SCO Important for India’s ‘Connect Central Asia’ Policy

Brig (Retd) Vinod Anand, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

Salience of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and its relevance to India has been growing since India was first admitted to SCO as an observer in 2005. Over the years, SCO has acquired increasing significance as an important platform for cooperation on regional economic and security issues. India has been keen to engage the Central Asian countries in a wide variety of issues though keeping away from the power politics of the region. Counter terrorism, energy security, economic integration with Central Asian Republics (CARs) and improving connectivity are some of the key objectives of India while it pursues its interests under the rubric of SCO.

Currently, there are many competing structures in Central Asia which have similar agenda as the SCO. The foremost being the Central Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) and Eurasian Economic Community dominated by Russia, NATO’s Partnership for Peace Programme with Central Asian Republics, Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation, Economic Cooperation Organisation besides many other multilateral initiatives in the region that have overlapping domains with the SCO. Evidently, this has its own disadvantages and advantages but several structures to attain similar aims create inefficiencies and dilute the significance of any particular platform. It can also be seen that several major powers in the region have promoted their own structures to achieve their geo-political and geo-strategic objectives. Thus, it can be said that presence of such geo-political competition in the region does have an impact on the future development of SCO. In any case, SCO has emerged as the most prominent multilateral platform of the Central Asian region.

With the planned withdrawal of NATO and the US from Afghanistan post -2014, SCO is being viewed as an important organisation that could support security and stability efforts in Afghanistan. SCO’s permanent members and observer countries have interests in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan as adverse fallout from there has the potential of negatively affecting each and every country in the neighbourhood. SCO’s positive contribution to Afghanistan in a post-2014 scenario will help it in evolving as a very significant or rather the most important institution in the region. However, untangling the Afghan imbroglio would be a daunting task for the SCO.

While the Syrian crisis acquired more urgency at the SCO summit held this month in Bishkek, the main focus of the SCO’s deliberations was the developing situation in Afghanistan. Presidents of Russia, China and the host country of Kyrgyzstan articulated their concerns on the security situation in Afghanistan. India’s Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid observed that “India is increasingly concerned about the security challenges which may emanate from the developing situation in Afghanistan. India strongly believes that Afghanistan can successfully complete the security, political and economic transitions in coming years and regain its historical place as a hub for regional trade and transit routes. However, this presupposes fulfillment of pledges made by the international community for security and civilian assistance to Afghanistan and non-interference in Afghanistan’s internal affairs”. He underlined the fact that India considers SCO as an important body that can offer a credible alternative regional platform to discuss the challenges related to Afghanistan.

At the summit, India supported the general consensus of the SCO members on the Syrian crisis. India favours a political solution to the Syrian conflict, including the early holding of the proposed ‘International Conference on Syria’ (Geneva-II), bringing all parties to the conflict to the negotiating table.

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been attending SCO summit meetings since 2004. Afghanistan was admitted as an observer in the SCO last year. Four years back in 2009 summit in Russia, SCO had even made an action plan for addressing the situation in Afghanistan. However, even after many declarations and conferences, there has been very little that has been achieved in ameliorating the evolving situation in Afghanistan. No concrete SCO plans to deal with post 2014 situation in Afghanistan exist.

On the other hand, India and China have already had meetings on Central Asia developments that include Afghanistan. Earlier also there have been discussions between the two on Afghanistan at Track I and Track II levels. Both countries have also had bilateral dialogues with countries like Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on the implications of US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. Though SCO appears to be an attractive platform for forging a regional solution to the Afghan puzzle, yet its present state of development may not be conducive for the same.

India has also started a dialogue with Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) of the SCO and is looking forward to enhanced cooperation and information exchanges with it. The overall objective of India’s engagement with RATS and the SCO member States would be to coordinate efforts in dealing with the threats emanating from terrorism and drug trafficking.

So far as the question of admitting new members is concerned, there has been a very gradual movement. Such a step would definitely add to the stature of the SCO and make it more inclusive and comprehensive. In addition, it will strengthen the SCO’s capacity to work towards bringing peace and stability in the region. But it would take some time before the geo-political apprehensions of both the existing members and likely new members could be overcome.

India has on many occasions expressed its desire to join the SCO though it has not yet made a formal application. Last year, the then External Affairs Minister S M Krishna who attended the SCO Summit in Beijing had declared India’s intention in seeking membership of the forum. Again in December last year, at SCO’s Prime Ministerial meeting at Bishkek, India’s Secretary (East) had stated that New Delhi was keen to join the SCO as a full member. This call was repeated again by Salman Khurshid; he said at the Bishkek summit that “India stands ready to play a larger role in the SCO as a full member, once the organization reaches consensus on the expansion process. It is our conviction that an expanded SCO will be a more effective body to address the numerous security and developmental challenges that our region faces”. This also indicates the seriousness with which India views the SCO.

However, Indian interlocutors are expecting a movement on membership only in 2015 as the SCO Secretariat is moving very slowly on the issue of admitting new members. Apparently, China is not as yet ready to give its consent for India being admitted to SCO and all decisions in this forum is taken based on the consent of all the members. There appears to be some complicated and unstated geo-political conditions attached to India’s SCO’s membership.

India’s interests in Central Asia are also focussed on energy security where it is looking for creating a level playing field by the hydro carbon rich CARs like Kazakhstan. India has lost out to China in striking at least two oil deals with Kazakhstan for debatable reasons. India, though not a member, has strongly endorsed the Russian proposal of creating an SCO Energy Club (first articulated in 2007). The avowed objectives of the SCO Energy Club of “uniting oil and gas companies from SCO’s producers, consumers and transit countries in coordination of strategies with the aim of increasing energy security” rhymes very well with India’s interests. However, Bishkek summit discussions did not focus much on the issue this year.

Another topic of interest to India is improving its connectivity to CARs; India has been seeking cooperation of Iran and SCO members in achieving the aims and objectives of its new ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy that was unveiled last year in June. India’s Minister of State for External Affairs had stated that “India is now looking intently at the region through the framework of its ‘connect central Asia’ policy, which is based on pro-active political, economic and people-to-people engagement with central Asian countries, both individually and collectively”.

Further, with the economic down trend gaining some momentum, the proposed SCO Development Bank could become a useful vehicle for cooperating on removing the negative effects of such a situation. Economic integration with neighoburhood and extended neighbourhood has been one of the stated Indian policies and therefore, India is very keen to step up efforts in economic cooperation between South Asia and Central Asia. This is expected to bring peace and prosperity and contribute towards stability in the region. Thus, the summit discussed as to how the SCO Development Bank could further modernise the economies, improve investment partnership and infrastructure and transportation corridors. India needs to become an important partner so that its connectivity and trade objectives could be realised.

India is already engaging the SCO member states in areas of human resource development, IT, pharmaceuticals, small and medium enterprises, people to people relations etc. as part of its ‘Connect Central Asia’ policy and would continue to seek to intensify the same through the SCO platform.

India will not favour SCO if it moves towards becoming a military block like NATO or the CSTO. SCO does hold joint military exercises regularly, the latest being Peace Mission 2013 but they are designed to be anti-terrorism exercises where observer countries are invited to send observers off and on.

Overall, SCO is becoming a very significant multilateral platform in Central Asia to forge regional cooperation. Helping in bringing peace and stability in Afghanistan in post-2014 scenario would be a test case for the SCO as an institution.

The Divided Oceans

Kanwal Sibal (Member, VIF Advisory Board)

The security challenges in the Asia-Pacific region, which American‘re-balancing’ towards Asia and Barack Obama’s tour of some Asian countries so early into his second presidency seek to address, are many and complex. Territorial disputes remain sharp in the region. China lays claim to Indian territory and so does Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan have border differences. China has maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. Taiwan is also a party to these disputes, besides China itself having sovereignty claims over Taiwan. Japan and Russia have an outstanding dispute over the Kuril Islands.

The problem of terrorism is more acute in this region than anywhere else. Pakistan, along with the border areas of Afghanistan, is a breeding ground of terrorism targeting India and Afghanistan, and creating a sense of vulnerability in Central Asia. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have seen terrorism on their soil. So has China in Xinjiang. Terrorism has afflicted Thailand and Indonesia. Nuclear proliferation is a problem in the two extremities of this region, in Iran and North Korea. At the western end, the threat of a military strike against Iran is real despite the position of Russia and China, while it is most unlikely against North Korea at the eastern end in deference to China’s opposition.

The presence of the United States of America in the region is substantial, with its Seventh Fleet as well as military bases in Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Diego Garcia. With concerns about China’s rise in mind, the US is reinforcing its military assets in the region further. The US defence secretary has described India, a bit exaggeratedly no doubt, as a “lynchpin” of this new strategy. In any case, this shows the direction of American thinking in terms of partnering with India strategically in this region.

With its Fifth Fleet and bases in the Gulf countries, the US has now a presence in the western end of the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz. Apart from putting pressure on Iran, the US claims that this presence is intended to maintain stability in the region and ensure uninterrupted supplies of oil and gas to American friends and allies, more so now that the US imports only 10 per cent of its hydrocarbon needs, and even this figure will decline with huge discoveries of shale gas in the US.

The US navy has a sizable presence in the Indian Ocean for assuring the security of sea-lanes of communication. For this, it has been engaging the Indian Navy in a big way, with the two countries holding frequent naval exercises together. These exercises are now being held also in the trilateral India-US-Japan format.

It is argued that while the security architectures during the Cold War were based primarily on military alliances, the need today is to base these architectures on shared values, interests and challenges. This Euro-Atlantic-centric view is debatable, as China, India and scores of non-aligned countries were outside the Cold War alliance systems. Today, NATO not only exists, its membership has been expanded and its role has been geographically extended. NATO operated in Yugoslavia and Iraq. It is operating in Afghanistan; it acted in Libya. The US has declared its intention to strengthen its military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region. Russia is working to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization in the erstwhile Soviet space. It is wrong to downplay too much the security role of military alliances today.

The idea of basing the new security architectures on “shared values” is also a Euro-Atlantic view. What are these “shared values”: those of democracy, pluralism, human rights and so on? But then, there are serious differences over these issues. Many countries are either not democratic or have their own concept of democracy. There is serious opposition to what is seen as the US crusade for democracy for geopolitical reasons, a tendency to impose it by force at great human cost, and double standards in the application of this principle.

Similarly, the human rights issue has been highly politicized by the West, there is selectivity in its application and the critics believe the issue has been used cynically for regime change, among other things. So, can the new security architectures be built on highly contested notions in their controversial practical application? Can the US, Russia and China be brought on a common platform on them, not to mention many others, including the Islamic countries?

The question arises whether the Indian and Pacific Oceans constitute a single strategic space? The answer would be “yes” from the US Navy’s point of view with its responsibilities extending across the two oceans. It could be true for India, which dominates the Indian Ocean geographically, only in the specific context of the expansion of the Chinese blue-water navy and its future ability to break through the first and second chain of islands and establish an increasing presence in the Pacific and eventually in the Indian Ocean, for which China is already creating the basis.

Our navy signals its ability to operate far from Indian shores by, for instance, periodically holding exercises with the Russian navy at Vladivostok. The Pacific is also the venue now of the trilateral India-US-Japan naval exercises. But the Pacific Ocean is too vast for India to have strategic interest in it. As regards the security of sea-lanes of communication, the problem pertains largely to the Indian Ocean area, from the Strait of Hormuz through the Malacca Strait to the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, not the Pacific as such.

The energy and trade flows across these waters are huge and vital for the economies of Japan, South Korea and China. In this vast stretch, there are problems of piracy in the Indian Ocean area off the coast of Somalia, but no issues of sovereignty that can threaten international navigation rights, except in the South China Sea. All concerned countries would not want these vital lanes to be interfered with in case of tensions or conflict, but how to ensure this?

For the moment, the two navies best placed to provide security in much of this area are the US and Indian navies, but countries like China may want an independent capacity to do so. This is where geo-political concerns come into play and can be a source of mistrust and problems. The challenge is for all to agree to certain rules of the road and norms of conduct. A wider Asia-Pacific security architecture will not be easy to build. Other continents have continental-scale organizations, but not Asia. There are too many players with conflicting interests and ambitions. Several disputes remain unresolved. The world-view as well as political, social and religious values of countries differ.

It would be more realistic to first build bilateral understandings between countries that have differences and then seek to widen the circle of these understandings to solidify them at the multilateral level in an incremental process. As bilateral relations between key countries markedly improve, existing organizations like SCO, SAARC, ECO, CSTO, ARF, IOC-ARC, BIMST-EC, and the East Asia Summit could become the building blocks of a larger Asia-Pacific security architecture. But that seems far away for now.