July’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, has attracted significant attention among Western onlookers and analysists. Much press coverage has focused on the SCO as an anti-NATO or anti-American bloc, reminiscent in some way of the Cold War-era Warsaw Pact. But, aside from the lack of a military or security component to SCO, there are key reasons to expect that the body will not become a politically cohesive anti-Western block, chief among them being the expanded participation of Central and South Asian states.
China and Russia did much at the July 2024 summit to try to persuade observers that the SCO is shaping itself into a distinctly anti-Western coalition. The organization added Belarus, a client state of Russia, as a full member. Iran, another staunch opponent of the West, joined in July 2023. Other recent additions to the SCO include India and Pakistan in 2017. The original grouping, formed in 2001, was comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Many of these members, from Kazakhstan to India, have interests that do not always align with Moscow and Beijing.
Summit statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin also lent credence to the idea of SCO as a bulwark against the trans-Atlantic block. In Astana, Putin remarked, “Russia’s goal is to ensure indivisible security and development to replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models that gave unilateral advantages to individual countries.” He also stated, “The [SCO] has firmly established itself as one of the key pillars of a fair, multipolar world order.” Chinese recommendations, including forming a SCO political parties’ forum and de-dollarizing financial relations, also seem to indicate a push to offer the SCO as an alternative to the U.S.-backed international system.
Yet a key question unaddressed in much of the discussion surrounding the SCO is whether member states, other than anti-Western Russia, China, Belarus, and Iran, are interested in the organization becoming a staunchly anti-Western grouping. There are now 10 member states of the SCO that do no maintain a uniformly hostile approach to the United States or Europe. The SCO requires consensus by member states to make policy decisions and therefore a divergence of views among SCO countries may hamstring the SCO’s ability to project power on behalf of China or Russia. So far, SCO initiatives have been relegated largely to uncontroversial matters such as anti-drug trafficking and anti-terrorism.
The unease about an anti-Western tilt in the SCO is most evident in the case of its most populous member, India. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi notably skipped the Astana summit. Modi doesn’t oppose positive relations with Russia outright, visiting Moscow personally a few days after the SCO summit. India also continues to rely on Russia for discounted oil and gas. But the choice to forgo the Astana meeting in favor of a personal visit indicates that New Delhi appears interested in relations with Moscow on its own terms, not as part of a larger block. Modi’s absence may have also been a vailed slight to fellow SCO members China and Pakistan, countries India has regularly come into conflict with.
Moreover, as much as India is resistant to cutting ties with the Kremlin, it also seeks to retain positive ties with the United States. Modi made a major visit to Washington, D.C., in June 2023, and purchased U.S. weapons in January 2024, potentially due to the lack of Russian inventory, but also in an apparent search for better technology. India is also part of the U.S.-backed Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a partnership among the United States, India, Australia, and Japan. The group describes itself as premised on stability and openness but is often seen as an effort to limit Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific.
Besides India, other potential crucial SCO members in Central Asia are unlikely to participate in the SCO if the block becomes primarily a bulwark against Europe and the United States. The Central Asian states have increasingly pursued multi-vector foreign policies and are seeking to secure greater engagement with Western capitals. U.S. President Joe Biden sat for a meeting with all five Central Asian states on the sidelines of the United States General Assembly in September 2023, a meeting that has been followed up by new U.S. initiatives on critical minerals and private-sector growth. European leaders are traveling to Central Asia, and the European Union has stepped up significant Middle Corridor investments. With critical minerals, uranium deposits, and a potentially economical pathway to Chinese products, the Central Asian states have much to offer the West.
All of this has not just economic, but also geopolitical implications, helping build political and business ties across borders. Central Asia continues to seek to enhance its ties to the West, something accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Private-sector and diplomatic ties will likely continue to provide incentives for Central Asian governments to maintain friendly relations with Western capitals.
Moreover, it would be inaccurate to see the Central Asian states as aligned with Moscow on what is likely Russia’s central priority: the war in Ukraine. No Central Asian state has endorsed Russia’s war or recognized its territorial claims. Given its border with Russia and regular televised threats by Russian officials and celebrities, Kazakhstan has particular reason not to support Russia’s invasion. Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been careful to not speak too harshly about the war in Ukraine in public. However, he has pledged to crack down on Kazakhstan firms shipping dual use goods to Russia, although results have been mixed. Perhaps more tellingly, shortly after Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian provinces and during a meeting of the Organization of Turkic States, Tokayev stated that “the territorial integrity of states must be unshakeable.”
Also notable is the fact that Türkiye, a NATO ally that has been careful to retain ties to both Russia and other NATO members since the invasion of Ukraine, has voiced interest in joining the SCO. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the conference in Astana and met with Xi, personally stating his plan to join the group. A prospective Turkish membership in SCO would signal Ankara’s interest in ties and trade with China and Russia, considering much of SCO’s work is focused on fostering economic ties. However, Turkish membership would further water down the body’s potentially anti-Western credentials, considering Türkiye’s NATO membership and its working relationship with Washington. The SCO’s self-described goals are building trust among its members, economic cooperation, and fighting terrorism. Governments may be motivated by these aims to join the SCO rather than any grand strategic push against the West.
Moreover, especially concerning Central Asia, the SCO has tough competition to be the central organizing forum. The Organization of Turkic States, whose conference just after the SCO’s somewhat overshadowed the Astana meeting, has emerged as a fairly significant grouping, and members are openly committed to political and security cooperation.
It appears likely that Russia and China might intend for the SCO to be a united anti-Western bulwark, especially after the inclusion of Belarus. But it can be argued that the SCO has become too politically diverse to be a counterweight to NATO, nor do all the SCO’s new members appear to support such objectives. With 10 members, each having different priorities and approaches to engaging with the West, the expansion of the SCO membership appears to have diluted the organization’s ability to act out of a single interest. China, Russia, and some other smaller states like Iran might support a shared anti-Western position, but the rest of the SCO, so far, does not appear to be a politically united front.
