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Diplomacy
OpinionComment
C. Uday Bhaskar
C. Uday Bhaskar

Opinion | Tensions between China, India and Russia at Samarkhand summit cloud SCO’s effectiveness

  • The summit drew interest over a rare trip outside China for Xi Jinping, bringing him, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi together
  • The expressions of concern over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of a Xi-Modi handshake show a petulance that augurs poorly for the SCO

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
C. Uday Bhaskar
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, concluded on Friday with the leaders signing off on a comprehensive joint declaration in Russian that was more than 7,800 words long, subdivided into 121 paragraphs in its English translation.
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In the opening section of the declaration, the leaders of the SCO member states – China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – noted the global changes the world is experiencing. They said: “The current system of international challenges and threats is becoming more complex, the situation in the world is dangerously degrading, existing local conflicts and crises are intensifying and new ones are emerging.”

This was an accurate and bleak summary of a conflict-ridden world. Even as the SCO summit unfolded, the war in Ukraine crossed the 200-day mark with no end in sight. Clashes broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. A stable peace in Eurasia seems increasingly elusive.
Samarkand marks the 22nd meeting of the SCO, which began as the Shanghai Five in 1996 and included China, Russia and three Central Asian republics – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Following the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the six-nation group was renamed the SCO. India and Pakistan were admitted in 2017, and Iran is expected to become a member in 2023.

The composition of the SCO is both significant and complex as its footprint covers almost 60 per cent of the Eurasian land mass, 40 per cent of the world’s population and more than 20 per cent global gross domestic product. While China and India are the demographic heavyweights – each with more than a billion citizens – the SCO has four nuclear weapon states in Russia, China, India and Pakistan.

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The Samarkand summit aroused considerable interest as it marked a rare in-person summit for Chinese President Xi Jinping, who had not travelled outside his country since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020. Samarkand was also an opportunity for Russian President Vladimir Putin to have a major international platform after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in late February.
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