Pakistan’s permanent membership in the SCO: Dreams of prosperity

AFP photo

By

Nasurullah Brohi

With permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Pakistan has successfully achieved a platform of benign partnership with developed and immensely rich co-member states that will help in addressing its economic, security and social issues.

With the firm support of China for the permanent membership of Pakistan into the SCO, efforts have finally paved the way for the successful entry of the country to become a Full Member of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Full membership of the SCO prospectively improves the international stature of Pakistan with exclusive political, economic and economic opportunities.

The SCO is an ideal sketch of all the things that were actually a real-time requirement for Pakistan. The multi dimensional participation makes the organization a unique set of collections and characteristics with diverse cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity. It also greatly supports Pakistan to accentuate its interest in regional peace, stability and development.

The efforts for regional cooperation against terrorism, separatism and extremism will be further strengthened. SCO members firmly and collectively strive for the complete eradication of and protecting the region from the threat of terrorism, separatism and the threat of external interference. Moreover, the SCO provides Pakistan with an opportunity to gain a closer relationship with Russia, China and other Central Asian states, therefore it will prove for Pakistan a highly valuable option to seek a variety of options to overcome its long-lasting security, energy and other social problems. In addition, Pakistan will reap the benefits through greater economic linkages and cooperation with Central Asian countries in the areas of energy and transport. It will gain the benign opportunity to explore the SCO’s socio-economic prospects under the SCO Development Bank.

Since the core charter of the SCO emphasizes its members’ obligation for developing an environment of mutual trust, respect and non-interference therefore, it is more likely that both Pakistan and India would seriously seek the option to refrain from confronting each other. Consequently, a peaceful region would encourage all members, particularly those from South Asia, i.e. India and Pakistan, to reallocate their resources towards constructive purposes rather than indulging in unending and expensive arms races. The two countries will eventually be able to experience new trends of bilateral relationships in the days ahead.

Permanent membership of the SCO will also bring an economic boom for the two countries since the immense natural and industrial strength of the SCO members particularly focus on sharing the technological and infrastructural development of member states. If both India and Pakistan rightfully followed the core principles of the SCO, they would be able to provide any enduring solutions to their core issues and bone of contentions such as the Kashmir issue. Besides Kashmir, the issues of water distribution would also be resolved since these were thought to be a security alarm for a possible outbreak of war between Pakistan and India in the future.

The SCO also focuses and advocates new trends in the prevailing international political arena. The SCO demand for a new world order and non-dominance of any single state on international affairs is also one of the great roles of the organization in regional and international affairs. The strategic cooperation and close ties as leading powers of the SCO enable China and Russia to further strengthen their strategic and political bound and increase their sphere of influence beyond the region. This influence particularly expands in many diverse fields, the SCO members having tremendous geographic possession, and human resources having exceptional economic edge, any economic sanctions in the future hardly affecting any SCO member’s economic sustainability.

Nasurullah Brohi

Nasurullah Brohi is a Senior Research Associate at Strategic Vision Institute. He holds M.Phil and Masters Degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaid-I-Azam University Islamabad and Bachelors in Political Science. His areas of research are Central Asia, Russia, Afghanistan, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and NATO. His opinion articles appear in national and international newspapers, blogs and websites. The author may be reached at [email protected]