Summitry & substance: SCO offers India an opportunity to reset diplomacy

Enhanced trade, river-water sharing and improved relations with China were the visible takeaways from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese port city of Qingdao over the weekend. Behind the pageantry and photo-ops that captured the first attendance by India’s head of government at the summit after the country became a full SCO member in June 2017 were signs of other gains that will be invaluable in the longer run. 

Opportunities for closer geo-political engagements were prominent among them. These were evident in multiple bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the main summit not just with China’s President Xi Jinping but also with the leaders of natural resource-rich Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Diplomats will attest to the utility of such informal (though no less pre-planned) meetings that remain outside the purview of joint declarations, statements and media headlines. But perhaps the less acknowledged but more significant signal from Qingdao was implicit in the cordial handshake between Mr Modi and Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain (Pakistan became a full SCO member at the same time as India). This greeting signalled a faint but unmistakable shift from the belligerence that has created an impasse in Indo-Pak relations in recent years.

Article 1 of the SCO charter binds both countries to adhere to the “Long-Term Neighbourliness, Friendship and Cooperation” that is described in soaring terms as the “Spirit of Shanghai”. The SCO agenda has added heft to this ideological creed by creating a feedback loop for improving bilateral ties. The Ramzan ceasefire along the Line of Control in Kashmir could be partially viewed against the prism of two events under the SCO’s aegis that saw Indo-Pak cooperation – the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (SCO-RATS) and a military tattoo that was staged at the Great Wall in China. In the last week of May, India participated in the first ever SCO-RATS meeting hosted by Pakistan of legal experts to discuss terrorist threats in the region and how to overcome them. Both countries will participate in the military drills of the SCO Peace Mission to be hosted by Russia in the Urals over August and September. Cooperation that involves the military establishments of both countries – a possibility that leaders had rejected in past bilateral talks – holds the very tangible possibilities of advancing lasting peace negotiations that may not solve the vexed issue of Kashmir but will certainly tamp down the debilitating hostilities in the region. 

The big question remains the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor along the Belt and Road Initiative, which holds the possibility of encroaching on territory to which India lays claim. Mr Modi made an oblique reference to this in his address at the summit. In turn, Mr Xi, ever sensitive to such signals, highlighted India’s commitment to regional connectivity via the International North-South Transport Corridor project with Russia and Iran and central Asia and the development of Chabahar port. On balance, SCO membership has been helpful to Indian interests so far. A declining superpower led by a maverick president across the Pacific demands that India becomes proactive about its diplomatic pivots in its near neighbourhood. In that context, this would be a good time for the country to strengthen ties in the region by giving its consent to the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as well.