The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: dead and burried? By Tim Lagrange

After the initial arousal on the take-off and development of this curious regional organization, one must aknowledge all what is left today is the image of a talkshop. Certain regional and international events have exposed the evident limits of an organization who concentrates on security and economical issues, headed by the regional rivals: the PR China and Russia.

It is a matter of perception wheter you assume the song of the SCO has been sang. If you, like Black (2005), assumed that this organization was a rising star on the international security firmament and could on the long term cause a challenge to the Western NATO alliance, then 2008 has been an all to disappointing year. When in 2007 the Jamestown Foundation titled the SCO a “Rising Dragon�, their conclusion anno 2009 must be it is nothing more than a dead sparrow. Kaukenov (2007), Bohr (2004) and others doubted it's viability from the start. They were right...

No 'Peace Missions'.

For the first time in several years the leading countries didn't preform any 'peace mission' or 'war games' in the context of the SCO. Starting in 2002, followed by the eye-catching edition of 2005, these events were the most visible realisations of the SCO. It remains unclear why it has lacked to do so in the year of the Chinese Olympic Games. The agitation of and international media attention for the Tibetans and the Uigur cause, could have been prevented by a clear manifestion of military power. It is well known that the location of previous exercices wasn't as neutral but sended a message to the local population.

But, such a demonstration would caused a condemnation of the international community whose eyes were fixed on minorities, human rights and freedom of speech in Communist China. So maybe the main members were not in a position to organized them.

Bureaucratisation.

Secondly, the organization was unable to tackle the institutional inertia as described by Olberg (2007) sufficiently: the members are slow in implementing the SCO-descisions, the organization is unkown to the population, the financial capacity remains to limited to bare the huge responsibility as economic stimulator. The number of meetings has multiplied, but few results were accomplised.

Russian-Georgian War and Economic Crisis.

The third important issue that highlighted the inefficiency of the organization was the Russian summer war against Georgia in 2008. Because no system of shared values and no enduring common interests exists among the members, their reaction was not surprising. In a tempered message, the SCO defended the Russian action but did not insist it's members on recognizing the independency of Abchazia and South Ossetia as Russia did. A disillusioned Russia turned the back to the SCO.

In september and october 2008 the worldwide financial crisis broke out. While China has until now survived this economical storm, Russia suffered severly. Several days, the stockmarket closed it's doors out of fear for unrational sellingbehaviour and total collapse. A financial crisis like in 1998 lurked around the corner.

Central to the functioning of the SCO is the “two-wheels-policy�. This means that on the areas of security and economy/trade the member states would cooperate within the SCO-framework. But as seen in the case of the Russian war in Georgia, the security pilar is not a solid one. Recently, Russia and China signed an energy deal worth $25 billion (Associated Press, 17 feb. 2009). The PR China secured Russian oil supplies for the next 20 years in return for badly-needed loans. No SCO official was seen nor any reference to the organization was made. The SCO-record on economic achievements remains very meager.

Conclusion.

If you try to ride a bike without wheels, you stand still or you fall down on the ground. For the moment, the SCO is still standing (and standing still at the same time). The current progress is minimal, only the bureaucratic appartus is extending (exempt for the activities of the RATS?) But for how long is the organization capable of balancing her asymetric composition? I forsee that it won't take long before the economical tides blow up or hollow out further the SCO. (TL)

Tim LAGRANGE