# SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation)
> The SCO is a Eurasian intergovernmental bloc of ten nations anchored by China and Russia, covering roughly 40 percent of the world's population and operating a counter-terrorism coordination structure.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 2 lenses · 3 regions

## What it is

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian intergovernmental body with ten full member states: China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Belarus. Its formal mandate targets what the bloc calls the "three evils": terrorism, separatism, and extremism. The institutional apparatus spans a Secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), which has been based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan since 2004 and coordinates intelligence sharing and law-enforcement cooperation across member states. The SCO covers roughly 40 percent of the world's land area and about 40 percent of its population, representing around 25 percent of global GDP. As of the Tianjin summit in late August 2025, at least 17 additional countries hold SCO dialogue-partner status.

## History

The SCO emerged from the "Shanghai Five," a 1996 confidence-building forum created by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to delineate post-Soviet borders and reduce military tensions along their shared frontiers. Uzbekistan joined in 2001, and the group reconstituted as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on June 15, 2001 in Shanghai. The founding charter was signed June 7, 2002 and entered into force September 19, 2003; the Secretariat opened in Beijing on January 15, 2004. RATS was formally established that same year. Membership held at six for over a decade. India and Pakistan signed accession obligations in Tashkent in 2016 and joined at the Astana summit in June 2017, the bloc's largest single expansion. Iran completed its accession process and became a full member in July 2023. Belarus formally joined in 2024, bringing total full members to ten.

## Current state

The Kyrgyz Republic holds the 2025-2026 chairmanship under the theme "25 years of the SCO: together for a stable world, development, and prosperity." The 25th Heads of State summit was held in Tianjin, China in late August 2025. The 22nd SCO Defence Ministers Meeting convened in Qingdao, China on June 26, 2025, with all ten defence chiefs attending alongside Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev of Kazakhstan. The agenda covered joint military exercises, military-medical cooperation, and confidence-building measures; the 23rd defence ministers' meeting is scheduled for Kyrgyzstan in 2026. The bloc conducts recurring "Peace Mission" joint counter-terrorism exercises on a rotating host basis. The SCO's 25th anniversary was marked with ceremonies in Beijing in June 2026.

## Relationships

The SCO is the primary multilateral security architecture linking China and Russia with South and Central Asia. Russia simultaneously leads the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a tighter defence pact that overlaps with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan among SCO members. China's infrastructure diplomacy, documented in the [Belt and Road Initiative (China)](/ja/n/belt-and-road-dossier), provides an economic connectivity layer that the SCO's own trade agenda lacks on its own. India and Pakistan, both full members since 2017, have not used SCO mechanisms to manage their bilateral conflict (see [India–Pakistan](/ja/n/india-pakistan-dossier)); their ongoing post-Operation Sindoor stand-off is the bloc's sharpest structural contradiction. Iran's 2023 accession extended the bloc's geographic reach into West Asia and added a heavily sanctioned economy to its formal ledger. China and Russia coordinate military activities bilaterally alongside and beyond SCO structures, including joint long-range aviation patrols (see [中国とロシアが日本海・東シナ海で第11回合同戦略爆撃機哨戒を実施](/ja/n/china-russia-joint-bomber-patrol-jun27)). Russia has used Eurasian multilateral summits, including interactions at the [ASEANとプーチン大統領がカザン宣言に署名、マルコス大統領が共同議長、アンワル首相はモスクワに秋波](/ja/n/asean-russia-kazan-summit), to frame the SCO plus BRICS as an alternative governance architecture to the G7-led order. India contributes 5.9 percent of the SCO annual budget, has hosted SCO events, but has declined to endorse Belt-and-Road-aligned joint declarations. New Delhi's parallel commitments in the Quad and other non-SCO security formats (see [ドーバルがBRICS安全保障責任者を主宰、インドが2026年議長国を務める](/ja/n/india-brics-chair-nsa-meeting-2026)) encapsulate the bloc's central tension: its most consequential democratic member has its primary strategic anchor outside SCO.

## What to watch

Whether India's stand-off with Pakistan following Operation Sindoor in May 2025 forces a formal SCO mediation attempt or renders the security mechanism irrelevant to South Asia. How the 2026 Kyrgyz-hosted defence ministers' meeting advances joint-exercise standardisation and whether China seeks to institutionalise a deeper security protocol. Whether Iran uses SCO membership to open diplomatic back-channels or the membership instead cements the bloc's image as a sanctions-insulated network. Whether Turkey, a dialogue partner since 2013, moves toward full membership, which would pull a NATO ally into the bloc. Whether Belarus, under European Union sanctions since 2020, leverages SCO to diversify economic relationships beyond Russia.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### official record
- **SCO Secretariat (eng.sectsco.org)** (China, en) — Official SCO Secretariat portal: governance structure, member states, political and security cooperation pillars, and the organisation's 25th-anniversary programming in June 2026.
  Source: https://eng.sectsco.org/
- **22nd SCO Defence Ministers Meeting, Qingdao** (China, en) — Official readout of the June 26, 2025 defence ministers' session in Qingdao: all ten defence chiefs attended; agenda covered joint exercises, military-medical cooperation, and confidence-building measures.
  Source: https://eng.sectsco.org/20250626/1881962.html
- **Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of the SCO (RATS)** (Uzbekistan, en) — RATS official portal: mandate to coordinate counter-terrorism, separatism, and extremism responses across ten member states; partnerships with INTERPOL, the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, and regional security bodies.
  Source: https://ecrats.org/en/

### institutional profile
- **Asian Development Bank, ARIC Initiative Profile: SCO** (Asia-Pacific, en) — ADB regional cooperation profile: SCO founding on June 15, 2001; Secretariat established January 2004; multilateral trade-and-connectivity program adopted September 2003 covering free movement of goods, capital, and services.
  Source: https://aric.adb.org/initiative/shanghai-cooperation-organization

## Across the graph
- Related: [[asean-russia-kazan-summit]], [[china-russia-joint-bomber-patrol-jun27]], [[india-pakistan-dossier]], [[belt-and-road-dossier]], [[india-brics-chair-nsa-meeting-2026]]
- Entities: Sco Bloc, Csto Bloc, The Quad, India Pakistan, India China Border, Iran

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Canonical: https://rbtfl.xyz/ja/n/sco-bloc-dossier