The presidents of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan visited Beijing last week in the run-up to the opening of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit with plenty of security issues looming as the geopolitical landscape changes in the Asia-Pacific and the Indo-Pacific.

“It’s lots of expectations around the world on security issues, on economic issues, on further plans of new countries. We all hope that we will have another impetus for the opening of this organization.” Djoomart Otorbaev, a distinguished professor of Beijing Normal University and a former prime minister of the Kyrgyz Republic, said. “Nobody should forget security concerns.”  

From Otorbaev’s perspective, if people forget security concerns then probably economic ideas would be useless. “The Shanghai Cooperation Organization should demonstrate to the outside world, that it has mutual understanding on the vision among the countries on the security issues. I would like to remind you that 17 years ago, Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created based on security matters, and it is moving ahead with this area, like military exercises, like joint consultations on different issues. The world is not getting safer, so Shanghai Cooperation Organization should be realistic on these matters.” he stated.

Regarding the mission of the SCO, Djoomart Otorbaev declared, “If you look at the big picture, indeed the world now is not in a very safe situation. It has all kinds of threats, all kind of challenges ahead, and mainly big powers are involved in this economic and military power struggle, which should not necessarily be happening in our globalized world. Shanghai Cooperation Organization is doing the right things. What is it about? It’s about common future, shared future between all human beings and all countries around.”

The Associate Editor of The Hindu Atul Aneja agreed with this. He said, “One of the SCO’s missions is, of course, security, which means counterterrorism.” According to him, every member of the SCO should be responsible for their global peace, then the whole region can develop in a stable and peaceful environment.

The Qingdao summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was the first summit after the enlargement of this organization with the inclusion of India and Pakistan as full members. As mentioned by Su Ge, the chairman of China Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, “Now, the SCO is a very important world organization. It intends to solve some of the border disputes and so on. However, over the years, because of the Shanghai spirit, they have laid emphasis on mutual trust, cooperation, coordination, economic win-win solutions, and also people-to-people contacts.

“Central Asia has this strategic importance of serving as a pivotal region, linking both Europe and the Asia Pacific. If all these countries contribute to each other and share with each other, then, we will all benefit from this enlarged economic pie,” Su said.

Dialogue with Yang Rui is a 30-minute current affairs talk show on CGTN. It airs daily at 7.30 p.m. BJT (1130GMT), with rebroadcasts at 3.30 a.m. (1930GMT) and 11.30 a.m. (0330GMT)

(Top picture from Dialogue's round-table discussion between Yang Rui, Djoomart Otorbaev and Su Ge.)