New SCO members uphold Shanghai Spirit

The 18th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be held in Qingdao, Shandong province, on Saturday and Sunday, and India and Pakistan will be attending as formal members for the first time.

As members, the two rivals are being asked to work together and jointly play a role in upholding peace and security in the region.

During the past year, India and Pakistan have vigorously participated in various security cooperation initiatives within the framework of the SCO and dutifully upheld the Shanghai Spirit which stresses mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity and pursuit of common development.

As a result the SCO has been able to effectively bridge their deep-rooted divergences and grievances and these have not affected the security cooperation of the SCO.

The membership of India and Pakistan has significantly raised the overall strength of the SCO－multiplying the scale of the organization so it covers about 44 percent of the world's population and about one-fifth of the global GDP－and their entry will help the organization to meet the security challenges in the region.

Through summits and meetings among heads of states and ministers, and other dialogues within the SCO, the opportunities for India and Pakistan to sit down to discuss security issues and to get to know each other's positions and concerns through direct discussions have increased.

First of all, the ice has already melted to some degree as official contact between the two countries has restarted. Last year, then Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif shook hands and exchanged greetings with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the SCO Summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, reducing the tensions that had been building up over the previous 17 months due to the Kashmir issue. And recently, India sent a delegation to pay an unofficial visit to Pakistan during which the two sides discussed anti-terrorism cooperation, signaling a change in India's policy toward Pakistan.

The two countries' willingness to talk already represents progress, although rebuilding or elevating trust seems out of the question at present. However, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to be considering an unofficial meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in due course.

Second, the two countries' stances toward Afghanistan have converged to some extent. After becoming members of the SCO, India and Pakistan have proactively engaged in coordinating their anti-smuggling and anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan, while pushing for Afghanistan's peace process so as to eliminate the terrorist and extremist threats the region faces once and for all.

Third, India and Pakistan becoming members has made the anti-terrorism mechanism of the SCO more effective. The comprehensive anti-terrorism forces within the security bloc have been significantly enhanced following the group's expansion, and it will be better able to safeguard the security of Central Asia and South Asia.

India and Pakistan have purportedly consented to participate in the SCO joint military exercise Peace Mission 2018, to be held later this year. Besides, the collaboration of India and Pakistan in the fight against terrorism within the SCO framework will facilitate resolving the security issues in the region and enhance regional security, mainly through SCO actions targeting the Islamic State and "East Turkestan Islamic Movement" in Afghanistan.

Of course, due to the extremely complicated issue of Kashmir, it will be impossible for India and Pakistan to turn hostility into friendship just because they belong to the same organization. Their divergences run so deep that they can hardly overcome them and reach consensus on their own.

Having said that, India and Pakistan can still reinforce their collaboration and build trust to create conditions for an eventual breakthrough. First, they should strive to move closer to the SCO standards on anti-terrorism including the identification of terrorist groups and terrorists and seek for the minimum common divisor both sides can recognize and act on according to the relevant SCO regulations.

Second, they should join the SCO anti-terrorist drills and enhance cooperation on border controls and intelligence sharing so as to accumulate and build mutual trust and therewith establish a regional line of defense against the spread of terrorism with other countries in the region.

Third, the institutional infrastructure and legal foundations on which bilateral ties are built should be solidified through the SCO. Fortunately both countries have abided by existing SCO agreements, including the Agreement on Confidence-Building in the Military Field Along the Border Areas, the Treaty on Long-term Good Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation and the SCO Convention on Countering Extremism, which can help them understand the core interests and appeals of the other members and ensure the steady development of bilateral relations.

To sum up, the SCO must confront its growing pains as expansion is inevitable for its development. In addition, India and Pakistan should continue to play active roles in the security collaboration in the SCO under the guidance of the Shanghai Spirit, and jointly contribute to making the SCO an organization of shared security based on mutual respect, shared benefits and common development.

The author is a research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.