to the SCO seeks to reassure the Central Asia Republics that it does not present a threat to their interests or state sovereignty. In this way, Beijing considers it beneficial to sacrifice its interest in the further development of the SCO’s agenda, in order to maintain the ongoing process of socialisation between the member states.

Regional security provider The aims and focus of the SCO are the subject of some debate within academic and policy circles. The SCO proclaims to offer a regionally coordinated response to the numerous transnational security threats within the Central Asian regional landscape. Yet many Western analysts have argued that the SCO is not centred on tackling transnational security, but is an alliance orientated against the growing Western presence in Central Asia and, for some, an anti-Western vehicle in general. However, this study suggests that domestic security, and not external geopolitics, is the main focus of the SCO in the eyes of its member states’ leaderships. It also challenges the notion that the SCO is an ‘empty vessel’, serving little practical purpose other than rhetorical support for repressive regimes. Although the provision of rhetorical support to its member states’ regimes is seen as valuable by the region’s political elites, this is not the most important aspect of the SCO and far from its only purpose and activity. The work taking place within the SCO towards enhancing regional and regime security is more noteworthy and relevant from the perspective of its members’ leaderships. An agenda of internal security, not a tool in the Great Game As outlined in Chapters 4 and 5, the manner in which the SCO has been developed by its member states highlights that internal and transnational, rather than interstate, security is identified by SCO member

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states’ leaderships as the primary issue. The foreign and domestic policies of the Central Asian Republics are driven largely by their leaders’ concerns with the survival of their own regimes and the preservation of the basic elements of the state: sovereignty of its state leaderships over state affairs and the territorial integrity of its borders. For the leaderships of Russia and China, perceptions about regime security are a lot less immediate, yet, at the same time, both continue to take terrorist and separatist challenges very seriously. These concerns include threats stemming from Central Asia, which are interpreted as impacting on issues in China’s Xinjiang Province and Russia’s North Caucasus region, and both Beijing and Moscow take the view that the maintenance of the present regimes in Central Asia serves their interests in minimising the spread of these threats. On the basis of these perceptions, the leaderships of the SCO’s member states have identified a shared interest in working collaboratively to preserve regime security, viewing this as vital for both state and regional stability. As a result, the integral importance of regime security is evident in the SCO’s institutional structures, agenda and rhetoric. As well as being shaped by its member states’ perceptions about the importance of regime security, SCO has had an impact on the perceptions of its member states’ leaderships about the nature of security and the value of multilateral cooperation. The development of a comprehensive and regionally coordinated approach to security within the SCO has altered the perceptions of its member states’ elites, which increasingly are acknowledging that the non-traditional nature of security threats in the region cannot be resolved on a purely unilateral or bilateral basis. Indeed, Chapters 4 and 5 have outlined that each of the member states’ regimes has come to consider a multilateral approach as vital to their national interests. In this respect, the member states accept the SCO’s function as a multilateral framework with a ‘non-traditional’ security governance agenda. As a result, the SCO is establishing itself as an important part of the regional security landscape, by socialising its leaderships into embracing multilateral approaches to security, leading them to perceive the SCO as an important tool within their arsenals for addressing regime security. In addition, by participation in the SCO, the Central Asian Republics have made progress in overcoming certain aspects of the deep-lying tensions and suspicion that exist between some of them. As the SCO has grown in stature, its agenda has developed beyond security. The initial prioritisation of regime security, and its continued place as the core of cooperation within the SCO, has functioned

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as a catalyst for the development of further collaboration between the member states in other areas. Under the umbrella of the SCO, several large-scale economic projects are under way or at the planning stage, especially in energy and transport infrastructure. A Business Council and Interbank Forum have been established and the SCO is working towards the creation of an Energy Club. Also, increasing cultural cooperation is evident, including scholarships for education exchange and common cultural events. Although this wider range of cooperation is also seen as contributing to regime security, the SCO’s role in tackling the ‘three evils’ continues to be viewed by its member states’ leaderships as its primary function. The development of a common narrative on international affairs among the SCO’s members is also considered as valuable by the member states’ leaderships, in order to express reservations about the prevailing norms within the international system. The SCO’s rhetorical support for domestic actions in the pursuit of regime security has been utilised on several occasions by members, most notably in the aftermath of Andijan. Indeed, the events surrounding Andijan served to re-emphasis the value of the SCO in promoting the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs to its Central Asian members’ leaders. However, in the eyes of the leaderships of its member states, compared with its contribution to tackling the ‘three evils’, developing economic cooperation and reducing bilateral tension, the SCO’s geopolitical rhetoric is less of a priority. Therefore the decision by member states’ elites to participate in the SCO is driven by the perceived value it has for tackling intraregional dynamics and ensuring the maintenance of domestic stability, and not as a method to challenge the West.

State-centric regional security governance The identification by member states’ leaderships of a common ground in addressing transnational non-state threats to regime and state security is the bedrock to cooperation in the SCO. As a result, the SCO has developed extensive cooperative programmes aimed at addressing non-traditional challenges in the region, especially the ‘three evils’. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) is an active organ and has made progress in harmonising norms of practice and, to a lesser extent, legal approaches for addressing these challenges. Also, the member states meet regularly at ministerial level to cooperate on approaches to addressing organised crime and narcotics, and have recently stepped up activity in the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group. In this way, the SCO

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has been developed by its member states’ elites as a regionally coordinated approach to tackling, the mainly non-traditional, security agenda of Central Asia, as seen by the existing regimes. For the SCO to build on its member states’ common prioritisation of regime security, it has had to develop a model of regional security governance, which is required to reflect two, often contradictory, aims: to enable it to effectively address the challenges to security governance in Central Asia, and to reassure its member states that it does not challenge any element of their sovereignty over domestic affairs. To this point, the SCO has struck a balance tilted more towards the latter than the former, which accounts for the development of the SCO as an important security actor in the region, but, at the same time, places distinct limitations on its capacity to achieve the goals its member states have set it. The Central Asian regimes consider their ruling authority and independence as under threat from within and beyond their states, and are thus very reticent to give up any form of national sovereignty. Therefore the SCO’s methodology for regional security governance continually reaffirms that it does not challenge state sovereignty. Taking into consideration the sensitivity of the Central Asian leaderships to any suggestion of ceding sovereignty, this is an effective approach for laying the groundwork for a long-serving regional organisation. In the Central Asian context, a model of regional security governance designed to ‘pool’ the sovereignty of its members, as seen in the EU, would not have got off the ground. However, a consequence of this approach is that the SCO’s capacity to successfully enact a regionally harmonised policy is limited. As the SCO relies solely on volunteerism, the RATS is restricted to functioning as a centre for coordination that makes recommendations, but which cannot ensure that these recommendations are acted upon by its member states. In this respect, the SCO is distinct from the framework of regional security governance developed in the EU, in which the supranational EU sets legal parameters and implements programmes in its member states. However, while limited by strict observance of state jurisdictions, the SCO has had some success in developing a harmonised normative, and to a lesser extent legal, approach to regional security. This approach is centred on developing a regionally consistent strategy aimed at reducing the capability of non-state and anti-regime actors to function, and ensuring that they do not have an easily accessible location from which to launch their activities. It includes the voluntary harmonising of domestic legislation and procedures to

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meet regionally coordinated normative parameters on identifying and addressing terrorism and extremism. Although the SCO’s approach to security governance means it is restricted in its ability to carry out the tasks set it by its political masters, it has enabled the organisation to become an important player in Central Asia. The SCO’s loose and non-sovereign-threatening framework is necessary to enable its member states to concentrate on common interests in regime security and on the development of a coordinated legal-normative strategy, and not on protecting their national sovereignty.

Regional cooperation and perceptions of security: The importance of context This book has argued that the development of a regional organisation and the perceptions of its membership about security are often interrelated. At the same time, it has asserted that state leaderships’ perspectives on security priorities differ greatly across the international system. Taking these assumptions into account, this study has examined the SCO as a regional framework in relation to the perceptions of its member states about multilateral security cooperation and the regional context in which these perceptions evolved. However, as noted in the introduction, many theoretical frameworks for examining regional institutions and regional cooperation apply fixed assumptions to states’ perceptions of security and multilateralism, as well as neglecting the importance of regional context. This has manifested itself in the construction of theory built solely on the experience of the EU. However, this book has demonstrated that the specific perceptions of the SCO member states’ leaderships and the Central Asian regional context have led to the development of a regional organisation that is significantly different from that of the EU. Furthermore, the SCO is considered as of value by its member states’ leaderships. The regional context of post-World War II Western Europe and the security priorities of European state leaderships, which tend to be largely post-Westphalian in nature, have led to the creation of the EU as a supranational regional organisation, in which its member states have been prepared to ‘pool’ sovereignty. However, in Central Asia, the existing regimes’ perceptions that they face internal threats to their ruling authority and positions, have created a regional context in which the political elites’ prioritisation of security challenges has led them to develop regional cooperation on the basis of regime security. This is supported by a framework that

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does not threaten state sovereignty, in line with the regional perspective on multilateralism. Hence, similar regional contexts cannot be assumed to exist in all regions. Therefore it is necessary to take into account the regional context when examining a regional organisation. To this end, the perceptions of that regional organisation’s key actors about security and regional multilateralism should be the subject of analysis, so it can be assessed in relation to its regional context and not that of another region.

Appendix Key Developments in the Evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

1996

Treaty of Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions heralds the creation of the Shanghai Five

2001

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is officially established First SCO summit, Shanghai ‘Declaration on the Establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’ is signed ‘The Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism’ is signed

2002

Second SCO summit, St Petersburg ‘Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’ is signed

2003

Third SCO summit, Moscow Peace Mission 2003

2004

Fourth SCO summit, Tashkent The SCO Secretariat and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Organisation are officially established Agreement on the ‘Provisions of the SCO Observer Status’ is signed Mongolia accepted as an observer state

2005

Fifth SCO summit, Astana ‘Protocol on Establishment of the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group between the SCO and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’ is signed Agreement on Interbank Association is signed ‘Memorandum of Mutual Understanding’ between the Secretariats of the SCO and ASEAN is signed Peace Mission 2005 India, Iran and Pakistan accepted as observer states

2006

Sixth SCO summit, Shanghai SCO Business Council is established

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184 2007

Appendix Seventh SCO summit, Bishkek ‘The Treaty of Long-Term Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation’ is signed Peace Mission 2007

2008

Eighth SCO summit, Dushanbe ‘Regulations on the Status of Dialogue Partner of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’ is signed

2009

Ninth SCO summit, Yekaterinburg Special Conference on Afghanistan under the auspices of the SCO is convened ‘SCO Joint Initiative on Increasing Multilateral Economic Cooperation in Tackling the Consequences of the Global Financial Economic Crisis’ is signed Peace Mission 2009 Belarus and Sri Lanka accepted as dialogue partners

Notes 1

Introduction

1. BRIC is an acronym that is commonly used to refer to Brazil, Russia, India and China, whose economies, according to a 2003 report by global investment firm Goldman Sachs, will by 2050 become the primary economic engines of the international system. 2. European Council, European Community Regional Strategy Paper for Assistance to Central Asia for the Period 2007–2013, http://ec.europa.eu/external_ relations/central_asia/rsp/07_13_en.pdf (accessed 12 February 2008). A further European Commission strategy paper notes the aim ‘to facilitate closer regional cooperation both within Central Asia and between Central Asia and the EU’ (European Commission, European Union and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership, October 2007, http://www.consilium. europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/librairie/PDF/EU_CtrlAsia_EN-RU.pdf) (accessed 6 December 2007). 3. Uzbekistan only joined CSTO and EurAsEC in 2006 and 2005 respectively, and since 2008 has suspended its membership of EurAsEC. Turkmenistan pursues a foreign policy strategy of permanent neutrality, which includes non-participation in regional multilateral groupings. 4. See Appendix 1 for a list of key developments in the evolution of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. 5. The Shanghai Five was made up of the current SCO members with the exception of Uzbekistan, who joined the SCO at its inauguration in 2001. It began to widen the agenda of cooperation from border demarcation to common security challenges. 6. Peace Mission I was held in Shandong Peninsula (China) in 2005, Peace Mission II was held in Chelyabinsk (Russia) in 2007, Peace Mission 2009 was held in Jilin Province (China) and Peace Mission 2010 was held in Zhambyl (Kazakhstan). 7. Sam Brownback (US Senator), speech entitled ‘The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: Is It Undermining US Interests In Central Asia?’, US Senate Commission on Security and Cooperation Conference, 26 September, 2006, cited in (Maher 2006). 8. A few studies have focused on a particular aspect of the organisation, or a particular member state’s role, in depth (de Haas 2008; Marketos 2009). A number of policy reports have also sought to address aspects of the SCO in depth (Bailes et al. 2007a; Oldberg 2007). 9. Thirty-four interviews were conducted. This is consistent with the methodological basis of extended qualitative research projects in the field of social science (Devine 1995, 142). In line with ethical considerations of social science interviewing, each interviewee was asked whether they were happy to be named in the study, or whether they would prefer to remain anonymous. The wishes of the interviewees are fully observed. 185

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10. The EU is widely seen as the most successful regional institutional project in the history of the international system, and is held up as ‘a political and economic community . . . . with a governance model that is without parallel anywhere else in the world’, and shared systemic values of economic liberalisation and democracy have been highlighted as being at the heart of this development (Farrell). 11. ASEAN has taken a very different path of institutional development from the EU and its model of political integration. As Sharpe (2003, 231) notes, ASEAN ‘is a unique organisation in many ways . . . . a rare example of an influential, indigenous “Third World” organisation and it is one of the few Cold War-inspired organisations to have survived beyond 1989’.

2 The SCO’s Model for Regional Cooperation: An Institutional Framework within the Regional Context of Central Asia 1. The Council of Heads of State; the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers); the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs; Meetings of Heads of Ministries and/or Agencies; the Council of National Coordinators; the Regional Antiterrorist Structure; and the Secretariat. 2. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 5. 3. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 5. 4. A notable example being at the 2005 summit in Astana, where an SCO joint declaration called for a timetable to be given for the withdrawal of US/NATO troops stationed in SCO member states associated with operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan. 5. The author conducted an interview with Mr Victor Seleznev, Director, Department of Association of South-East Asian Nations and Asia-Pacific Regional Affairs, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Moscow, 4 June 2008. 6. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 6. 7. The author conducted an interview with Dr Rustam Makhmudov, Head of Department, Analytical Department, Centre for Political Studies, Tashkent, 29 May 2007. 8. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 9. 9. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 7. 10. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 11. 11. The first Secretary General was the former Chinese ambassador to Russia, Zhang Deguang. The second Secretary General was Kazakh diplomat, Bolat Nurgaliev. The current Secretary General is the former Kyrgyz diplomat and academic Muratbek Sansyzbayevich Imanaliev.

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12. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 11. 13. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 11. 14. The SCO charter states that ‘The functions and working procedures for the SCO bodies, other than the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, shall be governed by appropriate provisions adopted by the Council of Heads of State’ (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 5). 15. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 3. 16. The SCO charter states that ‘except for the decisions on suspension of membership or expulsion from the Organisation that shall be taken by “consensus minus one vote of the member State concerned”’ (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 16). 17. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 3. 18. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 3. 19. The author conducted an interview with an unnamed official, Department of European and Central Asian Affairs, Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Beijing, 25 June 2007; the author conducted an interview with Mr Erlan Shamishev, Head of SCO Division, Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Almaty, 22 May 2007. 20. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 3. 21. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Astana, 5 July 2005. 22. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Business Council was established on 14 June 2006 in Shanghai, with its standing body, the Secretariat, in Moscow. The SCO Business Council is an independent entity authorised to make advisory decisions and provide expert evaluations of the most promising activities that could promote closer involvement of the SCO business communities in the trade, economic and investment cooperation within the organisation. (Official Website of the Business Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, http://bc-sco.org/?level=9&lng=en [accessed 15 May 2009]). 23. The Agreement on Interbank Cooperation between the authorised banks of SCO member states was signed on 26 October 2005. 24. Official Website of the Business Council of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, http://www.bc-sco.org/?level=10&id=148&lng=en (accessed 15 May 2009). 25. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002, Article 3. 26. The term ‘Colour Revolutions’ refers to, what has been characterised as, a wave of popular uprisings against the prevailing leaders or governments in states, primarily in Eurasia, during the mid-2000s, which led to changes

188

27. 28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33. 34.

35. 36.

Notes in the leaderships, and some have argued the direction, of these states. ‘Colour Revolutions’ are often said to have taken place in three former Soviet Republics between 2003 and 2005 – the ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia (2003), the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine (2004) and the ‘Tulip Revolution’ in Kyrgyzstan (2005).” Declaration of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Astana, 5 July 2005. The author conducted an interview with Dr Lukin, Director, Centre for SCO East Asia Studies, Moscow State University of International Relations, Moscow, 4 May 2007; the author conducted an interview with Professor Cheng Yurong, Director, Centre for SCO Studies and Division of European– Central Asian Studies, Chinese Institute for International Studies, Beijing, 26 June 2007; the author conducted an interview with Dr Zhao Huasheng, Director of the Centre for SCO Studies, Director of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, 18 July 2007. ‘SCO participation in EXPO-2010 is of political importance – SecGen’, RIA Novosti, 3 June 2010, http://en.rian.ru/expo_news/20100603/ 159293171.html (accessed 12 September 2010). The author conducted an interview with Dr Chen Xulong, Deputy Director, Division for International Politics, Chinese Institute of International Studies, Beijing, 20 June 2007; the author conducted an interview with Dr Shi Ze, Senior Research Fellow, Director of the Centre for Periphery Security Studies and former Chinese Councillor in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, Chinese Institute for International Studies, Beijing, 20 June 2007. Buzan defines a regional security complex as ‘a group of states whose primary security concerns link together sufficiently closely that their national securities cannot realistically be considered apart from one another’. A security complex does not require the states within in it to openly acknowledge its existence and their interdependence, a ‘security complex can exist and function regardless of whether or not the actors involved recognise it . . . they may well not see, or appreciate fully, the whole pattern of which they are a part’ (Buzan 1991, 190–2); Peimani has made the case for Central Asia as a regional security complex (Peimani 1998); while Buzan and Weaver have classified Central Asia as a ‘weak subcomplex whose internal dynamics are still forming and in which the involvement of Russia is strong’ (Buzan and Wæver 2003). Zhang Deguang, ‘Interv’yu kitaiskomu veb-saitu “Chzhungovan”’, 15 January 2005, in Vyzovy i Bozmozhnosti (Shankhaiskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva, 2006). Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, 7 June 2002. Interview with Dmitrii Mezentsev in Ivan Dmitriev, ‘Odin – za vsekh i shest’ – za odnogo’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta 184, 23 August 2007, http://dlib.eastview. com/browse/doc/12478807 (accessed 26 September 2010). Official Website of the Secretariat of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, http://www.sectsco.org/EN/brief.asp” (accessed 7 January 2009). Interview with Aleksei Borodavkin in ‘ShOS – organizatsiya partnerstva i mira’, VIP-Premier Magazine, no. 11–12 (2008). http://www.vip-premier.ru/ inside.php?action=statia&id=6624&pid=519 (accessed 28 September 2009).

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37. A civil war took place in Tajikistan 1992–97, and there was regular civil unrest and clashes in Krygyzstan during 2010. 38. The author conducted an interview with Dr Ashraf Nursha, Senior Analyst, Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, Almaty, 10 May 2007. 39. Zhang Deguang, ‘Vystuplenie na pamyatnykh torzhestvakh po sluchayu pyatidesyatiletnei godovshchiny bandungskoi konferentsii’, Jakarta, 25 April 2005 in Vyzovy i bozmozhnosti. 40. Zhang Deguang, ‘Obrashchenie k uchastnikam mezhdunarodnogo simpoziuma “Novaya situatsiya v Tsentral’noi Azii i Shankhaiskaya organizatsiya sotrudnichestva”’, Shanghai, 25 September 2005 in Vyzovy i bozmozhnosti. 41. Erdan Karabaev, speech in Dushanbe, 25 July 2008, ‘Vystuplenie Ministra inostrannykh del Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki E.Karabaeva na zasedanii SMID ShOS’, available on the Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, http://www.mfa.kg/articles/vistuplenie-ministrainostrannih-del-kirgizskoi-respubliki-a.karabaeva-na-zasedanii-smid-shos-vrasshirennom-sostave-25-iulya-2008-goda-g.-dushanbe-3_en.html (accessed 13 March 2009). 42. The author conducted an interview with Professor Shi Yinhong, School of International Relations, Renmin University, Beijing, 1 July 2007. 43. ‘Hu Jintao gives interview to SCO reporters’, available on the Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Peoples’ Republic, 30 May 2006, http://english.gov.cn/200605/30/content_295924_4.htm (accessed 10 November 2008). 44. Vladimir Putin, SCO – A New Model of A Successful International Cooperation (2006). 45. The author conducted an interview with Mr Ashraf Khodjaev, Expert, Analytical Department, Centre for Political Studies, Tashkent, 29 May 2007. 46. The author conducted an interview with an expert from the International Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, Moscow, 19 April 2007. 47. The author conducted an interview with Professor Gennadii Chufrin, ViceDirector, Institute for International Economy and International Relations, Moscow, 3 May 2007. 48. ‘SCO Summit Starts to Push for Closer Regional Cooperation’, People’s Daily, 5 July 2005, cited in (Chung 2006, 10). 49. Zhang Deguang, ‘Interv’yu kitaiskomu zhurnalu “ChzhunKhuaintsai”’, 25 May 2005 in Vyzovy i bozmozhnosti. 50. The author conducted an interview with a Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 28 June 2007; the author conducted an interview with a Research Fellow from the Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 28 June 2007.

3 The Member States’ Perceptions: Security, Regional Cooperation and the SCO 1. For more on China’s ‘Good-neighbour policy’ see (Wu and Lansdowne 2007). 2. Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of China, China’s Position Paper on the New Security Concept, 31 July 2002, http://www.mfa.

190

3. 4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10. 11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

Notes gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/gjs/gjzzyhy/2612/2614/t15319.htm (accessed 14 March 2008) ‘Chronicle of main events at SCO in 2009’, SCO Secretariat Website, http:// www.sectsco.org/EN/show.asp?id=182 (accessed 23 June 2010) Liu Jianchao (Spokesman for the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of China), ‘Foreign Ministry Spokesman Liu Jianchao’s Press Conference on 16 June 2005’, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of China, 17 June 2005, http://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/ 2511/t200316.htm (accessed 16 October 2008). See Appendix 2: China – Central Asia trade flows (Chinese sources) 1992– 2004 in (Raballand and Andrésy 2007, 250). Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of China, ‘Senior Chinese Leader urges Greater Efforts for Xinjiang’s Leapfrog Development’, 14 September 2009, http://big5.fmprc.gov.cn/gate/big5/us.chineseembassy. org/eng/zt/Xinjiang (accessed 4 March 2010)/ ‘Chinese Premier Proposes Free Trade Zone Within SCO’, Official Website of the 6th Annual SCO Summit of Heads of State, http://english. scosummit2006.org/en_ldrjh/2003-09/23/content_204.htm (accessed 14 October 2008). Details of the scheme are available at: http://en.csc.edu.cn/Lianhua/ 92b8be13ff0941eeb1649a2fb6680943.shtml (accessed 9 February 2009). Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 12 July 2008. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, 12 July 2008. See Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, On Multilateral Cooperation of Russia with CIS Countries in 2006, http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/ itogi06/9C56363AD27386F5C32572510036DCD4 (accessed 15 September 2008). These frameworks include the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and Eurasian Economic Community. The dynamic between SCO and these organisations is discussed in Chapter 6. Vladimir Putin, Press Statement following the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Council of Heads of State Session, Shanghai, 15 June 2006, http:// www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2006/06/15/0958_type82914type82915_ 107179.shtml (accessed 17 October 2008). The author conducted an interview with Professor Alexei Malashenko, Scholar-in-Residence, Carnegie Centre, Moscow, 7 May 2007. Igor Ivanov, ‘Replies by Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov to Readers’ Questions During an Online Conference on the Renmin Ribao Website, Beijing, February 27, 2003’, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 28 February 2003, http://www.mid.ru/Bl.nsf/arh/ 125287E49A134CD743256CDB002DD325?OpenDocument (accessed 16 September 2008). The author conducted an interview with Dr Kukeyeva, Faculty of International Relations, Kazakh State University, Al-Farabi, Almaty, 17 May 2007. See Table 1.

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18. See ‘Karimov skazal Nazarbaevu “raz i navsegda”’, Vremya Novostei, 23 April 2008, http://www.vremya.ru/2008/70/5/202446.html (accessed 5 February 2010). 19. Examples of Chinese–Kazakh cooperation include the opening of the Kazakh–Chinese Atasu–Alashankou oil pipeline in December 2005; examples of Russian–Kazakh cooperation include Russian, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan agreement on a common project to build a major gas pipeline along the coastline of the Caspian Sea in 2007. 20. Kassymzhomart Tokaev, ‘Privetstvie Ministra inostrannikh del Respubliki Kazakhstan’, Shankhaiskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva – Vestnik 2006 (SCO Secretariat, Beijing, 2006). 21. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, ‘Uzbekistan: posledovatel’noe dvizhenie po izbrannomu puti’, Shankhaiskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva – Vestnik 2006. 22. During the 1990s, Chinese–Tajik relations were constrained by territorial disputes over regions of the Gorny Badakhshan Autonomous District in Tajikistan, but with these issues more or less resolved trade between the two has grown significantly (Dubovitskii 2007). 23. World Bank country report, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/ COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/EXTECAREGTOPHEANUT/EXTECAREGTOPHIVAIDS/ 0,,contentMDK:20320255∼menuPK:616449∼pagePK:34004173∼piPK: 34003707∼theSitePK:571172,00.html (accessed 27 October 2009). 24. Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Conception of the Foreign Policy of the Kyrgyz Republic, 10 January 2007, http://www.kyrgyzmission.net/html/foreign_policy_of_the_kyrgyz_r. html (accessed 23 February 2009). 25. Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Conception of the Foreign Policy of the Kyrgyz Republic, 10 January 2007, http://www.kyrgyzmission.net/html/foreign_policy_of_the_kyrgyz_r. html (accessed 23 February 2009). 26. The 2007 Kyrgyz foreign policy concept states that ‘International organizations provide financial, technical and other foreign aid which helps to address the domestic challenges in Kyrgyzstan’. (Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Peoples’ Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Conception of the Foreign Policy of the Kyrgyz Republic, 10 January 2007, http://www.kyrgyzmission.net/html/ foreign_policy_of_the_kyrgyz_r.html (accessed 23 February 2009)) 27. ‘New Deal On U.S. Air Base In Kyrgyzstan Signed Into Law’, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, 7 July 2009, http://www.rferl.org/content/Kyrgyzstan_Signs_ New_US_Air_Base_Agreement/1771114.html (accessed 9 July 2009). 28. Kadyrbek Sarbaev, ‘Interv’yu Ministra inostrannykh del Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki K.Sarbaeva ryadu kitaiskikh SMI v preddverii Sammita ShOS v g.Ekaterinburg’, Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, 10 June 2009, http://www.mfa.kg/articles/intervuministra-inostrannih-del-kirgizskoi-respubliki-k.sarbaeva-ryadu-kitaiskihsmi-v-preddverii-sammita-shos-v-g.ekaterinburg-2_en.html (accessed 18 November 2009). 29. ‘General’nyi sekretar’ ShoS posetil s rabochim vizitom Kyrgyzskuyu Respubliku’, SCO Secretariat Website, 21 April 2010, http://www.sectsco.org/RU/ show.asp?id=370 (accessed 3 June 2010).

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4 Common Agenda, Managing Disagreements and Changing Perceptions about Multilateralism 1. The author conducted an interview with an expert from the Centre for SCO and Regional Security Problems, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 28 April 2007; the author conducted an interview with Professor Luzyanin, Institute for Far Eastern Studies and Moscow State Institute for International Relations, Moscow, 3 May 2007. 2. As a demonstration of this, early in 2005, when ‘a Chinese official in the spring of 2005 publicly, though very carefully, mentioned a theoretical possibility of Chinese military presence in Central Asia, this notion was quickly shot down by a plethora of Moscow spokesmen, both official and independent’ (Trenin 2004, 26). 3. For an account of how a lack of state economic capacity leads to security threats in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan see Marat (2006). 4. Islam Karimov, ‘Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Uzbekistan I.A.Karimova na zasedanii Soveta glav gosudarstv-chlenov ShOS’, Press Service of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 28 August 2008, http://www.pressservice. uz/ru/#ru/news/show/vistupleniya/vyistuplenie_prezidenta_respubliki_ uzbek (accessed 6 October 2008)/. 5. See Luzyanin (2007a). 6. Russia was the prime driver behind the creation of the SCO Energy Club. President Putin announced the initiative at the 2005 SCO summit in Astana. 7. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of the Tenth Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Heads of State Summit, Tashkent, 11 June 2010. 8. SCO Joint Initiative on Increasing Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Field of Tackling the Consequences of the Global Financial Economic Crisis, 14 October 2010, http://www.sectsco.org/EN/show.asp?id=146 (accessed 28 November 2010) 9. SCO Joint Initiative on Increasing Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Field of Tackling the Consequences of the Global Financial Economic Crisis, 14 October 2010, http://www.sectsco.org/EN/show.asp?id=146 (accessed 28 November 2010). 10. The 2009 annual summit declaration stated that ‘the parties noted the need to speed up the implementation of major projects which are designed to ensure the expansion of transport communication capabilities of the region and access to world markets, development of social infrastructure, formation of modern international centres for logistics, trade and tourism, construction of new factories, introduction of innovative and energy-saving technologies, including renewable sources of energy. The implementation of these projects, arrangement of international transport corridors, modernisation of railways and motorways will create preconditions for strengthening the potential of the region as a transcontinental bridge and giving a new impulse to the development of economic links between Europe and Asia’ (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Yekaterinburg, 16 June 2009).

Notes

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11. Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America, ‘China to Provide 10-billion-dollar Loan to SCO Members’, 16 June 2009, http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/xw/t567957.htm (accessed 3 March 2010). 12. Kassymzhomart Tokayev, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan, Speech at Johns Hopkins University, Central Asia–Caucasus Institute, 5 July 2006, http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/inside/forum/WPC_2006_0705a. html (accessed 17 October 2008)). 13. The author conducted an interview with an expert from the Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies, 10 May 2007. 14. See Maksutov (2006). 15. As well as making progress politically, Russian–Chinese relations have been booming economically. Trade between Russia and China has increased rapidly since the improvement in their relations. Trade between the two countries amounted to US$48 billion (£25 billion) in 2007, a massive increase from $6.83 billion in 1996 (‘Factbox: China–Russia trade relations’, Reuters, 19 May 2008, http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/ idUKL1925439820080519 (accessed 3 March 2009)). Chinese President Hu Jintao recently stated during a visit to Russia, that ‘trade volume of the two countries would surely meet the target of 60 billion to 80 billion U.S. dollars by 2010’ (‘Interview with Hu Jintao’, People’s Daily, 26 March 2007, http://english.people.com.cn/200703/26/eng20070326_360885.html (accessed 13 November 2008).

5 The SCO’s Approach to Regional Security: Conceptions, Foci and Practices – Regional Security Governance in Eurasia? 1. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Astana, 5 July 2005. 2. The author conducted an interview with experts from the Centre for SCO Studies, Shanghai Academy for Social Science, 17 July 2007. 3. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Moscow, 29 May 2003. 4. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Moscow, 29 May 2003. 5. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Tashkent, 17 June 2004. 6. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, 15 June 2001. 7. ‘Letter dated 13 July 2005 from the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General’, United Nations (Sixtieth Session A/60/150), http://www.un.int/kazakhstan/pages_05/docs_ 05/doc07_13_05.htm (accessed 7 March 2008).

194

Notes

8. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Joint Communique of Meeting of Council of Heads of SCO Member States, SCO Summit 2007, Bishkek, 16 August. 9. The SCO recognises that ‘in order to combat the financing of terrorism, separatism and extremism, including the legalisation of income and funds obtained by illegal means, there is an urgent need to develop within SCO common approaches and standards for monitoring money transfers and movements of funds belonging to individuals and entities suspected of participation in terrorism and to ensure that SCO is actively involved in relevant international efforts’ (‘Letter dated 13 July 2005 from the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General’, United Nations (Sixtieth Session A/60/150), http://www. un.int/kazakhstan/pages_05/docs_05/doc07_13_05.htm (accessed 7 March 2008).). 10. Sergei Lavrov, ‘Stenogramma vystupleniya Ministra inostrannykh del Rossii S.V.Lavrova na otkrytii spetsial’noi konferentsii po Afganistanu pod egidoi ShOS, Moskva, 27 marta 2009 goda’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 27 March 2009, http://www.mid. ru/brp_4.nsf/0/B718BA819FB38EF0C325758600366BE1 (accessed 4 April 2010). 11. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Bishkek, 16 August 2007. 12. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Bishkek, 16 August 2007. 13. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Moscow, 29 May 2003. 14. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, ‘Report of the Council of Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the SCO Council to the Heads of State of the SCO on the Activity of the Regional AntiTerrorist Structure of the SCO in 2004’, http://www.ln.mid.ru/Brp_4.nsf/arh/ 203BEA3CFC74A18AC32570350039EAD2?OpenDocument (accessed 14 March 2008). 15. Parts of this section have been published previously in Aris, Stephen, ‘Tackling the “three evils”: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – A Regional Response to Non-Traditional Security Challenges or an AntiWestern Bloc?’ Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 5 (2009). 16. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, 15 June 2001. 17. Separatism is determined as any ‘act intended to violate territorial integrity’ and the ‘planning and preparing, and abetting such act’ (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, 15 June 2001). 18. Extremism is defined as ‘an act aimed at seizing or keeping power through the use of violence or changing violently the constitutional regime of a

Notes

19. 20.

21. 22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

195

State, as well as a violent encroachment upon public security, including organisation, for the above purposes, of illegal armed formations and participation in them, criminally prosecuted in conformity with the national laws of the Parties’ (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, 15 June 2001). Previous SCO-sponsored military exercises were held in 2003 and 2005, but did not include representation from all member states. ‘Peace Mission 2010 Proof of SCO Military Cooperation – Expert’, CNTV, 21 September 2010, http://english.cntv.cn/20100921/101640.shtml (accessed 12 October 2010). ‘The nature of Uzbekistan’s contribution was later restricted to sending staff officers’ (McDermott 2007a, 7). ‘Kyrgyz Clashes Show Need for SCO Response Mechanism – Tajik Leader’, RIA Novosti, 11 June 2010, http://en.rian.ru/exsoviet/20100611/159386669. html (accessed 8 August 2010). Parts of this section have been published previously in Aris, Stephen, ‘Tackling the “three evils”: Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – A Regional Response to Non-Traditional Security Challenges or an AntiWestern Bloc?’ Europe–Asia Studies 61, no. 5 (2009). ‘Interview of SCO RATS Executive Committee Chief’, UzReport.com, 11 June 2004, http://www.uzbekistan.de/en/2004/e_n0614.htm (accessed 19 March 2008). Nurlan Ermekbaev, ‘Vystuplenie Zamestitelya Ministra Inostrannykh Del Respubliki Kazakhstan Nurlana Ermekbaeva na zasedanii Soveta Ministrov Inostrannykh Del gosudarstv-chlenov ShOS’, Official Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 25 July 2008, http://portal.mfa.kz/portal/page/portal/mfa/ru/content/News/ nws2008/2008-07-251 (accessed 9 February 2009). The RATS also functions in ‘Preparing and holding scientific-research conferences, exchanging experience on matters of struggle against terrorism, separatism and extremism’ (‘Information on Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO Official Website, http:// www.sectsco.org/fk-03.html (accessed 28 October 2008)). ‘Information on Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’, SCO Official Website, http://www.sectsco.org/fk-03.html (accessed 28 October 2008). Interpol Website, http://www.interpol.int/public/icpo/default.asp (accessed 6 April 2008). The assessment below is based on interviews with senior officials in the Secretariat of the SCO, July 2007. Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan, ‘Uzbekistan: posledovatel’noe dvizhenie po izbrannomu puti’, Shankhaiskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva – Vestnik 2006 (SCO Secretariat, Beijing, 2006), 149. Vyacheslav Kasymov Temirovich, Director of the Executive Committee of RATS, cited in (Tolipov 2006a). This is ‘referring to a recent counter-terror exercise at the Institute of Nuclear Physics, Tashkent’ (Norling 2006).

196

Notes

6 External Policy: Common Narrative, Other Eurasian Organisations and Expansion of Membership 1. Interview with Aleksei Borodavkin in ‘ShOS – organizatsiya partnerstva i mira’, VIP-Premier Magazine, no. 11–12 (2008), http://www.vip-premier.ru/ inside.php?action=statia&id=6624&pid=519 (accessed 28 September 2009). 2. Zhang Deguang, ‘Interv’yu kitaiskomu zhurnalu “ChzhunKhuaintsai”’, 25 May 2005 in Vyzovy i bozmozhnosti (Shankhaiskaya Organizatsiya Sotrudnichestva, 2006). 3. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Shanghai, 15 June 2006. 4. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of the Tenth Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Heads of State Summit, Tashkent, 11 June 2010. 5. Sergei Lavrov, ‘Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya v novoi sisteme koordinat’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta, 8 September (2009), http://www.ln.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/ FEEF22A8FCA033A7C325762B0021D9AF (accessed 7 February 2010). 6. A leading Russian analyst stated that Serbia and Venezuela have made informal enquiries about joining the SCO. 7. Sergei Lavrov, ‘Stenogramma vystupleniya Ministra inostrannykh del Rossii S.V. Lavrova na plenarnom zasedanii SMID ShOS, Dushanbe, 25 iyulya 2008 goda’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 25 July 2008, http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/A804C1467E8A2A48C3257491005F0DC0 (accessed 19 May 2009). 8. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Bishkek, 16 August 2007. 9. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of the Tenth Meeting of the Council of the Heads of the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Heads of State Summit, Tashkent, 11 June 2010. 10. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Shanghai, 15 June 2006. 11. The author conducted an interview with a scholar from the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 3 May 2007. 12. Interview with Zhang Deguang in Diplomaticheskii Vestnik, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 6 June 2005. 13. Bolat Nurgaliev, ‘SCO Secretary-General Issues Statement on Events in Tibet Autonomous Region of China’, Official SCO Website, 21 March 2008, http://www.sectsco.org/news_detail.asp?id=2086&LanguageID=2 (accessed 21 November 2008). 14. Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Declaration of Heads of Member States of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, SCO Annual Summit of Heads of State, Dushanbe, 28 August 2008. 15. Li Fenglin cited in (Matveeva and Giustozzi 2008, 188). 16. Islam Karimov, speech cited in Nachalo vstrechi s Prezidentom Uzbekistana Islamom Karimovym, (Official Website of the President of the Russian

Notes

17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23. 24. 25.

26.

197

Federation), 6 June 2008, http://www.kremlin.ru/transcripts/336 (accessed 17 January 2009). While equal in numbers of troops, it is dominated in terms of command and control by Russia; around half of the officers who make up the Joint Headquarters are Russian, including the full-time commander (Du Mont 2004). Interview with Dmitrii Mezentsev in Ivan Dmitriev, ‘Odin – za vsekh i shest’ – za odnogo’, Rossiiskaya Gazeta 184, 23 August 2007, http://dlib.eastview. com/browse/doc/12478807 (accessed 26 September 2009). ‘Countries under UN Sanctions Cannot Join SCO – Medvedev’, RIA Novosti, 11 June 2010, http://en.rian.ru/world/20100611/159390139.html (accessed 4 September 2010). See ‘Iran and Nuclear Intentions: Plan to Export Uranium to Russia’, Washington Post, 21 October 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ content/discussion/2009/10/21/DI2009102101332.html (accessed 14 February 2010). See Ehteshami and Zweiri (2008). George Bush, ‘State of the Union Address’, 29 January 2002, http://archives. cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/bush.speech.txt/ (accessed 5 March 2009). Joint Declaration between the People’s Republic of China and Turkmenistan, 5 September 2008. See Campi (2005). ‘Kazakhstan i Kyrgyziya protiv neprodumannogo rasshireniya SHOS’, Rosbalt News Agency, 30 May 2006, http://www.rosbalt.ru/2006/05/30/ 255089.html cited in (Maksutov 2006, 26). Kasymzhomart Tokayev [Speaker of the Kazakh Senate], ‘Kazakh Speaker Hails Cooperation with China within Shanghai Bloc’, Interfax-Kazakhstan, 24 January 2008, http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/13285038 (accessed 29 October 2008).

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Index

Acharya, Amitav, 15, 16, 17 Afghanistan, 6, 35, 68, 71, 105, 107–8, 113, 160–1 Allison, Roy, 8, 10, 12, 34, 35, 67, 68, 76, 115, 116, 117, 19, 149 Andijan, 67–8, 85, 103–4, 114–17, 179 see also Rhetorical support, of the SCO Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) comparison to the SCO, 41, 51–2, 53 importance of regional context, 16–17 social constructivist perspectives on regionalism, 16 Bailes, Alyson, 7, 56, 81, 82, 90, 94, 95, 140, 146, 154, 158, 159, 167 Budget, of the SCO, 23, 36–8 see also Institutional Model, of the SCO Business council, of the SCO, 30, 95, 152 Central Asia elite-centred political landscape, 12, 53, 130–1 interstate state relations, 3, 26, 28, 34, 39, 40 intra-state security, 12–13, 39, 75, 101 regional security dynamics, 2–3, 13, 28, 100–1 see Multilateralism; Regime Security; Sovereignty China Central Asian markets, 56–7, 80–3, 176–7 neighbourhood policy, 2, 54 perceptions about security, 55, 58 multilateralism, 55, 58–9 soft power, 44–6, 54–5, 57, 58

solidarity on international norms, 57–8, 146–7; see also Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO symbolism of the SCO, 44–6, 55, 57–9 Xinjiang secessionism, 13, 55–6, 121, 124, 126–7, 178 Collective Security Treaty Organisation role and mandate, 77, 89, 121, 149–51 Collective Operational Reaction Force, 119, 121, 150; see also Peace missions Russian dominance, 77–8, 119, 149, 153–5; see also Other regional organisations Council of Heads of State, of the SCO, 3, 21, 22–3, 45, 49, 137 Dialogue Partners, of the SCO, 4, 157 Dunay, Pal, 7, 56, 81, 82, 90, 94, 95, 140, 146, 154, 158, 159, 167 Economic cooperation, in the SCO Chinese economic power, fear of, 80–3, 84 Chinese loans, 37, 70, 82, 84 different agendas and capacities, 30–1, 78–83 economic benefits vs. political costs, 35, 80–83, 84, 86–7 energy club, 79–80, 81, 96, 163, 164–5 free trade, Chinese interest in, 57, 80, 84, 176–7 increasing importance of, 29–30, 78–9, 86, 106; see also Evolution, of the SCO infrastructural projects, 78–80, 84

212

Index Enlargement of the SCO identity, impact on, 165–6, 167–9 institutional dynamics, impact on, 166–7 members, views on, 164–70 Eurasian Economic Community Customs Union, 61, 63 role and mandate, 68, 151–2, 169 Europe, 2 Evolution, of the SCO expanding agenda and role, 3–6, 43–4, 49 political will, 42–4, 49–50, 52–3; see also Institutional Model, of the SCO Financial crisis 2008, 83–4 Great Game, 12, 39, 174, 177–9 compare Internal Security Hurrell, Andrew, 10, 11, 16 India, 160–2, 165, 166 see also Enlargement of the SCO Institutionalism ASEAN, see Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) context, 16–17 EU, 15–16 institutions, definitions of, 14–15 liberal-democratic bias, 15–16 informal norms, 17 rationalism, 15–16 socialisation, 16–17 see also Regional context Institutional Model, of the SCO Central Asian context, 27, 35, 49–50, 52–3 consensus and equality, 27, 34–5, 36–7, 39 elite-centred, 23–4, 48–50 non-binding, 21, 25–6, 27, 38, 43, 51, 53 norms, 38–42, 46; see also Shanghai Spirit sovereignty, see Sovereignty structures, 20–5

213

Interbank Association, of the SCO, 30 Internal Dynamics, within the SCO Central Asian elite-driven agenda, 35, 45, 46, 90–1, 92, 93–4, 97–8, 172, 174–5 equality and consensus, see Institutional Model, of the SCO structural institutional advantages, 26–7, 37–8, 96, 172 regional hegemons, balance of, 33–5, 90–1, 93–4 Russian-Chinese relationship, 44–5, 88–9, 90, 95–6, 98, 172 see also Central Asia; Institutional Model, of the SCO Internal security elite-driven agenda, 12–14, 101 importance of, 28–9, 76–8, 102–4, 132–3, 143, 177–9 Iran, 158–60, 165 see also Enlargement of the SCO Kazakhstan economic strength, 63, 65–6 multilateralism, 64, 65–6 multivector foreign policy, 63–6 perceptions about security, 64–5 regional status, 63, 65, 66 Russia, 63, 66 Kyrgyzstan economic weakness, 71, 73 balanced foreign policy, 71–2, 73 multilateralism, 73–4 perceptions about security, 71–4 political instability, 71–2 terrorism, narrative of, 71 Lukin, Aleksandr, 21, 82, 88, 96, 112, 113 Mongolia, 164, 169 see also Enlargement of the SCO Multilateralism, 33–4, 40, 50, 53, 92–7, 98, 104, 129–30, 130–2, 175–6, 178 see also Sovereignty

214

Index

Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO alternative view, 142 anti-Western rhetoric, 138, 140, 147–8 multipolar world, 141 Russia-Chinese narrative, 146–7 Western double standards, 140–1, 144 Western hegemony, 140, 143–4 see also Non-interference in domestic affairs NATO, 71, 107–8, 112–13, 148, 161 Non-interference in domestic affairs intra-regional context, 77, 93, 121, 145 global context, 31, 46, 115–17, 135–6, 139–41 South-Ossetia conflict 2008, impact of, 121, 145–6 see also Multilateralism; Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO; Rhetorical support, of the SCO; Sovereignty Norms International, see Multilateralism; Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO; Non-interference in domestic affairs; Sovereignty Regional, see Multilateralism; Non-interference in domestic affairs; Sovereignty Institutional, see Institutional Model, of the SCO; Multilateralism; Non-interference in domestic affairs; Security, the SCO conception and practice of; Shanghai Spirit; Sovereignty Observer-states, 4, 156–8 see also Enlargement of the SCO Other regional organisations China, view of, 155 competition between, 152, 155–6 mandate overlap, 149–52

membership overlap, 149 Russia’s regional role, 153, 154 see also Collective Security Treaty Organisation; Eurasian Economic Community Pakistan, 160–2, 165, 166 see also Enlargement of the SCO Pan, Guang, 21, 58–9 Peace missions Collective Operational Reaction Force, see Collective Security Treaty Organisation emphasis, growth in, 118–19 mutual suspicion between militaries, 119, 122 non-intervention vs. regional security, 118, 121–2; see also Multilateralism; Sovereignty regime security, 120, 122–3; see also Regime Security trust building, 119–20, 123 Regime Security, 13, 19, 28–9, 41, 48–50, 76–8, 85–6, 97, 110, 111–14, 114–17, 120–1, 123, 132–3, 140–1, 167–9, 172, 176, 177–81 see also Internal Security Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, of the SCO capacity, 25, 126–8, 129–30, 131–2 coordination of practices, 124–5, 128–9, 131–2 intelligence sharing, 156–6 see also Security, the SCO conception and practice of Regional context, 8–14, 15–16, 17–18, 46–55, 130–2, 143–6, 171–81, 181–2 Regional Security Governance, 13–14 see also Regional context Regionalism eurocentricism, 11–12 importance of context and actor perceptions, 12–14 regions, interpretations of, 10–11 see also Regional context

Index Rhetorical support, of the SCO, 34, 85, 114–17, 137–45, 146–8, 171 see also Andijan; Internal Security; Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO; Regime security Russia Chechnya/North Caucasus, 60 great power status, 59, 61, 62 multilateralism, 59, 61, 62 perceptions about security, 59–61 post-Soviet space, 59–61 solidarity on international norms, 62, 146–7; see also Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO Secretariat, of the SCO, 21, 24–5, 36–7, 48–9 see also Institutional Model, of the SCO Security, the SCO conception and practice of, 28–9, 76–8, 102–7, 109–11, 112–13, 130–2, 177–81 see also Internal Security; Three evils Sovereignty, 21, 24–5, 37–7, 48–9, 129, 131–2, 140–1, 174, 175–7, 180–1 see also Multilateralism, Non-interference in domestic affairs Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, see Business council, of the SCO; Council of Heads of State, of the SCO; Dialogue Partners, of the SCO; Economic cooperation, in the SCO; Enlargement of the SCO; Evolution, of the SCO; Institutional Model, of the SCO; Interbank Association, of the SCO; Internal Dynamics, within the SCO; Narrative on International Affairs, of the SCO; Norms; Observer-states; Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, of the SCO; Rhetorical support, of the SCO; Secretariat, of the SCO; Security, the SCO conception and

215

practice of; Shanghai Spirit; Western perceptions of the SCO Shanghai Spirit content of, 38, 40–2 different interpretations of, 44–6 institutional model, impact on, 38–40, 42–4, 51–3 Tajikistan Afghanistan, 69–71 external investment, 70, 71 multilateralism, 70, 71 perceptions about security, 69–70 Russia and China, role of, 69–70 Tolipov, Farkhad, 27, 30, 90, 96, 127, 143 Three evils, 5, 28–9, 76–7, 101, 106, 111–14, 124–30 see also Internal Security Turkmenistan United States, 6–8, 63, 73, 85, 113, 141, 159–60, 165 Uzbekistan Andijan, see Andijan multilateralism, 67–8 perceptions about security, 67–9 regime security, 67, 68 regional position, 67 Russia, China and the West, balancing of, 67–9 War on Terror, in the SCO, 111–14 Western perceptions of the SCO anti-Western, 6 autocrats club, 7 geopolitics, over emphasis of, 8–9; see also Internal Security; Central Asia Russia-Chinese club, 6, 8 talking shop, 7 Western-centric focus, 8–9; see also Regional context Zhao, Huasheng, 21, 24, 27, 28, 31, 37, 38, 40, 43, 47, 85, 106, 121