The official working languages of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are Chinese and Russian. Here are the official names of the organization in the two languages, abbreviations in parentheses.

The Shanghai Five grouping was originally created in 1996 with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions in Shanghai by the heads of states of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. In 1997 the same countries signed the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions in a meeting in Moscow.

Subsequent annual summits of the Shanghai Five group occurred in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in 1998, in Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) in 1999, and in Dushanbe (Tajikistan) in 2000.

In 2001, the annual summit returned to Shanghai, China. There the five member nations first admitted Uzbekistan in the Shanghai Five mechanism (thus transforming it into the Shanghai Six). Then all six heads of state signed on June 15, 2001, the Declaration of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, praising the role played thus far by the Shanghai Five mechanism and aiming to transform it to a higher level of cooperation. In July 2001, Russia and the PRC, the organization's two leading nations, signed the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.

In June 2002, the heads of the SCO member states met in St. Petersburg, Russia. There they signed the SCO Charter which expounded on the organization's purposes, principles, structures and form of operation, and established it officially from the point of view of international law.

The SCO is primarily centered around its member nations' Central Asian security-related concerns, often describing the main threats it confronts as being terrorism, separatism and extremism.

On a larger scale, but outside the SCO framework, the first ever joint military exercise between the China and Russia, called Peace Mission 2005 started on August 19, 2005. Following the successful completion of the Sino-Russian military exercises, Russian officials have begun speaking of the SCO taking on a military role and of India also joining these exercises in the future.

The next meeting of Defense Ministers is planned for 2007 in Kyrgyzstan.

Among other nations of the wider region, Mongolia became the first country to receive observer status at the 2004 Tashkent Summit. Pakistan, India and Iran received observer status at the 2005 SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan on July 5, 2005. All four nations have applied for full membership to the organization.

The SCO has also encouraged India to join the organization, saying that they would properly consider a membership application should it decide to join the group. [15] Indeed, Russia has been said to support Pakistan's membership only if India joins at the same time [16] -- given the disputes between the two nations this scenario parallels the simultaneous entry into NATO of Greece and Turkey. So far India has not made an official membership application, but has unofficially made its interest in joining known.

In Serbia, the Serbian Radical Party has called for Serbia to try to join. The Serbian Radical Party is doing this because they tend to view the European Union as being a negative force on Serbia and because they want to seek better relations with Russia. The Serbian Radical Party has also proposed that Serbia joins the Union of Russia and Belarus to improve relations with Russia.

Though the declaration on the establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization contained a statement that it "is not an alliance directed against other states and regions and it adheres to the principle of openness", most observers believe that one of the original purposes of the SCO was to serve as a counterbalance to the United States and in particular to avoid conflicts that would allow the United States to intervene in areas near both Russia and China. Many observers also believe that the organization was formed as a direct response to the threat of missile defense systems by the United States, after the United States reversed course in its nuclear policy and began promoting National Missile Defense.

China and Russia's conflicting interests have limited the group's ability to act in a coordinated manner. Immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the SCO was unable to develop a coordinated policy against terrorism and was also unable to deal as a collective body with the United States. The United States was able to significantly increase its influence by offering aid and convincing many of its Central Asian members to allow the United States to use their territory as military bases.

In July 2005, after the war in Afghanistan and Iraq saw an indefinite troop presence of U.S. forces in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the SCO meeting at its summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, urged them to set a timetable for withdrawing their troops from member states. Since then, Uzbekistan has asked the U.S. to leave the K-2 air base. [18] The Astana summit also saw the induction of India, Pakistan and Iran as observers.

In 2006, Iran is expected to be inducted as a full member of the SCO and will likely be included in joint military and economic activities, thus nearly eradicating its 20-year isolation. Belarus, which has applied for observer status in the organization, is another nation which has faced international isolation by the West due to undemocratic practices.

The Republic of China is not a member; Taiwan is included on the map in the official logo because of disputes between the People’s Republic of China and the ROC on its territory.

(Accessed June 16, 2006)

1. Times (UK) online - "Iran in talks to join alliance against West"

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