The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 1996 under the name Shanghai Five. Since it was founded in the Chinese city of Shanghai, it was initially named after it. Then there were five members in this organization - Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. It was renamed SCO at the 2001 summit. The Charter of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was approved at the 2002 summit held in SaintPetersburg, Russia. Kyrgyzstan is not the only member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization among the five countries of Central Asia.In 2017, India and Pakistan have been granted permanent membership of SCO. With this, the permanent membership of SCO has increased to eight. While Russia supported India's membership, China has supported Pakistan's membership to balance India.
Following are the main objectives of SCO
1. Strengthening mutual trust and good neighborhood relations among member countries.
2. To promote cooperation among member countries in politics, trade and economy, science and technology, culture, energy, education, traffic, tourism, environmental protection and other areas.
3. Making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, stability and security in the Central Asia region,
4. To move towards the establishment of a new democratic, just and prudent international political and economic system.
Initially, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established with the objective of regional security and stability only, but later the scope of its activities has also been extended to include economic cooperation.
Organizational set-up: The SCO primarily has four institutions performing its functions,
At the top level is the Council of Heads of Member States which is its highest policy making body. Its conferences held every year are called summits.
The second level is the Council of the Heads of Government of the member countries, whose meetings are held on an annual basis. This council discusses issues of multilateral cooperation and passes the budget of the organization.
The third level is the Council of Foreign Ministers of the member countries, which have regular meetings. The Council reviews the contemporary international situation and discusses cooperation with other global organizations.
At the fourth level is the Council of National Coordinators, whose main responsibility is to coordinate the programs of multilateral cooperation between the member countries.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization also has two other institutions. The first is the secretariat of the organization, located in Beijing, the capital of China, and performs the administrative responsibilities of the organization. The second institution is the Regional Counter-Terrorism Structure-RCTS located in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, whose main task is to expand the capacity of member states to face the challenge of terrorism and other organized crimes. This organization was founded in 2004.
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