Europe's Eye is on SCO Attendees Rather Than Its Agenda

Interaction between leaders of Russia, India and China at Tianjin meeting of key interest

- Jonathan Eyal

LONDON - As measured by the size of the combined population of its member states, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is the world's largest regional organisation. And the current Tianjin summit is SCO's largest since its inception a quarter of a century ago.

So, at least in theory, the gathering of the SCO — which has 10 member states — should have attracted a great deal of attention in Europe, home to another regional organisation with claims to global relevance.

In reality, however, few European officials and even fewer European media outlets are paying much attention to the summit. Instead, all European eyes are directed at the interaction between three leaders at the gathering: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Everything else happening in Tianjin on Aug 31 and Sept 1 is dismissed in European capitals as just diplomatic noise.

In 2001, the SCO was founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Back then, the view in Europe was that the organisation's primary purpose was to manage the competition between Russia and China over influence in Central Asia and that, as a result, it was of little global interest.

That perception soon changed in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and the subsequent US military intervention in Afghanistan. Both the US and Nato, the US-led military alliance in Europe, relied on Central Asian nations for their help with bases and logistical supply lines.

The SCO's growing significance pleased Russia, which suddenly realised that an organisation, which even the Russians did not take too seriously at its inception, had the potential to provide Moscow with added leverage.