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The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has held its 26th summit at Bishkek in the Kyrgyz Republic, marking the completion of 25 years since its launch. The Bishkek Declaration expressed deep concern at and condemned the military strikes on Iran, and reaffirmed support for its sovereignty and territorial integrity. It named the United States and Israel as having violated the principles of international law and the UN Charter. The summit was the first since the U.S. and Israel began their war on Iran on 28 February 2026, which killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials. The tension is that a grouping able to speak in one voice against outside powers closed the summit by handing its chair to Pakistan.

What is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation?

1. Founding: The SCO was launched on 15 June 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, together known as the Shanghai Five, as its founding members. India and Pakistan joined the group in 2017.
2. Institutional machinery: The grouping has 29 charter bodies, including the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, meetings of heads of ministries and agencies, and the Council of National Coordinators, alongside over 40 working mechanisms.
3. What the machinery is for: These bodies meet through the year and serve as formal channels of communication between member states. They give members a standing consultation route in a sudden conflict or a cross-border natural calamity.
4. No collective defence: The SCO carries no collective defence component, and several of its members have disputes with one another.

What did the declaration say on West Asia?

1. Condolence and a peace process: Member states condoled the assassination of Ali Khamenei and welcomed the peace process supported and mediated by several countries, including SCO member Pakistan.
2. Indirect backing on the nuclear question: The summit advocated the “inalienable right” of member countries to develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which reads as support for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
3. Palestine named as the root question: The declaration asserted that lasting stability in West Asia can be secured only through a just settlement of the Palestine question.
4. Silence on Ukraine: Member states maintained silence on Russia’s role in the Ukraine war.

Where did the declaration push back against the prevailing order?

1. Missile defence: The declaration held that the “unilateral and unlimited build-up of global missile defence systems by groups of states” has a negative impact on international security and stability.
2. Satellite Internet: It stated that “unauthorised satellite Internet services on the territory of Member States” violate international law, an evident reference to Starlink supplying Internet services in parts of eastern Ukraine and in Iran.
3. Trade in local currencies: SCO leaders have periodically called for greater use of local currencies in trade, a practice viewed with scepticism in the West and particularly by the current U.S. leadership.
4. A bank of its own: The announcement of the establishment of an SCO Development Bank is a further step in that direction.

What did India press at Bishkek, and where did it diverge?

1. No double standards on terrorism: The Prime Minister, who led the Indian delegation, spoke on ensuring that there is “no double standards” in fighting terrorism and called for peace and stability in Afghanistan.
2. India’s Afghanistan record: He highlighted India’s role in supplying relief materials to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan over the years, and the declaration separately called on Afghanistan to form an “inclusive government”.
3. Connectivity with a condition: He spoke for greater connectivity between the markets of SCO members, and for respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. That formulation is an apparent reference to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India has criticised for years.
4. The Belt and Road split: India stayed away from endorsing the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Other member states expressed support for it and advocated alignment between the BRI and the Eurasian Economic Union, a customs union of Russia and four post-Soviet states.
5. The troika language: The declaration carried strong language on the troika of challenges, “terrorism, separatism and extremism”, and “strongly condemned” terrorism, reflecting India’s concerns and those of other members.

Why does the next chair create a problem for New Delhi?

1. Pakistan takes the chair: With the conclusion of the summit, Pakistan has assumed the chair of the SCO, and the group’s next summit will be held in that country.
2. The level of attendance is undecided: The Ministry of External Affairs has not clarified whether the Prime Minister will travel to Pakistan for it. The External Affairs Minister had visited Islamabad in 2024 for the 23rd meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of Government.
3. What has intervened since: The Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025, the subsequent Operation Sindoor, and India’s decision to place the Indus Waters Treaty, the 1960 arrangement sharing the Indus system between India and Pakistan, “in abeyance” have further complicated relations.
4. A decision, not a formality: These developments will be a factor in the level at which the government sends representatives to next year’s summit.

What has India got out of the grouping since 2017?

1. A route back to China after Galwan: India and China began to re-engage at the 2024 Kazan Summit in Russia, where the Prime Minister met the Chinese President.
2. A concrete boundary outcome: A further meeting between the two leaders at Tianjin in 2025 produced an “Early Harvest” proposal on boundary delimitation and the resumption of border trade through three points.
3. Political will survived a military crisis: The Tianjin meeting showed that both sides retained the will to meet despite the strain following Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when China supported Pakistan as India targeted terror camps in Pakistani territory.
4. A multilateral setting for hard subjects: The SCO gives the world an opportunity to engage China multilaterally on issues such as freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and gives India and Pakistan a platform for sustained engagement inside a broader framework.
5. Leverage in an uncertain phase with Washington: With the U.S. President imposing punitive tariffs on Indian goods, the grouping let New Delhi engage all major stakeholders and maintain diplomatic dialogue.

Challenges to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

1. Consensus decision-making lets one member stall an agenda: Every substantive document needs unanimity, so an economic or connectivity text is reduced to language all ten members can sign. Eg. India declined to endorse the Belt and Road paragraph at successive summits, and the connectivity language in SCO declarations has stayed generic as a result.
   The Fix: Adopt a consensus-minus-one procedure for economic annexures, so a project document can proceed without binding a dissenting member.
2. Enlargement has widened the internal contradictions: Membership has grown from the original five to include India and Pakistan in 2017, Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024, and each addition brings its own quarrels into the room. Eg. Two pairs of members, India and Pakistan and India and China, carry live disputes with each other.
   The Fix: Tier the agenda, so security cooperation runs among members with no active bilateral dispute and the full membership meets on economic and connectivity subjects.
3. Members do not share a definition of terrorism: The counter-terrorism arm works from a list members interpret differently, so a summit can condemn terrorism in general and fail on any specific incident. Eg. The SCO defence ministers’ meeting at Qingdao in June 2025 ended without a joint communique after India refused to sign a text that omitted the Pahalgam attack.
   The Fix: Attach a standing annexure of entities already designated by the UN Security Council, so the counter-terrorism text is not renegotiated at every summit.
4. Connectivity runs through bilateral corridors rather than a common framework: The grouping has no transit and customs instrument of its own, so trade routes are governed by separate bilateral or plurilateral agreements. Eg. The International North-South Transport Corridor, used by India, Iran and Russia, rests on a 2000 agreement signed outside the SCO entirely.
   The Fix: Bring the corridor’s customs, transit and insurance protocols under an SCO transport facilitation agreement, so members trade on one rulebook.

Conclusion

The grouping’s value to India has always been access rather than agreement. It is the one table where New Delhi can sit with Beijing and Islamabad without the meeting itself being the story. That access now comes attached to a host India has no ordinary diplomatic traffic with. The decision to watch is the level at which India is represented at the next summit, because it will show whether access is still worth the price of attending.

Matching Previous Year Question

“Critically examine the aims and objectives of SCO. What importance does it hold for India?”