By Md. Muddassir Quamar
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is recognised as one of the major regional organisations in the world and is the premiere multilateral grouping in Eurasia region. Its origins lie in the Russian-Chinese effort to create a collective forum for peace, security and development in Central Asia. After remaining focused on the regional issues until mid-2000s, the SCO gingerly began taking steps for its expansion and India, Pakistan and Iran were among the first countries to gain observer status in 2005. India and Pakistan eventually joined the grouping in 2017 and Iran is likely to formally become a member in 2023. Besides, the SCO also has Mongolia (2004), Belarus (2008) and Afghanistan (2012) as observer countries. In the years since 2010, the SCO has gradually admitted several Asian countries as dialogue partners including Sri Lanka (2010), Türkiye (2013), Cambodia (2015), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nepal (2016), Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia (2022) and Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar and the UAE are expected to be granted the status of dialogue partners in 2023. Bahrain too has formally been approved as a prospective dialogue partner in 2022.
The question that emerges is why are the Gulf and Middle Eastern countries interested in joining the SCO. Alternatively, one may ask why is the SCO expanding and foraying into the Western Asia? The answer might lie in the ongoing geopolitical and geoeconomic developments at the world stage. China’s rise as an economic behemoth challenging the US status as the largest world economy, and the Russian assertion as a military power in its immediate neighbourhood and the West Asia North Africa (WANA) region has created a sense of power politics at the world stage not seen since the early days of the Cold War. The US and its European allies that have thus far remained the dominant global power are concerned with the rise of China as an economic power and its assertive expansion in the Eurasian landmass as well as the Indo-Pacific maritime space. This has been aided by Russia under Putin firmly partnering China at the global stage and playing a major role in global energy geopolitics, countering NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe and filling the vacuum in West Asia.
Besides, other non-Western regional powers such as India, Türkiye, Brazil, South Africa, Iran and Saudi Arabia have been constantly growing both economically and politically at the world stage and have become increasingly assertive in pursuing their foreign policy goals without necessarily heeding to the Western pressure tactics. Scholars have defined this as the era of multipolarity. Amitav Acharya calls it the era of “multiplex” global order wherein the world is no longer defined by the domination of one power at the global stage but multiple regional powers at regional stages.
The SCO and its expansion, especially in the West Asia region, reflects this multipolar world order. Naturally, this is leading to the established Western powers in the Global North led by the US feeling uneasy and challenged by the rise of the likes of China and Russia, which is why there is an increasing urgency in the US foreign policy to counter China’s geoeconomic forays in various regional complexes and challenge Russian expansionist policies. Undoubtedly, therefore, the admission of West Asian and Gulf nations into SCO as dialogue partners is a function of the global power politics and the assertion of the Chinese-led Asian geopolitics challenging the domination of the US and its Western European allies. This may not necessarily mean that the world has become truly multipolar which in the imagination of liberal internationalists will lead to greater peace, stability and cooperation at the international stage, which may not be the case as visible from the ongoing conflicts in West Asia and the war in Ukraine and tensions over Taiwan.
Having said that, one might ask what is driving the Gulf Arab states – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain – to seek partnership with the SCO? Broadly, there are four explanations for it. Firstly, it is a function of the systemic factors as underlined in the earlier paragraphs. In an increasingly multipolar world, the Gulf Arab states and West Asian actors do not want to remain on the side lines and have been taking proactive measures to hedge with both global centres of power that are the US and China.
Secondly, the outreach by the Arab Gulf states is necessitated by the ongoing regional geopolitics in the Middle East. The region has witnessed serious unrest and churn over the past decade and the US which was considered the guarantor of regional stability and security, in view of the regional powers, failed to take any decisive measures to fulfil this role in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings. For countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, the expectations from Washington were a proactive or even militaristic action to secure the regional partners from internal turmoil but this was not to be. Alternatively, they witnessed Russia intervening militarily in Syria and Libya and partnering with Iran to pursue their goals in the region. This meant that the US can no longer be the reliable partner it used to be and to be able to offset security threats and keep the regional order intact, the Gulf Arab states needed to reach out to the new power centres in the world.
Thirdly, there is also a growing sense of pursuing an independent foreign policy among the Gulf states both in terms of their narrow national interest as well as away from the alliance with the US. That is, if the US can no longer guarantee decisive measures to secure the interest of its Gulf allies, Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi in their views need to take matters into their own hands and pursue their own interests and foreign policy goals. This does not mean that they wish to end the partnership with the US and European powers or can no longer pursue a cooperative foreign policy among themselves. Rather the partnership with the US and consensus among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have become issue-based and no longer adhere to the automatic alignment on all foreign policy matters. This is visible, for example, in the way Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ went ahead with oil production cuts in 2022 despite the Biden administration putting pressure on Riyadh to not do so. Similarly, while continuing to talk and discuss various bilateral, multilateral and minilateral initiatives with the US, Saudi Arabia hosted Xi Jinping in Riyadh, provided the platform for China-Arab and China-GCC summits and entered into a China-hosted reconciliation process with arch-rival Iran. The same can be viewed in the foreign policy behaviour of the UAE and Qatar.
Finally, the keenness to join the SCO is related to the economic rise of China. This also is connected to the systemic factors where the rise of China is the primary driver of global politics, but for the Gulf Arab states and other smaller Asian states, the economic rise of China is a reality that cannot be ignored. China has not only become the second largest economy but under Xi, it has pursued mega outward economic expansion plans through the Belt and Road initiative. For the Gulf countries and other regional states this posits an opportunity to revitalise their economies and integrate their post-oil economic plans into China’s economic rise. This not only brings finances, but also helps them in building infrastructure and connectivity that is needed for creating a new economic success story vital for the legitimacy and survival of the Gulf states.
The SCO’s foray into Gulf and West Asia therefore is a reflection of different but intertwined factors at the systemic and regional levels. However, primarily it relates to the ongoing geopolitical competition and power politics between the US and China. While the US is the established global power in the Middle East, its pivot to Asia or Indo-Pacific has left space for other international actors, and China views this as an opportunity to expand its influence in the region and is using all means at its disposal including the SCO to pursue its interests and foreign policy ambition in Gulf and West Asia region.
The author is Associate Professor of West Asian studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal.
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