SCO - INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
News: At
SCO meet hosted by China, Jaishankar takes aim at Belt and Road Initiative
What's in the news?
● Connectivity
projects must respect sovereignty issues, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S.
Jaishankar said, in a reference to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), at a
virtual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Heads of
Government hosted by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on November 1.
Key takeaways:
● He
also pitched for more trade through
Iran’s Chabahar port and the International North South Transport Corridors
(INSTC) that India is a part of, aiming to improve bilateral trade with
Central Asian countries.
● He
also said that India's total trade with
SCO Members is only $141 billion, which has potential to increase manifold.
Fair market access is to our mutual benefit and the only way to move forward in
this matter.
● A
joint communique issued after the meeting named all countries, other than
India, and said they “reaffirmed their
support for the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative”, “including the work to promote
the alignment of the ‘Belt and Road’ construction with the construction of the “Eurasian
Economic Union”.
● The
SCO Heads of Government meet is held annually to focus on the trade and
economic agenda of the organization and approves the SCO’s annual budget.
● India has taken over as
Chairperson the SCO, and will host leaders of all SCO countries, including
China and Pakistan, at a summit in Delhi expected in mid-2023.
● “The
heads of delegations of the SCO member states exchanged views on key issues of
global and regional development, discussed priority steps to increase trade,
economic, cultural, and humanitarian cooperation within the SCO,” said a
statement issued by the SCO Secretariat in Beijing.
Go back to basics:
SCO:
● The
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental international organization.
● Nine countries
enjoy the status of the SCO full members - India, Kazakhstan, China,
Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
● Observer status
- Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia.
● Partner status
- Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka.
Shanghai Five:
● Before
the creation of SCO in 2001, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan
were members of the Shanghai Five.
● Shanghai
Five (1996) emerged from a series of border demarcation and demilitarization
talks which the four former Soviet republics held with China to ensure
stability along the borders.
● It
was after the accession of Uzbekistan to the organization in 2001, the Shanghai
Five was renamed the SCO.
Goals of the SCO:
● Strengthening
mutual confidence and
good-neighborly relations among the member countries.
● Promoting effective
cooperation in politics, trade and economy,
science and technology, culture as well as education, energy, transportation,
tourism, environmental protection and other fields.
● Making
joint efforts to maintain and ensure
peace, security and stability in the region, moving towards the
establishment of a new, democratic, just and rational political and economic
international order.
● SCO
pursues its internal policy based on the principles
of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equal rights, consultations, respect for the
diversity of cultures and aspiration towards common development.
● SCO
pursues its external policy which is conducted in accordance with the
principles of non-alignment, non-targeting of anyone and openness.
Organizational structure of the SCO:
● The
Heads of State Council (HSC) is the
highest decision-making body in the SCO.
● It
meets once every year to make
decisions and give instructions on all important issues regarding SCO activity.
● The
Heads of Government Council (HGC) meets once per year to discuss a strategy for
multilateral cooperation and priority directions within the Organisation’s
framework, to solve important and pressing cooperation issues in economic and
other areas, as well as to adopt the Organization’s annual budget.
● The
Council of National Coordinators of SCO Member States (CNC) is in charge of
coordinating interaction within the SCO framework.
● The Organization has two
permanent bodies - the Secretariat in Beijing (China) and the Regional
Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent.
● Russian
and Chinese are the official working languages of the SCO.
SCO RATS:
● It
was established to combat terrorism,
separatism and extremism.
● The
Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the permanent body of the SCO RATS based
in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
● The
Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure operates in accordance with the SCO Charter,
the Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, the
Agreement among the SCO member states on the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure,
as well as documents and decisions adopted in the SCO framework.
● In
May, counter-terror officials of Pakistan, Russia, China and four Central Asian
countries met in Delhi under the structure as India assumed its role as Chairperson
of the SCO-RATS mechanism in October 2021.