The statements made by various SCO leaders at the virtual summit hosted by India on July 4, 2023, outline the agendas and interests each of them seeks to promote through the organisation. These differ in scope and priorities, and indeed are conflicting in many areas. This has implications for the internal cohesion of the group and its future effectiveness in achieving shared goals.
The joint statement, which is based on consensus, does not reflect many vital aspects of the specific agendas of individual member states. Other than this, the gap between practice and the stated principles and objectives that drive the foreign policies of some members comes out starkly in statements by the leaders. This, of course, is not unusual in diplomacy.
President Xi’s consciously “statesman-like” presentation was, for instance, replete with disputable claims. He asserted, contrary to facts, that SCO member states “have firmly supported each other in standing up for our respective core interests”. When China claims our territory, is it standing up for India’s core interests? Does China’s own conduct justify Xi’s claim that SCO member states have “accommodated each other’s legitimate security concerns”, and that “Together we have safeguarded peace and tranquillity in the region”, and opposed hegemonic, high-handed, and bullying acts. After violating border peace and tranquillity agreements with India without discernible reasons, this claim sounds hollow.
Xi’s exhortation that member states “should maintain regional peace and safeguard common security” flies in the face of China’s own policies, not only in the South and East China seas but in our neighbourhood, including its maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean.
China, Xi stated, is ready to promote the settlement of international disputes through dialogue and consultation, and encourage political settlement of international and regional hotspots, etc. With China’s expansionism in the South China Sea, unwillingness to seriously cooperate in even establishing a Code of Conduct there, threat to use military force against Taiwan, untenable sovereignty claims in the western Pacific and the Himalayas, unwillingness to resolve the outstanding regional “hot spots” in Ladakh following its attempts to unilaterally alter the LAC there and in the east, Xi’s claim comes across as empty political posturing.
Xi used the occasion to flag China’s three Initiatives intended to convey its constructive and collaborative approach to international relations. He mentioned the Global Security Initiative, which is really an unoriginal statement of pious principles that China itself does not adhere to. He mentioned also the Global Civilisation Initiative ostensibly aimed at promoting inclusiveness and coexistence among all civilisations, but in reality to assert China’s right to follow its own systems with “Chinese characteristics”, without being judged by Western yardsticks on democracy, human rights, etc. All this is part of the new image-making of China after the consolidation of power by Xi.
China’s double speak on the issue of terrorism was reflected in Xi asking the SCO to “crack down hard on the forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism such as the ‘East Turkistan’ elements”, when it shields Pakistan on its continuing terrorist activity against India, to the point also of preventing the UN listing of known Pakistani terrorists so as to thwart India’s efforts to bring international pressure on Pakistan to eschew the nurturing of jihadi groups on its soil.
Xi launched the Global Development Initiative at the UN General Assembly in 2021. This third Initiative was also flagged by him at the SCO summit. China has benefited enormously from economic globalisation, but its mercantilist policies, protectionism at home, control over critical raw materials and supply chains etc. have created a backlash, with moves to build “trustworthy, reliable and resilient supply chains” as well as giving impetus to the ideas of “on-shoring” and “friend shoring”. This is prompting China to “oppose protectionism, unilateral sanctions” and “reject the moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing supply chains”, in Xi’s words at the SCO summit. China is visibly concerned at some of these supply chains shifting to India.
Xi obviously promoted China’s Belt and Road Initiative at the summit, which he knows India opposes as the CPEC breaches India’s sovereignty. On its tenth anniversary, China will hold the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation to which Xi welcomed the participation of member States. “We should work together to broaden the Belt and Road as a ‘path of happiness’ benefiting the whole world,” said Xi. Why BRI is now a spiritual ‘path to happiness’ is not easy to comprehend.
Xi proposed that the SCO scale up local currency settlement between member states, expand cooperation on sovereign digital currency, and promote the establishment of an SCO development bank.
Surprisingly, Xi quoted the following words of “the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore”: “The sea of danger, doubt and denial around man’s little island of certainty challenges him to dare the unknown.” An unusual deft diplomatic bow to India under the circumstances.
Xi’s statement in many respects also does not fit into the reality of Pakistan’s policies towards India, in part encouraged by China. Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif used the occasion to do some grandstanding of his own, declaiming cynically that the “hydra-headed monster of terrorism and extremism — whether committed by individuals, societies or states — must be fought by full vigour and conviction”, when the Pakistani state has long sponsored terrorism.
He waxed eloquent in stating hypocritically: “Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including state terrorism, must be condemned in clear and unambiguous terms. There can be no justification for the killing of innocent people regardless of the cause or pretext.” By talking of the sacrifices made by Pakistan in fighting the scourge of terrorism which were without a parallel, he raised diplomatic chicanery to a class of its own.
Taking an indirect dig at India, which raises the issue of terrorism at every possible forum, he said: “Any temptation to use it as a cudgel for diplomatic point-scoring must be avoided under all circumstances.” For Pakistan, India’s concerns about cross-border terrorism are not real, being only a diplomatic tool to score points against Islamabad. His other indirect dig at India was to affirm that “religious minorities should not be demonised in the “pursuit of domestic political agendas”.
He also spoke of fundamental rights and freedoms being guaranteed for all, including those “under occupation”, and affirmed that: “The SCO stands for observance of the UN principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the people’s right to self-determination”. He also said quite irrelevantly that the UN principles offered a workable framework for the resolution of “long-standing disputes” in the region which “must be addressed immediately and settled amicably before it’s too late” (meaning what — a war?). All these were his other digs at India. On the CPEC he goaded India by asserting that the project could be a “game changer” for connectivity and prosperity in the region.
Iran’s President, as the new SCO member, expressly attacked the West’s militarisation and the “dominance of the dollar”, stating that “any attempt to shape a fair international system requires the removal of this instrument of dominance in intra-regional relations”. He railed against “Western hegemonic powers resorting to economic coercion and sanctions”. Iran, he said, “welcomes any move to introduce financial payment instruments based on modern technologies to facilitate financial exchanges between members and business partners, especially in multilateral frameworks”.
The Iranian President was alone in raising strongly the Palestine issue and the crimes of the Zionist regime.
President Vladimir Putin’s statement at the summit had more significance than usual because of internal developments in Russia. The armed rebellion by the Wagner group chief against the leadership of the Russian Defence Ministry characterised as a betrayal by Putin occurred at a time when Russia is in the throes of a de facto military conflict with NATO. This inevitably raised doubts about the strength of Putin’s own political position, even if eventually the rebellion collapsed through political compromise. The West, of course, interpreted these events as the beginning of the collapse of Putin’s power.
That Putin felt it necessary to broach this sensitive internal issue at a multilateral gathering could be interpreted as a sign of confidence that the situation had been stabilised, or a defensive acknowledgement that he needed to clarify doubts that may have arisen about internal stability in Russia. Putin addressed this issue head-on by stating that political circles and the society in Russia were united against this armed rebellion and that the Russian people are more consolidated than ever. He thanked his colleagues in the SCO for their support for the Russian leadership in defending constitutional order.
While no other leader raised the Ukraine issue, even indirectly, in the summit statements, Putin slammed attempts by external forces to make Ukraine a de facto hostile state, an “anti-Russia”. They funnelled arms for eight years, condoned aggression against the Donbas region and indulged in every way to plant a neo-Nazi ideology, he said. All this was done to jeopardise Russia’s security and stifle its development. Russia, he acknowledged, was being subjected to a hybrid war, with the imposition of unprecedented sanctions which it was confidently resisting.
In the light of attempts even by China to assist in finding a route to peace in Ukraine, and concerns no doubt in Russia’s Central Asian neighbours about Russia’s decision to take military action against an erstwhile Soviet state, Putin clearly wanted to frame the Ukraine issue in a specific external context.
The SCO was committed to the creation of a truly just and multipolar order, he said. Without specifically mentioning de-dollarisation, Putin noted that Russia was active in transiting to national currencies in external trade, with the share of rubles in Russia’s exports to SCO countries exceeding 40 percent in 2022. He advocated coordinated measures to establish the necessary payment infrastructure and to create an independent financial system. He called for a most attentive and constructive approach with regard to those countries which have applied for cooperation with the SCO in one form or another.
All this shows that building a cohesive SCO agenda on issues of vital interest to individual countries is not easy. On some issues, member countries can work together to the extent that their interests are compatible. For India, the overall geopolitical importance of our membership and our ties with Russia and Central Asia outweigh our differences with China and Pakistan, albeit on key issues. India’s task is to prevent the SCO agenda from merging increasingly with that of China, with Pakistan as a cheerleader.
Russia, despite the collapse of its ties with the West and the deepening of its ties with China, needs India too as a prospective major economic partner, with shared views on multipolarity, and as a balancing factor in the organisation as well. The manner in which China is tying Central Asian states into deeper bonds outside the SCO framework would not be too comforting for Russia.
Kanwal Sibal is a former Indian Foreign Secretary. He was India’s Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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