Shanghai Cooperation Organization

SCO

Shanghai Cooperation organization (SCO) is an international organization founded on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai, China. The SCO has six founding members namely, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became full members of Shanghai Cooperation organization on 9 June 2017. Thus, currently there are 8 members of the organization.

The Heads of State Council (HSC) comprising heads of the member states is the supreme decision-making body of the SCO. The organisation has two permanent bodies:

  1. The SCO Secretariat headed by the secretary general. Its headquarter is located in Beijing, China. And,
  2. Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS). The committee is headed by a director, and its headquarter is located in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Both the secretary general and the director of the executive committee are appointed by the Council of Heads of State for a term of three years. Currently, Rashid Alimov of Tajikistan is the secretary general, and Yevgeny Sysoyev of Russia is the director of the executive committee since 1 January 2016. The SCO has two official languages: Chinese and Russian.

The SCO has the following main goals:

  • Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states
  • Promoting their effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy, research, technology and culture, as well as in education, energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, and other areas
  • Making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region; and
  • Moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.