Eurasian Regionalism


Book Description

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is attracting significant attention from governments and scholars. This study examines the evolution of the SCO as a regional security provider and a framework for cooperation, drawing on fieldwork interviews with officials and experts from its member-states.




The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Eurasian Geopolitics


Book Description

Part 1: The SCO as Organization. - 1. Michael Fredholm, Too Many Plans for War, Too Few Common Values: Another Chapter in the History of the Great Game or the Guarantor of Central Asian Security? 3. - 2. Pan Guang, The Spirit of the Silk Road: The SCO and China's Relations with Central Asia 20. - 3. Yu Bin, The SCO Ten Years After: In Search of Its Own Identity 29. - 4. Mirzokhid Rakhimov, The Institutional and Political Transformation of the SCO in the Context of Geopolitical Changes in Central Asia 62. - Part 2: The SCO and the World. - 5. Alyson J. K. Bailes and Jóhanna M. Thórdisardóttir, The SCO and NATO 85. - 6. Zhao Weiming, Relations between the SCO and United States: Retrospect and Prospects 118. - 7. Yang Hongxi, The Evolution of the U.S. Attitude towards the SCO 132. - 8. Ingmar Oldberg, The Importance of the SCO in a Russian Perspective 141. - 9. Li Lifan, The SCO and How Chinese Foreign Policy Works: The Global Influence of its Central Asia Policy 152. - 10. Swaran Singh, India and the SCO: Better Late Than Never 162. - 11. Anita Sengupta, Rethinking Regional Organizations: Turkey and the SCO 176. - 12. Yang Cheng, The Shanghai Spirit and SCO Mechanisms: Beyond Geopolitics 199. - Part 3: The SCO and Central Asia. - 13. Marlene Laruelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, Friendship with Moderation: The Central Asian Point of View on the SCO 229. - 14. Zhuldyz Tulibayeva and Aigerim Sadvokassova, The SCO and Prospects for Regional Economic Cooperation in Central Asia 253. - 15. Liu Junmei and Zheng Min, Financial Cooperation among SCO Member States: Review and Prospects from China's Perspective 264. - 16. Sreemati Ganguli, The SCO: An Energy Alliance in the Making 277. - 17. Marianne Laanatza, Central Asia, Energy, and Trade Policies from the SCO's Perspective 294.




The Shanghai Cooperation Organization


Book Description

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is one of the most rapidly developing centres of the multipolar world, covering an enormous landmass including China, India, Russia and its southern Eurasian neighbours. With both its eight member states and a growing group of observer states, the SCO’s activities have expanded beyond its initial focus on security and stability to broader cooperation with the UN and other groupings such as the G20, BRICS, NATO and ASEAN. Bringing together large and disparate nation-states with often rival geostrategic agendas means that it not only faces substantial structural challenges but also has great potential. The contributors to this volume, representing a range of the states within the SCO, evaluate the possibilities for the Organization, and the challenges it faces in achieving them through a prism of legal regulation. They evaluate the bloc’s prospects for economic, humanitarian, legal, trade, labour, migration, and environmental cooperation, as well as its more traditional concerns with security and defence. The authors, analyzing the quality of cooperation between states within the SCO, note the controversial character of this process: it demonstrates both efficiency and declarative and decorative nature of the SCO. A valuable read for scholars and policy-makers with a focus on Eurasian cooperation, and processes of regionalism and universalism in international relationships.




The Shanghai Cooperation Organization


Book Description

This thesis examines the origins and implications of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It analyzes the organization from the Chinese, Russian, and Central Asian states' perspective. Chinese and Russian motives for creating the SCO appear to have been threefold. First, both sought an organization dedicated to providing security and stability to the Central Asian region. Second, both wished to foster stronger economic ties with the oil and natural gas-rich former Soviet republics. Finally, both favored stemming the influence of external powers, notably the United States. The Central Asian states' motives for joining the SCO emanate from security and economic needs. The increase in the U.S. military presence in the region since October 2001 has drawn no response from the SCO. Although some Russian politicians and military officers have criticized it, the governments of China and Russia seam to realize that the U.S. presence may help bring stability to the Central Asian region. Many uncertainties burden the SCO's future. It may constitute another failed attempt to establish a security alliance or turn into a significant voice in international politics, especially with the inclusion of additional members.




China's Energy Geopolitics


Book Description

China’s need for energy has become a driving factor in contemporary world politics and a precondition for sustaining China’s continuing high economic growth. Accordingly, Chinese energy policy has been a political and strategic rather than market-driven policy. This book focuses on the need of a stable and secure investment environment which is necessary for the energy provision of China from the Central Asian states. The author argues that the institutionalization of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (S.C.O.), the Friendship and Cooperation Treaty between Russia and China and Chinese bilateral agreements with individual Central Asian states present an avenue and a framework of stability in which pipeline construction can commence. With the backing of the US in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Chinese involvement in the region has now been expanding. However, in order to stabilize the region for Chinese investment in energy resources, the author states that the US needs to be present in the region and that a strategic framework of cooperation between Russia, China and the US has to be developed. The book will be of interest to academics working in the field of International Security, International Relations and Central Asian and Chinese politics.




China's Approach to Central Asia


Book Description

This book examines, comprehensively, the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, the regional organisation which consists of China, Russia and most of the Central Asian countries. It charts the development of the Organisation from the establishment of its precursor, the Shanghai Five, in 1996, through its own foundation in 2001 to the present. It considers the foreign policy of China and of the other member states, showing how the interests and power of the member states determine the Organisation’s institutions, functional development and relations with non-members. It explores the Organisation’s activities in the fields of politics and security co-operation, economic and energy co-operation, and in culture and education, and concludes with a discussion of how the Organisation is likely to develop in future. Throughout, the book sets the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation in the context of China’s overall strategy towards Central Asia.




Shanghai Cooperation Organization


Book Description

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent intergovernmental international organision proclaimed in Shanghai in 2001 by the following six countries: People's Republic of China, Russian Federation, Republic of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kyrgyzstan, Republic of Tajikistan and Republic of Uzbekistan. This thesis explores the creation, evolution and aim of the organisation.




Strategic Implications of the Evolving Shanghai Cooperation Organization


Book Description

The role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in regional politics and the significance of the organization for U.S. interests are widely misunderstood. The organization is emphatically not a military bloc, and yet engages in joint activities which resemble military cooperation to U.S. eyes. It is, in theory, open to new members; but at present is highly unlikely to accept any. Its rhetoric firmly opposes U.S. presence and activity on the territory of member states, and yet individual member states leverage basing agreements with the U.S. to their advantage. The author reviews SCO's history and stated aspirations, and measures these against actual achievements. He concludes that, with the notable exception of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure(RATS), the great majority of SCO accomplishments are of little significance other than to provide an additional multinational vehicle through which China and in particular Russia can seek to counter U.S. and Western activity in Central Asia.




The Shanghai Cooperation Organization


Book Description

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is comprised of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as full members, with India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as official observers. Afghanistan participates in some activities through the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, and Belarus and Sri Lanka were recently approved as the organization's first dialogue partners. Key questions this paper considers are: Has the past decade been a 'lost' one for the SCO, or has it made any progress as an effective organization? And, are there reasons why the U.S. might consider the opportunities, and risks, of enhanced engagement with the organization? This review lays out potential steps the U.S. could take to move such a relationship forward if it chooses to do so.




Russia's Turn to the East


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This book explores if and how Russian policies towards the Far East region of the country – and East Asia more broadly – have changed since the onset of the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Following the 2014 annexation and the subsequent enactment of a sanctions regime against the country, the Kremlin has emphasized the eastern vector in its external relations. But to what extent has Russia’s 'pivot to the East' intensified or changed in nature – domestically and internationally – since the onset of the current crisis in relations with the West? Rather than taking the declared 'pivot' as a fact and exploring the consequences of it, the contributors to this volume explore whether a pivot has indeed happened or if what we see today is the continuation of longer-duration trends, concerns and ambitions.