Welcoming India and Pakistan into the SCO, China today dismissed apprehensions that their differences could disrupt the unity of the grouping saying its charter strictly prohibits members to bring their bilateral hostility into the organisation.
SCO is pan-Eurasian inter-Governmental security block that is largely considered as an Asian-answer to NATO. With inclusion of India & Pakistan, SCO now represents 40% of world’s population & that gives it a lot of weight among the other numerous regional organizations.
China, Russia and Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan besides India and Pakistan are the members of the grouping. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia are the observers.
China's Assistant Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou said “In the charter of the SCO there is a clause that the hostility between the bilateral relations should not be brought to the organisation. I believe both the countries will abide by the charter of the organisation,"
"Between our member states our interests far outweigh our differences. So, we should not exaggerate the differences between the countries as it is not good for the organisation and cooperation between member states. After becoming members, we all become members of the big family," he said.
Leverage for Pakistan
In 2010, Pakistan became member of The Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) that paved the way for Pakistan to link its Gwadar & Karachi ports to landlocked Central Asian states but Pakistan has not made the use of this membership to the fullest due to numerous reasons. Now that under CPEC, Gwadar deep sea port is operational, Pakistan can make SCO members to be part of CPEC, turning Gwadar into the hub of international sea trade.
SCO is unique in a sense that it consists of both large energy producers like Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Iran and energy consumers like China, India & Pakistan. SCO membership will also allow Pakistan & India a platform to sit together & workout some plan to resume gas projects like IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) and TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India).