Bishkek Summit Opposes Intervention

The annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was held in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Sept. 13. The Bishkek Declaration signed by the presidents of the organization's six member states referred to fluidity, instability and unpredictability in international relations.
 
The summit dealt with pressing contemporary issues such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iran as well as important topics such as energy and energy security.
 
The summit gave full support to the Russian position on Syria, expressing its participants' support for respecting Syria's sovereignty as well as putting all chemical weapons in Syria under the supervision of an international body. Unsurprisingly, nonintervention in domestic affairs was highlighted. This has been a long-standing principle of China and Russia, who have advocated nonintervention in the United Nations Security Council. The SCO's consensus on this point was evidence of the support that Russia enjoyed in the organization and highlighted China's willingness to let Russia shine in the political limelight.
 
China's achievements were no less considerable, though much more low key. They began before the summit itself, with Chinese President Xi Jinping's visits to several Central Asian countries, focusing on improving energy relationships. Uzbekistan agreed to further increase supplies of natural gas while the Kazakhs agreed to quicken the pace of expanding the first phase of the China-Kazakhstan natural gas pipeline and the construction of its second phase. While Russia focused on political-military matters, China concentrated on economic-trade issues. Both were successful in their endeavors.
 
Closer regional cooperation on trade was encouraged with the idea and ideal of creating and establishing a “Silk Road Economic Belt.”
 
Given the region's huge potential for development, regional countries need to deepen their cooperation, which could ultimately benefit more than 3 billion people. For such high-level cooperation to take place, participants agreed that trade needs to be expanded and investment facilitated alongside improvements to information network infrastructure and energy pipelines.
 
Unsurprisingly, the first topic that needed to be delved into was energy, for which a long-term, stable relationship needs to be established. Alongside this venture, trade volumes have to be increased and interconnectivity improved, which in all likelihood will be aided with Chinese funding for large-scale projects, very possibly through the China Development Bank.
 
Afghanistan
 
While Syria has been at the forefront of diplomacy for many months, the future of Afghanistan was also a pressing issue. The fact that the international force is to leave Afghanistan next year has been an ongoing concern for the SCO for the past year. This issue was discussed at the Beijing Summit last year and looked into again at this year's summit. The major danger that worries member states is the appearance of a security vacuum. As drug abuse and illicit narcotics trafficking remain major threats to regional security, a destabilized Afghanistan could have quite severe repercussions for the whole region and beyond.
 
China has consistently sought and achieved a common front in opposing what it believes to be the three evils of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. China has traditionally responded to Western criticism of its mistreatment of the Turkic Uighur people by associating them with the aforementioned traits. Quite naturally, the re-establishment of Eastern Turkistan would be unwelcome, given the region's tremendous natural resources. This is another reason Beijing remains concerned, expressing its fears that an unstable Afghanistan would export Islamic fundamentalism to its Western provinces and the rest of central Asia.
 
Directly related to this is Russian President Vladimir Putin's promise to supply Afghanistan with military equipment and weapons as well as to provide training for the Afghan Armed Forces to help prevent the emergence of a security vacuum that would almost certainly lead to greater narcotics trafficking, thus harming Russia and neighboring countries.
 
Given such policy stances, the SCO is generally thought to be concerned with territorial integrity, border security and political cooperation, yet the combined economic strength of the SCO is more than $10 trillion, with foreign trade between members reaching almost half that figure. China, unsurprisingly, leads from the front in trade and is the largest trade partner of both Kazakhstan and Russia as well as the second largest of its neighbors Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
 
Bearing this in mind, the SCO continued to give vocal support to the establishment of a development fund and a development bank. These projects are not new, but seem to be agreed to annually without any concrete measures being taken. It is clear that they would be funded by China and to a lesser extent Russia and enjoyed by the rest of the members. The slow progress is indicative of the value both Moscow and Beijing attach to bilateral relations and the maintenance of political influence.
 
Central Asia 
 
The summit did witness active bilateral diplomacy as China established strategic partnerships with both Turkmenistan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan. In this context it was interesting to note that the Chinese president once again underlined the fact that China was not interested in interfering in the domestic affairs of any SCO member state. The Chinese Foreign Minister reassured Russia that China was not seeking to dominate or create a sphere of influence in the region.
 
In the educational field, however, Xi took an important step with China's agreement to establish a joint judicial exchange and training center with the SCO in Shanghai to train judicial professionals for other member states. In the same vein, the summit approved a plan of action for 2013-2017 that aimed at enhancing neighborly relations, friendship and cooperation between SCO countries.
 
The Iranian president's visit to Bishkek was his first foreign trip since taking office last month. He was pleased to gain the backing of the organization, which insisted that the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program should be resolved through dialogue, leaving no room for the use or threat of force.
 
The absence of any Turkish high-level participation in the summit was noticeable. Given that this was the first SCO summit that Ankara attended as a “dialogue partner,” many had expected participation at the foreign minister level, if not higher. Turkish foreign policy remains at odds with the SCO in terms of humanitarian intervention, as evidenced by their opposed stances on Syria.
 
The attractiveness of the SCO is its “thin” or “shallow” policy mix. Socioeconomic matters highlight the agenda, as does concerted action to meet mutual threats. Military issues need not be discussed as Russia is to a great extent considered the guarantor of last resort, politically and militarily, for the Central Asian member states. This is why China periodically declares that it has no intention to initiate cooperative military measures within the SCO with the aim of reducing Russian influence.
 
Some Western analysts fear that the SCO will become the “Asian NATO”; although for that to come to fruition there must be much closer military links and a far higher degree of political trust between Moscow and Beijing. As this summit has highlighted, when it is in the country's interests, China has no qualms about sitting on the sidelines while Russia takes center stage, all the while increasing and deepening its penetrative economic relations with the energy-rich Central Asian states.