The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit and Impact Upon September’s G20 Summit
New Eurasian Transport Routes And Developments As India Wrestles With Global Geopolitical Tensions
India’s recent hosting of the annual meeting of the SCO heads of state in a virtual format has proved to be a watershed meeting for the grouping. Just prior to the SCO summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Washington in what would have been interesting follow up conversations with fellow SCO attendees Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Interestingly enough, and not picked up by Western media sources, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov subsequently met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s top Statesman Wang Yi in a closed-door session at last week’s East Asia Forum in Jakarta.
But back to the SCO. Its full members include China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In addition to this, in what is a rapidly expanding organisation are three Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus and Mongolia) and fourteen “Dialogue Partners” (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cambodia, Egypt, Kuwait, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Turkiye, and the United Arab Emirates).
There are various Eurasian transport connectivity issues which have arisen as a result of the SCO event, which are intertwined with other regional issues. For example, India has to work out the issues of the current chairmanship of the G20 with the next annual meeting due in early September in New Delhi. It will be the first held in India. The schedule of meetings is really tight, while India still lacks some experience in systemic global diplomatic work. It will also want a contributory summit and not to have to oversee a slanging match dominated by the United States, China and Russia trading insults and walking out of meetings.
The G20 is made up of 19 countries and the EU. The 19 countries are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkiye, the United Kingdom and the United States. All the current BRICS members are also part of the G20, making the New Delhi September summit quite a potpourri.
But other Heads of State, both attending and influential, also have busy work schedules that impact India, the SCO going forward and the upcoming G20 meetings.
Russian President Putin is forced to pay constant attention to issues concerning Ukraine and NATO, the Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is scheduled for re-elections, and Pakistani President Arif Alvi has the same while trying to guide the country through a difficult internal political situation. China’s Xi Jinping meanwhile has not yet confirmed G20 attendance, and it is possible he may not arrive in Delhi.
Geopolitical Differences
Moreover, the association involves countries that have a different understanding of the current geopolitical processes, and even territorial claims against each other. For example, India found itself in an isolated situation in the SCO: China and Pakistan managed to turn India into an island. It is very difficult for the Prime Minister of India to find a common agenda for such diverse participants, and the G20 will prove the same unless Modi can find a way to unite opinions. As a result, the leaders of the participating countries simply voiced their own vision of the current moment and prospects for the development of the organisation. This exchange of views does not oblige anyone to do anything, but simply provides an opportunity to understand each other’s positions.
SCO Developments
From the outcomes of the SCO summit, the standouts – whether one approves of them or not – was the accession of Iran as a full-fledged member of the organisation, as well as the entry into the final stages of the Belarusian SCO integration process. Belarussia’s President Lukashenko has even proposed to begin the integration of the SCO, the EAEU and the BRICS. The idea was taken with some pinch of salt: in reality, these structures so different in ideology and political agenda that they can hardly be united in any foreseeable horizon. Nevertheless, discussion groups looking into certainly SCO integration with Belt & Road Initiative projects have long been underway – and shown results, while there is dialogue to introduce Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) Free Trade Agreements into the SCO grouping.
All this suggests that, within the framework of the SCO, the participating countries are gradually moving towards understanding the multi-speed format of work: the geopolitical agendas of the players are beginning to diverge. Thus far, this is less apparent, but as the SCO develops, situational alliances will take shape within it, and to a greater extent meeting the interests of the participants. For example, the anti-Western situational bloc of Russia, Iran, and Belarus. Or a block of countries hoping to use the institutions of the global world order for their own purposes, such as China and India.
For Beijing, the SCO has long acted as a framework structure that supports the common rules of the new Great Game throughout Eurasia. The primary task for China’s participation in the SCO – which Beijing was instrumental in establishing – has been to secure the northern and western borders of China, which the SCO is generally coping with and especially so after the chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan. In principle China is implementing the economic track of Eurasian integration within the framework of another geopolitical project: the Belt & Road Initiative.
Kashgar – Gwadar Railway
The study of a proposed new railway route was announced: the Kashgar – Gwadar route. Long a dream of China’s dating back decades, the projects feasibility has long been put on the back-burner due to the difficult terrain and sheer costs. Essentially the route needs to head south from Kashgar and connect with Pakistan’s national railway network at Islamabad. But then Pakistan’s national rail network also needs upgrading. If proven feasible, this would connect China’s Xinjiang Province to the Persian Gulf, and potentially allow China to minimise the risks that exist for maritime transit to the Middle East.
Caspian – Pacific Railway
For Moscow, in the current situation, the functioning of the SCO is also primarily a guarantee of security from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean, which already exists via the Trans-Siberian railway – although this is currently operating at close to capacity. Doubling the track is required.
Russia is not placing any economic stakes on the SCO, and it is more convenient for Moscow to resolve these issues within the framework of bilateral contacts. It remains to be seen if Russia’s current domestic economic growth drivers, spurred by industrial productivity increases due to the Ukraine conflict, will spill over into additional large regional infrastructure projects.
The Kazakh Question
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan also participated in the SCO summit. As the successor to Prime Minister Modi Chairmanship of the 2023 SCO, Kazakhstan chairs the SCO in 2024. President Tokayev outlined the problem of overcoming the geopolitical split between East and West as the main topic for the next 2024. However, the content side of the question is confusing: what can Astana offer to the East and West?
It will be interesting to see what arguments Astana will bring to Beijing, New Delhi, and Moscow as sufficient grounds for refusing to form their own macro-regions and preserving the existing unipolar pro-American world order. It is all the more interesting what Astana is counting on in an absentee dialogue with Washington and London, which consider both Kazakhstan itself and other SCO countries as partially under their influence. Tokayev is currently walking a balanced tightrope – East, or West?
A really interesting proposal of Kazakhstan could be the harmonisation of the energy policy of the SCO countries: both Iran and Russia would like to have shorter access to the hydrocarbon markets of India and Pakistan. The issue of launching the Central Asia-Centre gas pipeline system in reverse mode is quite realistic in the presence of significant gas sales markets. Moscow has repeatedly spoken about its readiness to organise swap deliveries to Iran. In the medium and long term, this gas pipeline could be extended to South Asia.
Astana’s third important message is a proposal to implement certain significant regional economic projects on the basis of the SCO. Which in itself is rather strange: the SCO was created primarily as a structure for maintaining security between the participants. However, it has morphed something beyond this, already acting as a geopolitical umbrella for the real economic integration projects: the BRI and the EAEU.
It is clear that Astana is trying to dilute Chinese and Russian economic initiatives in the region, but who can act as a similar economic donor? India has no serious economic interests in Central Asia due to a lack of reliable logistics. Iran and Pakistan are themselves recipients of foreign investment. External players (like Western countries) and will not invest anything in a competing geopolitical bloc.
Within the framework of the BRI (China) and the EAEU (Russia), all the necessary investment structures have already been created: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Eurasian Development Bank. That is why Astana will be told that there is no need to multiply entities beyond the necessary.
India’s G20 Management
Indian management of the upcoming G20 summit then will reveal much. There has been closed door dialogue between the United States, Russia and China, while it is apparent that there is ideological convergence of Eurasian integration as concerns Russia, China, Central, and South East Asia. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in an assessment of the United States attitude in last week’s East Asia Summit, the US appears to want to focus on what it calls ‘security concerns’ despite the Eurasian region being thousands of miles from the SCO. The G20 however is another matter. Whether China’s Xi Jinping and / or US President Biden attend, and whether New Delhi can dissuade Washington from talking up more security and the need for a NATO presence in the region will be seen as a difficult task for Modi’s Statesmanship. Heading up a nuclear power and one of the world’s largest economies may yet help Modi introduce subtle changes while keeping the worst of global bellicosity at bay.
Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the Chairman of Dezan Shira & Associates
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