The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit held in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, has once again confirmed that global politics is moving away from unipolar dominance models and evolving into a multi-centered, flexible, and “beyond blocs” architecture. This process, which stands out with the theme “Connections are strengthening, new alliances are being formed” shows that the SCO has become one of the founding wills of the new international order under construction. On the eve of its 25th anniversary, the organization is faced with the question of whether it is a dogmatic Eastern bloc directly challenging the transatlantic alliance or a functional diplomatic umbrella managing intra-Eurasian contradictions.
Messages from Bishkek demonstrate that the organization is not just a security forum, but also serves as an institutional shield that builds alternative geo-economic lines against Western-centric financial shackles.
At this historical turning point, where global supply chains are being remapped, energy routes are shifting, and the wave of de-dollarization is spreading to the global south, the SCO is sending a message of becoming a collective center of resistance that will render unilateral sanctions meaningless. In other words, this protective wall being erected in the Eurasian geography against the encirclement moves of Western actors sends the message that the organization could transform into an autonomous superstructure that sets the rules of global trade in the future. In this context, the decisions made at the Summit hold great significance and will be the subject of our next analysis. Therefore, this analysis of ours will be more of a “prelude.”
From Border Security to the Center of Multipolarity: Historical Breaks
The evolutionary trajectory of the SCO is a project in the international relations literature described as “the transformation of a regional security forum into a global power center.” In 1996, five years after the dissolution of the USSR, the “Shanghai Five”, established to resolve border disputes between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, was born as a mechanism for military confidence-building measures. During this period, Beijing’s primary motivation appears to be managing the geopolitical vacuum in post-Soviet Central Asia and ensuring internal security concerns through border security. In 2001, with Uzbekistan’s participation, the structure transformed into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, conceptualized as the “Shanghai Spirit”, which enshrined the principles of mutual trust, equality, respect for diversity, and common development in its charter.
The greatest structural rupture in the organization’s history is the expansion moves that carry a geopolitical microcosm to the macro level. Established in 2001 on the axis of “separatism,” “extremism,” and “counter-terrorism,” the “Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure” (RATS) has fortified the organization’s institutional backbone with a military-strategic identity, deepening intelligence and operational integration among member countries. The historic 2017 expansion of India and Pakistan extended the organization’s reach beyond Central Asia to South Asia, bringing together competing nuclear powers around the same table and transforming the structure into a massive bloc of population, market, and geography. Finally, the full memberships of Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024 have not only transformed the SCO from a geographical structure but have also made it an organized anti-hegemonic resistance hub against the global status quo, gathering revisionist actors exposed to the West’s unilateral isolation and encirclement policies. In its early days, this structure was a platform for stabilizing China’s periphery, but today it has transformed into the most dynamic institutional center of a multipolar world, representing more than one-third of global GDP and approximately 40% of the world’s population.
The “Asymmetric Partnership” of the Two-Headed Eagle and the Dragon and Other Members
SCO is fundamentally based on the “asymmetric partnership” between Beijing’s economic power and Moscow’s military-strategic legacy. For China, the SCO is a “corridor” and “lifeline” that secures the logistical and financial lines of the Belt and Road Initiative, providing “land-based strategic depth” against American naval encirclement strategies. For Russia, this organization is the crown jewel of its multi-vector foreign policy, which nullifies the West’s diplomatic and economic isolation efforts and reestablishes itself as a “great power” on the global stage. However, this dual leadership is not met with untroubled acceptance by the other members.
For example, New Delhi uses the SCO as a pragmatic instrument to avoid being excluded from the Eurasian geography, gain access to continental energy routes, and balance the China-Pakistan axis from within. India, which is also a member of the QUAD, is the sole actor demonstrating the strongest institutional resistance to the organization’s transformation into an overtly anti-Western military bloc and its falling under Beijing’s absolute control. For a significant portion of the other members, however, the SCO serves as an institutional framework that balances two massive neighbors against one another to protect their sovereign rights and provides them with diplomatic maneuvering room on an equal footing. This complex and fragile balancing mechanism is both the organization’s greatest vulnerability and the strongest democratic check preventing it from becoming a monolithic tyranny.
The Ukraine War and the Limits of Support for Russia
The Ukraine crisis is one of the greatest tests for the collective identity and future of the SCO. In contrast to the Western media’s tendency to portray the SCO as an entity that unconditionally supports Russia, the organization’s stance on the Ukraine war can be summarized as “quiet distance and pragmatic neutrality.” Russia has not received collective military or open political support from the SCO. No Central Asian country or China has recognized Russia’s annexation decisions in Ukraine. However, China and India have become lifelines for Moscow’s energy exports by not participating in Western sanctions against Russia and by switching to national currencies in payments, contributing to the survival of the Russian economy. This situation has had a dual impact on the perception of the SCO: In the West, the organization has begun to be seen as a “sanction-resistant” hub for revisionist regimes; in the Global South, it has garnered sympathy as an alternative model of solidarity that does not bow to Western unilateral sanctions and respects sovereignty rights.
Energy, Corridor Politics, and De-Dollarization Moves
The SCO geography is the “Global Energy Hub” that brings together the world’s largest energy producers and consumers under the same institutional roof. The organization serves as the central coordinator in the construction of land corridors that reduce dependence on traditional sea routes (Belt and Road, North-South Transport Corridor) and functions as a “Eurasian Shield” against the transatlantic alliance in ensuring the security of the supply chain for strategic resources. This geopolitical weight is fortified by the construction of an alternative financial shield against the dollar hegemony in the global financial architecture. Concrete steps within the organization to increase trade in local currencies, the integration of national payment systems (Russia’s SPFS and China’s CIPS mechanisms) as alternatives to the SWIFT system, and the establishment of the SCO Development Bank are the cornerstones of geopolitical independence.
China’s CIPS and Russia’s SPFS systems, although they cannot deliver a fully destructive blow to the West-controlled SWIFT hegemony on a global scale in the short term, have created “financial parallel universes” that can be relied upon by actors caught in the sanctions trap. This de-dollarization move is evolving into a deterrent mechanism that prevents the use of the dollar as a weapon, despite the limits of liquidity and global prevalence. Similarly, the IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Corridor) project, which the West has proposed as a geopolitical antidote to disrupt the SCO corridors, has not yet reached a tangible disruption potential that could break the SCO’s absolute dominance over the Belt and Road and North-South logistics routes due to the chronic instabilities and vulnerabilities in the Middle East.
The Limits of China-Russia Relations and the Central Asia Influence Competition
Despite this massive geo-economic march within the SCO, the “unlimited partnership” between Beijing and Moscow has its own structural limitations. While Moscow seeks to maintain Central Asia as its traditional “backyard” and archaic security hinterland, Beijing has risen to the position of the primary economic ruler of the region with its Belt and Road initiatives. This covert competition for influence is creating a silent battleground between the two dominant actors in the institutional future of the SCO. While Russia tends to transform the organization into an anti-Western military-strategic defense shield, China is designing a trade-focused structure that will not undermine its integration with global markets. This division of influence and vision in Central Asia is the greatest internal barrier preventing the organization from transforming into a NATO-type homogeneous military alliance. This situation forces the SCO to remain a flexible negotiation platform for multipolarity.
In future projections, the clash between China’s financial supremacy and Russia’s security monopoly in the region is inevitable. Beijing’s pursuit of demonstrating military presence in Central Asia through private security companies will challenge Moscow’s red lines and could lock the institutional decision-making mechanisms within the SCO. Our prediction is that these two giants will avoid direct confrontation with each other but will squeeze Central Asian countries between “silent economic colonization” and “traditional military protectionism.” This competition will likely prevent the SCO from becoming a global bloc, confining it to the mission of maintaining regional balances.
Discourses of the Western Bloc and the Strategic Approaches of Member Countries
This financial and strategic fortification is undoubtedly being closely and anxiously monitored by the Western bloc. Indeed, the USA and the EU have developed official narratives that code the SCO as a revisionist and autocratic “anti-Western front” that challenges democratic values. At the G7 and EU summits, the SCO’s expansion is characterized as a “threat to the global status quo”; although the transatlantic alliance is attempting to counter this rise by leveraging G20 frameworks to bring India into its orbit, promoting alternative infrastructure projects (IMEC), and making “C5+1” diplomatic moves toward Central Asia, this growing interest within the context of the “New Great Game” has failed to halt the SCO’s institutional advance.
The strategic approaches of member countries toward this tense landscape, however, are far from monolithic. While Russia and Iran seek to position the organization entirely as a radical tool for anti-Western bloc formation, China is pursuing a softer and more inclusive hegemonic strategy to consolidate its economic leadership without severing ties with global markets. India, meanwhile, maintains its security partnership with the West while acting within the SCO with a “restraining and balancing” rationale to avoid being marginalized in Eurasia. The Central Asian republics, for their part, are embracing multi-vector diplomacy to avoid being crushed in the midst of this massive power struggle, viewing the SCO as a space to protect their sovereignty and maximize economic benefits.
Is the SCO a Counterpart to the EU or NATO?
The SCO is definitely not an “Eastern NATO” or an “Asian EU,” and it should not be expected to transform into such a homogeneous integration model in the future. NATO is a “threat-centered” rigid alliance based on the principle of collective defense under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, with a common military command structure that unites its members around a single perception of the enemy; whereas, the SCO lacks a common military defense commitment and has unresolved border issues and deep geopolitical insecurities among its members. On the other hand, the European Union (EU) is an integration model where sovereignty is transferred to supranational institutions, encompassing deep structural integrations such as a common market and a single currency. The SCO, on the other hand, is structurally distant from developing a supranational will and establishing deep economic ties like a customs union, as it is strictly committed to the principles of “absolute protection of national sovereignty” and “non-interference in internal affairs.”
SCO: The Geopolitical Insurance of Multipolarity
In conclusion, it should be stated that the SCO is not a monolithic and aggressive war pact aiming to completely destroy the West-centered hegemonic order through military force. On the contrary, it is a “post-hegemonic coalition” that fills the institutional, economic, and strategic gaps left by the transatlantic alliance in the global system, striving to protect Eurasia’s vast local potential from global hegemony.
Its 25 years of historical accumulation demonstrate that despite the organization’s structural internal contradictions, the covert influence competition between China and Russia, India’s quest for balance, and the technical limitations in financial system integration, it has managed to remain a lasting center of attraction. The SCO offers a legitimate alternative for the Global South with its structure that advocates flexible connectivity, absolute sovereignty rights, and multi-vector diplomacy instead of rigid hierarchical alliances. Concrete steps on the security of energy corridors, alternative payment mechanisms, and the fortification of logistics routes make the structure one of the founding elements of global stability.
On the other hand, in the context of future projections, the organization must confront its structural dilemmas. Geopolitical forecasts indicate that the SCO could evolve into two different scenarios over the next decade: In the first scenario, the deepening competition between China and Russia, along with India’s veto power, could drive the organization into institutional paralysis and turn it into an ineffective discussion club. In the second and stronger scenario, in response to increasing economic pressures from the West, the SCO could expand in line with the pragmatic interests of its member states, transforming into a loose but unbreakable “Eurasian economic bloc.” Even if it cannot carry its institutional identity into military or full political integration in the future, it will continue to fortify the non-Western world financially and logistically. This flexible resistance structure creates a functional haven to turn to during global crises. Therefore, although the SCO does not promise full alignment with the transatlantic world, it will continue to emerge as the most critical geopolitical insurance holding the non-Western world together for a certain period in the newly constructed international order.
