Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: Can It Become a Global Force?

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The SCO has extraordinary demographic and economic weight. Its challenge is turning scale into coherent action without losing the diversity that gives the organisation its reach.

Despite representing more than three billion people and accounting for roughly a quarter of global GDP, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) remains one of the least understood and least analysed multilateral groupings. Its impressive scale and economic weight have not yet made it a major force in international affairs. But can that change in the foreseeable future?

The SCO brings together China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus and four Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Beyond its ten members, the organisation has two observer states and 15 dialogue partners. Azerbaijan and Armenia have held dialogue-partner status since 2016, while the wider network now extends across the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and North Africa.

On 31 August and 1 September, leaders will gather in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, for the SCO Council of Heads of State and the SCO Plus summit. They are expected to discuss deeper cooperation and major international and regional issues. While the official agenda is clear, what the leaders address behind closed doors is far harder to predict.

The Bishkek summit comes at a particularly important moment, as the SCO marks its 25th anniversary. Over the past quarter of a century, the group has created common institutions ranging from the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) and several decision-making councils to economic, business and academic networks. Yet a number of obstacles still limit its ability to act collectively.

Scale Without Unity

The foreign-policy priorities of SCO members often differ sharply, making agreement on major international questions difficult. Iran pursues an openly anti-American and anti-Western policy, whereas China generally presents the SCO as non-Western rather than explicitly anti-Western. Russia remains locked in confrontation with the West over Ukraine, while India maintains close ties with Washington.

The Central Asian members, for their part, seek to balance their relations with Moscow, Beijing and the West, using the SCO to strengthen their room for manoeuvre on the international stage. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have deep economic, security and historical ties with Russia and China, but they are also pursuing broader partnerships with the United States, the European Union, Türkiye and other external powers.

For Russia and Iran, the SCO also helps demonstrate that isolation from the West does not amount to isolation from the rest of the world. For China and India, meanwhile, the organisation is a useful forum for cooperation, but neither wants the other to use it as an instrument for advancing its own agenda. The same tension exists between India and Pakistan, two regional rivals with very different geopolitical interests.

Consensus: Protection and Constraint

Beyond these competing priorities, the organisation's consensus rule both protects and constrains it. Decisions are adopted without a vote and only when no member raises an objection. That principle safeguards smaller states and reduces the risk that the organisation will be dominated by its largest powers. At the same time, frequent disagreements among major members make common positions — and especially collective action — harder to achieve.

Economic integration also remains limited relative to the SCO's size. Financial cooperation is underdeveloped, while divergent security interests prevent the group from operating as a traditional alliance. The SCO is neither a common market nor a collective-defence organisation, and its members have shown little appetite for turning it into either.

That does not mean the SCO is merely symbolic. RATS coordinates practical cooperation among national security agencies against what the organisation calls the 'three evils' of terrorism, separatism and extremism. Joint anti-terrorist exercises have been held annually since 2006, alongside other counterterrorism and command-and-staff drills.

The SCO has also found common political language when members perceive a shared interest. It has issued joint statements opposing and condemning military strikes on Iran, showing that, despite their differences, its members can still agree on sensitive international questions. But if the organisation wants to convert its size into greater influence, declarations alone will not be enough.

A Realistic Path to Influence

Under current conditions, the SCO is unlikely to function like the European Union, NATO or even ASEAN. Its members are too politically, economically and strategically diverse for those models to be realistic.

A more achievable goal would be to deepen cooperation where interests already overlap: trade, transport, energy, counterterrorism and, to a more limited degree, diplomacy. Practical agreements in these fields would give the organisation greater relevance without requiring its members to resolve every geopolitical dispute among them.

This approach would also play to the SCO's distinctive strength. The organisation does not derive its importance from ideological uniformity, but from its ability to place very different powers around the same table. China and India, India and Pakistan, Russia and the Central Asian states may disagree on fundamental issues, yet they continue to engage within a shared institutional framework.

The question, therefore, is not whether the SCO can become a tightly integrated bloc. It is whether it can use selective cooperation to shape trade, security and diplomacy across Eurasia — and gradually beyond it.

The Bishkek Test

Kyrgyzstan's 2025–26 presidency has focused on new initiatives and preparations for the anniversary summit. At the SCO foreign ministers' meeting in Cholpon-Ata on 24 July, members approved draft documents for the leaders, including the Bishkek Declaration on the organisation's 25th anniversary. The presidency has also emphasised economic and security cooperation, transport connectivity and investment.

The leaders will almost certainly adopt a joint declaration in Bishkek calling for closer coordination on regional and international issues. What remains uncertain is whether they can agree on practical measures to strengthen the organisation without first resolving their wider geopolitical differences.

If they find sufficient common ground, the SCO could gradually become a more consequential international force — not as a unified alliance, but as a platform capable of coordinating action across a vast part of Eurasia. If they do not, the continent's largest multilateral grouping risks remaining primarily a forum for discussion rather than an organisation capable of sustained collective action.

Even in that more limited form, the SCO would remain an important platform through which member states can deepen bilateral ties and manage rivalries. But given the geopolitical ambitions of China and Russia, and their efforts to build institutions less dependent on Western leadership, that is unlikely to be their ultimate goal.

At 25, the SCO stands at a crossroads. It has the population, economic weight and geographic reach to matter globally. Whether it becomes a global force will depend on its ability to turn those assets into practical cooperation — without asking its deeply divided members to become something they are not.

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Opinion Opinions Section Shanghai Cooperation Organisation SCO China Russia India Pakistan Iran Belarus Kazakhstan Kyrgystan Tajikistan Uzbekistan Azerbaijan Armenia