The Central Asia Caucasus Institute (CACI) at SAIS hosted a forum on Thursday, May 22, 2008, in Rome Auditorium.

The discussion featured Dr. Pan Guang, the Director of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Studies Center in Shanghai, Dean of the Center of Jewish Studies in Shanghai, Vice Chairman of the Chinese Society of Middle East Studies, and a Senior Advisor for CACI’s China and Eurasia Forum.

Listen to audio of event HERE.

Professor S. Frederick Starr, Chairman of CACI, introduced Dr. Guang.

Dr. Guang opened by discussing the 2007 Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. He praised the signing of the Treaty on Long-term Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation as the “key highlight” of the summit, reflecting a much greater degree of consensus among the six member states than in 2001 and 2002. However, the treaty is still in the process of approval by the national governments of those respective states, and has not been officially published.

A second important development at the Bishkek summit was the expression of support, by member states, for the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (CANWFZ). The first CANWFZ proposal was made by Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov in 1993, but the five signatory countries did not come to an agreement over the treaty until September 2006, when it was submitted to the United Nations. The SCO urged other Nuclear Weapon States recognized by the Nonproliferation Treaty to sign the CANWFZ treaty as well. China and Russia have both indicated their willingness to do so, and Dr. Guang expressed his confidence that Great Britain and France will as well. The United States position towards the treaty remains unclear, but “I hope,” Guang said, “that the US can join in these efforts.” Further difficulties may arise if India or Pakistan want to sign, since they are not officially recognized by the Nonproliferation Treaty.

President Hamid Karzai also joined the Bishkek summit, drawing further attention by SCO members to the situation in Afghanistan. Dr. Guang observed that 40,000 soldiers are “not enough” to deal with the increasingly serious conditions in the country, given the return of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Though the SCO may not help directly, its member states certainly will. NATO has already signed an agreement with Moscow allowing the Alliance to transport military supplies across Russia; however, since Russia does not share a common border with Afghanistan, the Alliance will have to travel through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Turkmenistan. As a signatory to NATO’s Partnership for Peace, Uzbekistan, Dr. Guang noted, is willing to help. As preconditions, however, Uzbekistan will neither allow the transport of weapons of mass destruction through its territories, nor interference in its domestic affairs. Uzbekistan has also refused to allow NATO to reopen a training base for Afghan police in Tashkent.

SCO member states may also be willing to contribute troops to the peacekeeping effort. Russia and China are unable to do so under NATO command, but China has recognized substantial interests in the security of the region – moreso, for example, than in Southern Lebanon, where China has committed 1000 troops. If the UN is willing to send a peacekeeping mission into the UN, China may be able to contribute under its auspices, as may other non-NATO countries such as India. For now, the SCO is working with Afghanistan, through the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, to combat drug trafficking, cross-border crime, and weapons smuggling. Whether it can assume a more important role in Afghanistan is uncertain, though the initial participation of all six member states in the 2001 war suggests that cooperation with NATO and the United States is possible.

If security, anti-terrorism and cultural cooperation are the SCO’s strengths, economic and energy cooperation remain substantial weaknesses. Russia, protective of its own influence, is wary of expanding China’s; member states are thus left to forge bilateral agreements with each other, rather than multilateral agreements through the SCO. Events over the past two years, such as the arrest of Mikhail Khodokovsky, which invalidated agreements signed between Yukos and China, have impeded cooperation among SCO member states; and others, such as the completion of the Sino-Kazakh Oil Pipeline, demonstrate that bilateral agreements can be productive even without Russia’s involvement. The Sino-Kazakh pipeline is the first Central Asia pipeline to circumvent Russia, Georgia and Turkey entirely.

The involvement of other countries in this project – East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, and Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan – have compelled more active interest from Russia, exemplified in former President Vladimir Putin’s call for the development of an “energy club” within the SCO framework. What such an organization would entail remains unclear; Russia, Dr. Guang remarked, may be interested in developing an energy price coordination system.

Many cultural projects were proposed at the Bishkek summit: the SCO expressed its support for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2014 Olympics in Sochi; encouraged diversity and dialogue between civilizations and cultures through such initiatives as the Silk Road Project; and Kazakhstan announced that it will organize a conference between religious leaders.

Dr. Guang suggested that the SCO will not be prepared, in the near future, to accept new members. Presently, the SCO has membership regulations for observers, but new members are not likely to be approved until regulations are developed for them as well. Countries such as Iran and Pakistan have made overtures towards membership, but have not found support among the majority of the SCO. One possible exception to this disposition is Turkmenistan. President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov attended the Bishkek summit and stated that his country may change its policy of non-participation. If Turkmenistan applies for membership with the SCO, Dr. Guang said that no one is likely to oppose.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute is a leading center conducting fundamental and applied research on an important world region. It has offices at SAIS (Johns Hopkins University), Washington, and in Stockholm, Sweden, through a Joint Center with the Silk Road Studies Program (Institute for Security and Development Policy). This Joint Center publishes the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst (cacianalyst.org), the China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, and the Silk Road Papers as well as books and monographs. Additional information about the Joint Center is available at www.silkroadstudies.org .