Russia, China and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Diverging Security Interests and the ‘Crimea Effect’

Abstract

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an emerging security community created in 2001 to address looming threats, including terrorism and separatism, in the Central Asian region. China and Russia remain the major shapers of the SCO; but in recent years, differences over how the organization should evolve have begun to drive a subtle yet growing wedge between the two powers. Impending challenges related to expansion (India and Pakistan became full members in 2017), deepening Sino-Russian rifts (with China pushing for a stronger economic role for the organization, and Russia being more interested in hard security) and the ‘shadow of Crimea’ are likely to impede any Sino-Russian alliance in the foreseeable future.

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