Unlike overseas security establishments, the Coercive Power of superpowers is not backing up global manipulation; the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is building, deliberately and in evolution, a counter and parallel world order to the Western one. Originally coming forth from the Shanghai Five in 1996 due to border issues, the turning point occurred in 2001, as the SCO was transformed into a permanent intergovernmental organisation. At the heart of this lies the “Shanghai Spirit,” an ethos that embraces such principles as mutual trust, equality, and non-interference, which directly stand against this hegemonic logic of ‘might makes right.’ In their reach, the Shanghai Spirit is the very antithesis of the hegemonic paradigm of ‘might makes right.’
The organisation’s mandate originally restricted itself to engaging the “three evils” – terrorism, separatism, and extremism. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), formed in 2004, was the primary instrument for intelligence sharing and joint military exercises. By far, the agenda of the organisation has become far broader, considering economic, political, and cultural agreements. This otherwise multi-dimensional growth signifies a certain ambition: to become a comprehensive global act individual and key impetus for a new multipolar world order.
Strategic Drivers: Two Engines of Influence-China and Russia
Strangely or otherwise, it is the dual strategic ambitions of China and Russia that give their largest two members and thus the SCO its rise. China acts as the bloc’s principal geoeconomic engine, using its financial muscle to construct a parallel system of global governance. This vision is part of Beijing’s overall approach to foreign policy as encapsulated in its Global Governance Initiative (GGI). The GGI proposes that a new form of governance exists outside the oversight of Western-led institutions.
Alongside this new governance framework stands the aim to run the SCO Development Bank, intended to provide a parallel financial mechanism outside that of the IMF and the World Bank. At the 2025 summit, China reiterated its commitment with promises of huge grants and loans for SCO members. China’s economic weight within the bloc is huge, with bilateral trade alone exceeding $500 billion annually, establishing China as the dominant economic partner.
In contrast, Russia acts geopolitically as the tactician in the SCO. Moscow considers the organisation as an important non-Western platform by which to pursue its diplomatic, economic, and security interests across Eurasia. In a strategy termed by some analysts as “Reverse Nixon,” President Vladimir Putin has essentially undermined American influence in the region by leveraging the SCO to nurture a Sino-Indian relationship. By supporting the use of non-Western financial instruments, Russia is actively creating a Eurasian security and economic system independent of the West.
A New Alignment: The Global South Embraces the SCO
Increased Global South engagement with the SCO is essentially in reaction to what many consider the uncertainty and inefficiency of the Western-led system. For many countries, the SCO presents an alternative forum and a symbolic challenge to the unipolar order. The widely photographed display of “Modi-Putin-Xi Togetherness” at the 2025 Tianjin summit reverberated with the Global South.
India’s participation, hence, appears like a complex balancing act of “multipolar pragmatism.” Guided by the policy of strategic autonomy, New Delhi’s engagement is directed toward three deliverables known as “Security, Connectivity, and Opportunity.” On the security front, India uses RATS to improve its capabilities to fight against terrorism. Economically, it promotes ISTNC so that it can cut down the time taken on the conventional maritime routes and foster more trade with Central Asia. This kind of approach helps India to engage with Russia and China even when it considers the United States as its strategic partner.
It has been in the limelight for the last couple of years: The SCO stands with Iran, helping it to withstand the isolating effects of Western sanctions. Its recent full membership status in the organisation is an avenue to broaden its economic and security horizons. It has opened the doors for investment and trade with China and Russia, especially in the energy domain. In particular, Iran is now looking to become a key node in the Belt and Road Initiative. To Tehran, with its multinational character, the SCO and its declared principles of sovereignty and non-interference also provide key diplomatic cover against what it identifies as a hostile Western bloc.
Internal Baptisms: Limits to Cohesion
Outwardly united, the SCO has deep contradictions within it, which check its institutional effectiveness. Arguably, the most grave has been the ardent and unrelenting India-Pakistan rivalry. Their joint membership thus constitutes a fundamental weakness that detracts from the organisation’s core security-cooperation mandate and often creates diplomatic freezes at summits.
Furthermore, the consensus-allied decision-making is the crux of SCO’s operations very well stall the organisation’s ability to act decisively in collective ways. One can see this in the stalling of important projects in connectivity due to geopolitical frictions, such as those bordering on issues between India and China. While the SCO has been valuable as a forum within which to manage competing interests, it has had a harder time transforming highest-level declarations into actual coordinated actions.
A Clash of Institutional Models
The geopolitics between the SCO and the Western-led order, in essence, came down to a clash between institutional models. The SCO is therefore a political bloc focused on cooperation, in stark opposition to NATO as a military alliance within which the members swear to defend each other against certain threats. The SCO considered that one member’s security cannot come at the cost of another, indivisible security direct contradiction of NATO bloc security.
At one end of the spectrum stands the SCO’s “multipolar promise,” while on the other, there is the “structural grip” of the G7 on power machinery worldwide. Simultaneously, the SCO is building parallel institutions like development banks and payment systems, while the G7 controls global finance through entrenched institutions like the IMF and World Bank. From a demographic and resource perspective, the SCO is capable of sustaining scrambles for cognac and dinners in Geneva; from the G7 perspective, the SCO is inimical to the existing rules-based order.
With all the possible benefits of collective action it has been able to accomplish, the SCO’s most important achievement may be that it can, in a pragmatic fashion, sit the disparate members down and manage their conflicting interests. Hence, the future will depend on its capacity to move beyond symbolism and strengthen its institutional machinery to deliver on its promise of a more equitable, multipolar global order.
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