SCO fosters new opportunities for India-Pakistan cooperation

By Swaran Singh

The participation of India and Pakistan, the two new members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), is widely expected to be a highlight of the 18th SCO summit in Qingdao this week. Their entry makes the SCO the world's largest regional grouping of fast growing economies with rapidly transforming societies. Together the eight member states represent half of the world population and 20 percent of global GDP. With four Observers, six Dialogue Partners, and a growing number of special invitees and representatives from international institutions, the SCO is today celebrated for its efficiency and growing efficacy. But some experts are also skeptical about the entry of India and Pakistan as full members, saying that this presents a new challenge to the SCO's camaraderie. This makes is pertinent to explore how the SCO has influenced relations between India and Pakistan.

A gardener waters the flowers at the May Fourth Square in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, May 31, 2018. The 18th Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit is scheduled for June 9-10 in Qingdao.[Photo: Xinhua]

India and Pakistan have been involved in all of the preparatory meetings for the upcoming summit, and their decade-long record as SCO Observers should bring some comfort to experts concerned about their involvement. Their entry has not undermined the ambitious pace China has brought to developing the SCO. China held more than 120 SCO meetings last year that are expected to result in about a dozen documents being presented at the Qingdao summit. These include action plans in priority areas like counterterrorism. The Qingdao summit is likely to result in plans to address the menace of terrorism in Afghanistan, which has continued to impact on SCO members Russian, China, and India. Terrorism is a top priority for India, and Prime Minister Modi will have one-to-one meetings with both President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin on June 9 that are likely to focus on building consensus on efforts to neutralize the threat posed by the Islamic State, the Taliban, and the Haqqani Network. Prime Minister Modi will likely highlight the need to combat cross-border terrorism and terrorist sanctuaries.

The SCO's Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure is already playing a constructive role, as was visible from its recent anti-terror meeting in Islamabad that saw delegations from India and Pakistan sitting together despite their bilateral talks being suspended. And August will see their armed forces join the SCO's biannual counterterrorism drills, called Peace Mission 2018, at Russia's Chebarkulsky training grounds in the Ural Mountains. These drills seek to build mutual trust, coordination, and cooperation among the armed forces of the member states to enable them to fight terrorist threats. This will be a historic moment in India-Pakistan relations, as their armed forces will be participating in these drills for the first time, and the general staff of all the participants will be meeting during the drills.

The process of building mutual trust has already begun. Representatives from the armed forces of the eight SCO member states held their first meeting in Moscow last week to discuss the upcoming exercises, and the SCO's counterterrorism meeting in Islamabad broke the impasse of the suspended India-Pakistan talks when India sent a delegation to the meeting. These episodes hopefully represent a new beginning in the relationship between the armed forces of India and Pakistan, which have fought four wars since their independence and even today continue to face the threat of live shelling along the 1965 ceasefire line.

Given their long history of conflict, the meetings between the two sides are likely to attract significant global scrutiny given that terrorism has been the most formidable bone of contention between India and Pakistan. But the two sides have worked together before. India and Pakistan have been leading contributors of troops to United Nations peacekeeping operations, working together on 28 peacekeeping missions. And from 2016, India and Pakistan have been observers in the annual Cobra Gold military exercises in Thailand. The seven-nation Cobra Gold exercises began in 1982, and have since expanded to include 29 participating nations as of February 2017. The exercises focus on providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, which has become of greater interest since several of these nations had the experience of working together in the face of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. And since 2014, these drills have even begun to include live-fire war fighting exercises.

The SCO's "Shanghai Spirit" of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and the pursuit of common development is a strong foundation on which to build partnerships. Following India's Prime Minister Modi's recent high-level meetings in Wuhan and Sochi, experts are speculating that he will soon meet with the Pakistani leadership. India wishes to harness the SCO as a platform to enhance its economic partnerships across Eurasia, so it is unlikely to miss the opportunity to improve the relationship between the leaders of India and Pakistan.

(Swaran Singh is professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and senior fellow at The Charhar Institute, Beijing)