NEW DELHI: With the ongoing Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) presidency, India has been hosting various meetings and also inviting all members, including Pakistan. However, Pakistan has skipped these meetings, barring once which it attended virtually last week (the Chief Justice meeting) but only after Pakistan downgraded its participation.
India has sent an invite to Pakistan for the Foreign Ministers meet that would be held on May 4 in Goa but hasn’t got a response yet. Invites have also been sent to them to attend the Home Ministers’ meet and National Security Adviser (NSA) meetings on March 29 and Defence Ministers’ meeting on March 27.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokesperson, regarding their participation in the foreign ministers meet, had earlier said that the country would revert to the invitation in time before the event.
Earlier in January, Pakistan was the only country among the eight Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members that had not sent any entry for the SCO film festival that took place in Mumbai. Other members had sent 57 entries. The eight-member SCO includes India, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. While Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia are SCO observers and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Nepal are SCO dialogue partners.
From the outset, the SCO presented itself as a bulwark against “terrorism, separatism and extremism”, a language that sought to capitalise on the global counter-terrorist consensus of the 9/11 era, as well as reflecting real concerns in Beijing about threats to Chinese Communist Party power.
The SCO’s main goals are:
- Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states;
- Promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy, research, technology, and culture, as well as in education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, and other areas;
- Making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security, and stability in the region;
- Moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.
However, India is part of the four-nation security Quad that includes the US, Australia, Japan and India.
Its primary aim is to thwart Chinese attempts to assert territorial hegemony on smaller nations around the South China Sea and counter Chinese economic influence over smaller nations looking for easier loans and then getting into a debt trap.
On the other hand, Russia is already at war in Ukraine and faces massive sanctions from the West.
Putin has a vision of a Russia-led ‘Greater Eurasia’ community of nations – and for this to work, it needs to play ball with both Beijing and Delhi.
SCO has 8 members
The eight-member SCO includes India, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia are SCO observers and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Nepal are SCO dialogue partners.
