SCO: From Neighborly Trust to a Shared Future

The Bishkek Summit marked 25 years of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) journey from a mechanism for building trust among neighbors to a broader platform for security, development and connectivity.

The question now is whether the organization can turn that accumulated trust into a practical model of coexistence in a multipolar world.

The leaders adopted the Bishkek Declaration and a substantial package of decisions covering security, transport, counter-narcotics, artificial intelligence, energy, climate and other areas. Yet the significance of Bishkek lies beyond the number of documents adopted.

The summit has raised a more practical question for the organization’s next quarter-century: can political trust among diverse neighbors be translated into projects, institutions and tangible improvements in people’s lives?

More importantly, can the SCO demonstrate that different states and civilizations can coexist and cooperate without military blocs or ideological uniformity?

For China, this approach begins with its neighborhood. Chinese diplomacy has long attached strategic importance to good-neighborliness.

At a 2013 conference from October 24 to 25 on “Diplomatic work with neighboring countries”, President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of creating a favorable surrounding environment for China’s development while enabling neighboring countries to benefit from China’s development.

He also called for stronger political relations, economic ties, security cooperation and people-to-people exchanges.

Xi’s emphasis reflected a broader strategic reality: China’s development and security are closely connected to the stability and prosperity of its surrounding region.

A major power cannot pursue long-term development in isolation from its immediate neighborhood.

The philosophy has an old Chinese expression: “Close neighbors are better than distant relatives.” In contemporary diplomacy, however, this traditional wisdom has acquired a strategic dimension.

A prosperous China surrounded by instability, insecurity and underdevelopment would itself face greater risks.

Good-neighborliness, therefore, is not simply a matter of diplomatic courtesy; it is also an approach to managing the political, economic and security environment in which China develops.

This helps explain the importance Beijing attaches to the SCO. Twenty-five years after its establishment, the organization has moved well beyond its original security concerns in the post-Cold War Eurasian environment.

Its agenda now encompasses development, trade, connectivity, energy, technology, culture and people-to-people cooperation.

At the heart of this evolution is the Shanghai Spirit—mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for the diversity of civilizations and the pursuit of common development.

This principle carries an important implication: neighborliness does not require political uniformity.

China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian states have different political systems, strategic interests and, in some cases, serious bilateral disagreements. The SCO has not eliminated these contradictions, nor is it likely to do so.

The SCO has provided a framework in which countries can maintain dialogue and pursue areas of common interest despite their differences. That is also where Xi’s four global initiatives become relevant.

The Global Development Initiative (GDI), launched in 2021, places development and shared prosperity at the center of international cooperation.

The Global Security Initiative (GSI), proposed in 2022, advocates common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.

The Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), introduced in 2023, promotes mutual respect and learning among different civilizations.

The Global Governance Initiative (GGI), proposed in 2025, calls for a more equitable and representative international order based on sovereign equality, multilateralism, consultation and the purposes and principles of the United Nations, “instead of reinventing the wheel”.

These initiatives should not be confused with the SCO itself. Rather, they provide a broader political and conceptual framework through which China seeks to address development, security, civilization and global governance.

The SCO is a regional institution where some of these principles can be tested through practical cooperation.

At Bishkek, Xi linked these ideas directly to the organization’s future. He called for development to remain a priority, security to provide a foundation for stability, people-to-people exchanges to strengthen friendship, and dialogue and consultation to improve regional and global governance.

The economic mechanism running through much of this vision is the high-quality Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s proposals at the summit went beyond traditional infrastructure.

They included an international AI application cooperation center with SCO countries, 100 technological cooperation projects over the next three years, greater renewable-energy capacity, green-industry training, agricultural cooperation and support for improving the Trans-Caspian International Transport Corridor. China also proposed a China-SCO port economic cooperation center in Tianjin.

This is where the SCO’s next phase could become particularly significant. The organization occupies a strategically important geography connecting China, Central Asia, Russia, South Asia and wider Eurasia.

The challenge is to turn this geography into an economic advantage. Central Asia, once viewed primarily through the lens of being landlocked, has the potential to become a bridge between major markets.

Connectivity, therefore, should not be understood merely as the construction of railways, roads and ports. Its real value lies in reducing the economic distance between countries, lowering transport costs, strengthening supply chains, opening markets and enabling investment, technology and skills to move across borders.

The organization cannot demonstrate the value of its model merely through declarations about multi-polarity, common development or a shared future. It must demonstrate those ideas through results. This is why the time has come for the SCO to seek truth from facts.

A transport corridor that reduces delivery times and costs; an energy project that expands reliable access to electricity; a technology partnership that creates skills and employment; an agricultural initiative that improves productivity; or a security mechanism that helps reduce terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime would provide more convincing evidence of the SCO’s relevance than another political slogan.

The next 25 years should therefore be about moving from vision to verification. The SCO also does not need to become an anti-Western bloc to contribute to a multipolar world. Indeed, its principles of non-alignment, non-confrontation and not targeting any third party point in a different direction.

Its potential contribution to multi-polarity lies in demonstrating that a more plural international system does not necessarily have to become a system of competing military blocs. Countries with different political systems, histories and strategic interests can maintain their differences while cooperating where their interests overlap.

Countries do not have to become the same to live together, nor do they have to stand against one another to become secure. If the SCO can turn that principle into tangible cooperation, it can offer the world something more valuable than another geopolitical bloc: a practical example of how diversity can coexist with common interests and destiny in a multipolar world. The spirit of the neighborhood can become a shared family for humanity.

(The Writer is the Diplomatic Correspondent of The New Nation)