The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a permanent Eurasian political, economic, and international security institution, not a scheme or a concept. It was formally established on June 15, 2001, in Shanghai by six founding members: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO is the successor to the "Shanghai Five," which was formed in 1996 to address confidence-building measures and demilitarize border regions between China and its four post-Soviet neighbors. The SCO's creation aimed to transform this mechanism into a higher level of cooperation to jointly address new challenges and threats, particularly in the context of political multipolarity.
The SCO's foundational document is the SCO Charter, which was signed in June 2002 and entered into force on September 19, 2003. The Charter outlines the goals of promoting regional peace, stability, and prosperity through cooperation in politics, economics, and culture, with a coordinated effort to combat the "three evils" of terrorism, extremism, and separatism. The mechanism works through two main permanent bodies: the Secretariat in Beijing and the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The supreme decision-making body is the Council of Heads of State (CHS), which meets annually.
The SCO connects to the concept of a "multipolar world," positioning itself as an alternative to Western-dominated international forums. India and Pakistan officially joined as full members in June 2017, significantly expanding the SCO's geographic scope and population. The SCO has changed recently with the addition of new members: Iran joined in 2023, and Belarus became a member in 2024, bringing the total number of member states to ten. While its original focus was security, the SCO's mandate has expanded to include infrastructure development, energy security, and financial cooperation, with India promoting connectivity projects like the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the Chabahar Port.