SCO and India and Pakistan

SCO’s first expansion since its 2001 inception, the ceremony — formally welcoming India and Pakistan to the SCO

The inclusion of both India and Pakistan will not only expand the SCO’s geographic writ, pushing it that much closer to a pan-Asian forum, but, with India’s inclusion, the SCO suddenly finds itself with that much more geopolitical heft.

Meanwhile, Russia’s backing of India’s accession would appear to come from a desire to dilute Chinese influence in the group. As Modi said this week, “India and Russia have always been together on international issues” — even if that means weakening Beijing’s dominance of the SCO.

India had been an observer country at the SCO since 2005 and had applied for a full membership in 2014.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), or Shanghai Pact, is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which was founded in 1996 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. These countries, except for Uzbekistan, had been members of the Shanghai Five, founded in 1996; after the inclusion of Uzbekistan in 2001, the members renamed the organisation.

India and Pakistan signed the memorandum of obligations on 24 June 2016 at Tashkent, thereby starting the formal process of joining the SCO as full members. The acceptance process will take some months, by which they are expected to become full members by the next meeting at Astana in 2017.

India also hopes to benefit from Tashkent-based Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (RATS).

Military Exercise by SCO

There have been a number of SCO joint military exercises. The first of these was held in 2003, with the first phase taking place in Kazakhstan and the second in China.

Since then China and Russia have teamed up for large-scale war games in 2005 (Peace Mission 2005), 2007 and 2009, under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

More than 4,000 soldiers participated at the joint military exercises in 2007 (known as "Peace Mission 2007") which took place in Chelyabinsk Russia near the Ural Mountains, as was agreed upon in April 2006 at a meeting of SCO Defence Ministers. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said that the exercises would be transparent and open to media and the public.

Following the war games' successful completion, Russian officials began speaking of India joining such exercises in the future and the SCO taking on a military role.

Peace Mission 2010, conducted 9–25 September at Kazakhstan's Matybulak training area, saw over 5,000 personnel from China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan conduct joint planning and operational maneuvers.