The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: the other side of the new world order

China, Russia, India and Iran, alongside six other nations, bring together a formidable combination of population, territory, energy, raw materials and economic capacity. They do not form a military alliance or a cohesive bloc, but the SCO is beginning to function as one of the main platforms from which the transition towards a more multipolar international system is being negotiated. There are photographs that capture the spirit of an era better than many treaties. The image of Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi sharing the stage in Bishkek falls into that category. The Chinese President, the Russian leader and the Indian Prime Minister represent profoundly different interests and harbour rivalries towards one another that are at times difficult to conceal. However, the three have found in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation a common ground broad enough to champion an idea that, until a few years ago, seemed more of an aspiration than a reality: global power can no longer be organised around a single centre. Nurlan Yermekbayev, Alexander Lukashenko, Narendra Modi, Masoud Pezeshkian, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Xi Jinping, Sadyr Japarov, Vladimir Putin, Shehbaz Sharif, Emomali Rahmon, Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Ularbek Sharsheev pose for a group photo ahead of a session at the SCO summit held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 1 September 2026 - Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS The summit held on 1 September in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, coinciding with the organisation's twenty-fifth anniversary, served to confirm this transformation. The SCO, created in 2001 from the former Shanghai Five, was essentially established as a mechanism to resolve border disputes and combat terrorism, separatism and extremism. Today it comprises ten countries and has become a forum for security, trade, energy, technology, connectivity and international diplomacy. Its scale is hard to ignore. China, India and Russia are among the world's largest economies; Iran is a leading energy power; Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons; and the Central Asian republics occupy a strategic position between China, Russia, the Middle East and Europe. Taken together, the SCO's members account for around 43 per cent of the world's population and approximately a quarter of global GDP. But demographic and economic statistics tell only part of the story. The organisation's true significance lies in its accumulation of strategic resources. Its members hold roughly one-fifth of the world's oil reserves and nearly half of the proven natural gas reserves. In the case of rare earths – whose importance to the electronics, energy, aerospace and defence industries is growing rapidly – China, India and Russia together account for around 60 per cent of known reserves. This figure takes on particular significance because China not only possesses vast reserves but also dominates a large part of the processing and refining stages for these minerals. It is, therefore, an organisation built upon a formidable material foundation. Territory, population, energy, critical minerals, trade corridors and domestic markets come together in a space stretching from Eastern Europe to the Far East and from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean. The SCO member states account for approximately one-fifth of the world's oil reserves and nearly half of the world's proven natural gas reserves – PHOTO/PEXELS An alternative bloc to the West The question that is beginning to be asked in Western capitals is inevitable: is an alternative bloc to the West emerging? The answer calls for a degree of caution. The SCO is not an Asian NATO. Its members are not obliged to defend one another, nor is there an integrated military structure. Nor do they have a common foreign policy. The rivalry between India and Pakistan remains deep-seated; India and China are engaged in strategic competition; Russia and China have divergent interests in Central Asia; and the small Central Asian states are seeking to avoid becoming mere pawns of any of the major powers. It is precisely for this reason that it is more interesting to observe what the SCO is actually building. The Bishkek Declaration and the documents adopted during the summit considerably broadened the scope of cooperation. Agreements were adopted on security and drug trafficking, artificial intelligence, data centres, environmental protection, energy, transport and logistics. The organisation also made progress in creating financial mechanisms and in the use of national currencies for trade amongst its members. This is not an immediate financial revolution. The dollar remains the principal reserve currency and the currency of international trade, and Western financial institutions continue to wield extraordinary influence. But the direction of this movement is significant. Russia, subject to extensive Western sanctions, has a clear interest in reducing its dependence on the US-dominated financial system. China is watching this development closely. India, whilst maintaining close economic and technological ties with Washington, does not wish to see its strategic options constrained by decisions taken in another capital. The dollar remains the main reserve currency and currency for international transactions - PHOTO/FILE Vladimir Putin made this clear during the summit. According to the Russian president, more than 98 per cent of Russia's trade with SCO members is already conducted in national currencies. Moscow also hopes that the organisation's future Development Bank will be independent of Western financial structures. China, however, appears to be pursuing a more sophisticated objective than simply building an anti-US bloc. Xi Jinping has spoken of a 'multipolar, equitable and orderly' world, of reforming international governance and of the need to preserve the central role of the United Nations. At the same time, Beijing is promoting projects in infrastructure, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, data centres and trade corridors capable of providing Eurasia with greater autonomy. China's message is less about dismantling the existing international system than about reshaping the balance of power within it. This nuance is important. Carnegie Endowment specialist Evan A. Feigenbaum cautioned during the summit against a simplistic interpretation of the SCO as an organisation in which Russia is losing its 'backyard' to China. In his view, the organisation was fundamentally established as a Chinese instrument, and Beijing's economic presence in Central Asia has been decisive for decades. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping have tea following their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on 20 May 2026 – SPUTNIK/ALEZANDER KAZAKOV Internal rivalries Recent academic research also suggests that we should avoid jumping to conclusions. James MacHaffie, writing in Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, considers that the SCO has the potential to become an important counterbalance to Western security structures, but warns that rivalries amongst its main members could seriously limit that possibility. Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, a specialist in China and Russia, reaches a similar conclusion from a different perspective: the SCO's limitations are unlikely to disappear until China, Russia and India reach some sort of understanding on the distribution of power within the organisation itself. India is perhaps the best example of this ambivalence. Narendra Modi did not travel to Bishkek to join a crusade against the United States. New Delhi maintains a strategic relationship with Washington and participates in the Quad alongside the United States, Japan and Australia. But India also buys Russian energy, is developing ties with Iran and participates in the SCO because it understands that the emerging world cannot be managed exclusively through institutions created under Western dominance. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India – PHOTO/ARCHIVE Modi even used his meeting with Putin to call once again for an end to the war in Ukraine. The scene perfectly encapsulates the nature of the SCO: cooperation without subordination and convergence without alliance. What happened with Iran is also significant. The summit backed Iranian sovereignty and condemned the attacks on its territory, whilst calling for respect for its right to nuclear development for peaceful purposes. By contrast, the war in Ukraine was virtually omitted from the joint declaration, precisely because there is no consensus amongst the members regarding the conflict. This difference reveals the true logic behind the Bishkek summit. Members may agree that they do not want an international system that is overly dependent on Washington without necessarily sharing the foreign policies of Moscow, Beijing or Tehran. Nor does the SCO's expansion stop at its ten members. Turkey, which has held the status of dialogue partner since 2012, has once again expressed its aspiration to become a full member. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, was quick to clarify after the summit that the rapprochement with China and Russia does not mean abandoning Western alliances. That statement provides further evidence that the new international system resembles less a division into two blocs than a complex network of overlapping partnerships. Therein probably lies the SCO's greatest significance. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attend a reception as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on 1 September 2026 – Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS During the Cold War, international dynamics tended to be organised around relatively well-defined blocs. Today, the major powers cooperate in one area, compete in another and maintain cross-alliances in a third. India can belong to both the SCO and the Quad at the same time. Turkey can be a member of NATO whilst aspiring to a closer relationship with the SCO. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can maintain close ties with Washington whilst deepening their relations with Beijing and Moscow. The SCO does not need to become a military alliance to alter the global balance of power. It need only help its members to have more alternatives: energy alternatives; financial alternatives; technological alternatives; logistical alternatives; diplomatic alternatives. In this sense, the organisation represents one of the most visible responses to the growing use of sanctions, trade restrictions, technology controls and financial measures as instruments of international power. The greater the perception that access to markets, credit, technologies or the payments system can be used as a means of exerting pressure, the greater the incentive for emerging powers to develop alternative networks. Bishkek has not proclaimed the birth of a new empire nor the demise of the Western order. It has revealed something more important and probably more enduring: that the monopoly on the ability to define international rules is being challenged. The SCO still has too many internal contradictions to become a cohesive bloc. But perhaps that is not its purpose. Its true strength may lie precisely in being a flexible platform where powers that do not fully trust one another find sufficient reasons to cooperate. The picture emerging from Bishkek, therefore, does not herald a new Cold War. It heralds something more uncertain: a world in which it will no longer be possible to assume that all major decisions will be taken in Washington, Brussels or Western capitals. And that transformation – more quiet than spectacular – may well be the most significant geopolitical development to emerge from the summit.