The SCO is not the anti-American group that Russia wants

Leaders and top officials of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization met today in Islamabad, calling for improving security and economic cooperation, boosting people-to-people contact and mitigating the effects of climate change. The SCO includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and four Central Asian states. (AP)

Our take

Today’s SCO meeting highlights how the role of regional organizations has changed over the past two decades. In the 2000s and early 2010s, in parallel with the resurgent emphasis on multilateralism, regional groupings were considered a practical tool for states to facilitate cooperation, reduce tensions, and increase their influence on the global stage.

The SCO fit perfectly into this picture. Founded in 2001, the organization’s original tacit aim was to reduce friction between Moscow and Beijing in their respective involvements in Central Asia. At the time, China was seeking greater economic access to the region, where Russia had historically been the hegemon. The SCO’s confidence-building forum prevented the resulting competition between the two from causing tension, while strengthening Central Asia’s strategic position.

But over the past decade, the SCO, like many regional and smaller organizations, has become as much a symbol of global competition as of cooperation. Russia and China have both sought to position the grouping, as well as the BRICS, as an alternative to the US-Western led world order and platforms to counter Western pressure.

While Moscow and Beijing may view the SCO as an anti-American group, the organization’s internal dynamics are much more complicated than that, especially since it expanded into India and Pakistan in 2017, followed by Iran last year. For example, India is actively strengthening ties with the West, while Central Asian states are pursuing economic cooperation with a number of Western countries, including the United States. A similar dynamic can be seen in the BRICS countries, where Brazil and South Africa, like India, are less eager to actively counter the West than Russia and China. Instead, they see the BRICS as a useful platform to usher in a more multipolar order, a view also shared by many of that grouping’s new members.

Simply put, while blocs like the SCO and BRICS will continue to play an important role in economic development, diplomatic connectivity and, to some extent, competition, their geopolitical orientation is more complicated than the reductionist narrative of a Second Cold War.

For more: Read Ali Ahmadi’s briefing from last year on the SCO’s identity crisis.

A fuel tanker exploded in the village of Majiya in the north Nigeria At least 94 people were killed and another 50 injured yesterday. Officials say the tanker overturned and locals rushed to collect the spilled fuel, prompting the truck to explode.

While the explosion is undoubtedly a tragedy, it is also just the latest in a long line of fuel tanker explosions across the continent. In 2020 alone, Nigeria recorded 1,531 petrol tanker accidents, resulting in 535 deaths.

As Chris O. Ògúnmọ́dẹdé wrote in 2021 after an explosion in Sierra Leone killed more than 130 people under conditions similar to yesterday’s, the problems that lead to these types of tragedies are seemingly well known in Africa, but have gone largely unnoticed by governments .

Leaders of the National Conference, a regional party, were sworn in in May India-controlled Kashmir after the first local elections in a decade. The vote was also the first in Kashmir since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped the region of its semi-autonomous rule in 2019, a move opposed by the National Conference but has no power to reverse.

Since 2019, increased state surveillance and intimidation have brought relative calm to the restive region. But as Shweta Desai reported in January 2023, locals say the outward appearance of peace in Kashmir masks pent-up anger that is likely to lead to more violence and insecurity in the future.

Tunisia will increase taxes on businesses and middle to high income earners next year as the country continues to face a financial crisis and struggles to obtain external financing. While President Kais Saied’s power grab has attracted increased international attention in recent years, he has also failed to demonstrate the ability to tackle Tunisia’s worsening economic crisis. And as Francisco Serrano wrote last year: the two stories are inseparable.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has hailed his national unity government – the coalition formed between his ANC, the main opposition party and a number of smaller parties – as the country’s “second miracle” as it enters its first 100 days in power. But while many South Africans share that sense of optimism, as Chris O. Ògúnmọ́dẹdé wrote when the coalition was first formed, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical.

Related