At its August 16, 2007 summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) addressed several important weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-related issues. First, several summit participants criticized U.S. plans to deploy ballistic missile defenses (BMD) in Poland and the Czech Republic. Second, all SCO members endorsed calls for renewed efforts at limiting the weaponization of space, a longstanding Sino-Russian priority. Third, the SCO governments urged the Western nuclear powers to support the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (CANWFZ).

The SCO’s stance on nuclear weapons reflects an uneasy combination of the group’s commitment to nuclear disarmament within the Central Asian states and its deference to Russian and Chinese preferences on this and other nuclear issues. The policies embraced by the SCO as the result of this combined focus diverge in many respects from U.S. objectives. India and Pakistan, which possess nuclear weapons, and Iran, which many believe is pursuing them, are seeking membership in the organization. The SCO’s stance on disarmament and nonproliferation questions could be altered in unpredictable directions if any of these states were admitted into the group, a step that the organization has resisted to date.

Background
The SCO originated from an arms control process between China and its new post-Soviet neighbors. During the 1990s, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan negotiated several confidence-building and disarmament measures limiting their military deployments and holdings along the countries’ mutual frontiers.

After Uzbekistan joined this “Shanghai Five” process, the member governments transformed their dialogue into a formal international organization, the SCO. Since then, these six countries have undertaken a number of initiatives within the SCO framework. These activities include bilateral and multilateral projects in the areas of economics, energy, culture, and other fields.

In the realm of security, the SCO governments have long prioritized countering the “three evil forces” of “terrorism, separatism and extremism.” To this end, in 2004, they established a Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure in Tashkent to facilitate the exchange of information about alleged terrorists and other regime opponents. (For information on the 2006 SCO summit in Shanghai, see “Putin Meeting with Ahmadinejad in Shanghai Plays Well in Moscow, Brings Little Progress in Nuclear Impasse,” WMD Insights, July/August 2006.)

The participants at the 2007 annual SCO summit in Bishkek included the heads of government and senior officials from the organization’s full members (China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), formal observers (India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan), and specially invited “guests of honor” (President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov of Turkmenistan, and UN Deputy Secretary-General Linn Pasko). [1]

The Bishkek summit involved several activities that made the SCO more closely resemble a traditional collective security organization. For the first time, the SCO heads of government used the occasion of their annual summit to observe military exercises among member nations. In addition, this year’s exercises were the most extensive to date; troops from all member countries participated. “Peace Mission 2007” — which began on August 9 in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Area, and ended on August 17 with a live-fire exercise at the Russian military training range near Chelyabinsk — involved thousands of troops, hundreds of military vehicles, and dozens of warplanes and helicopters. SCO members rejected U.S. government requests to send American observers to the exercise. [2]

Attacks on U.S. BMD Plans
The Russian government signaled its intent to raise the U.S. BMD issue within the SCO context even before the August summit in Bishkek. At the SCO foreign ministers’ meeting the previous month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his colleagues that the American plans to deploy missile defenses in Europe would negatively affect Eurasian security. Acknowledging that the ministers had until then “not discussed specifically the situation around the U.S. missile shield in Europe,” Lavrov insisted that Eurasia would “certainly feel the consequences of these unilateral actions.” [3]

Through this effort, Lavrov was undoubtedly seeking to mobilize international support for the Russian position regarding U.S. missile defenses. In recent months, the United States has secured the approval of most European governments for its plans to deploy a BMD radar in the Czech Republic and BMD interceptors in Poland. Having China and other Eurasian governments join in criticism of the American proposal would avoid the appearance that Russia was isolated on this issue and increase pressure on Washington to change its policies.

At the summit, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved to be the most vocal critic of U.S. BMD policies. The Iranian leader claimed that U.S. efforts to “deploy elements of an anti-missile shield in some areas of the world pose a threat not only to one country. This affects Eurasia, Asia, and SCO member states. Unfortunately, some countries still speak the language of force and intimidation while, on the contrary, peace and security are needed.” [4] Ahmadinejad’s broadside drew considerable attention in the Western media, but one Russian journalist attending the summit believed that the other national leaders present at the conference did not take his statements particularly seriously. [5]

Despite differences between Moscow and Tehran over Bushehr and other issues, Russian officials at Bishkek backed Ahmadinejad’s assessment regarding the U.S. BMD program. [6] Talking with the media at the Bishkek summit, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated the longstanding Russian position that Iranian missile and nuclear developments did not present a major military threat to Western countries, at least not one sufficient to justify NATO plans to deploy active ballistic missile defenses in central Europe. “In analyzing the Iranian leader’s statement and the quite precise information at our disposal, we can see no such long-term threat.” [7]

Although both Russia and China have used their veto-wielding positions in the UN Security Council to weaken resolutions seeking to sanction Iran for its nuclear-related activities, they have thus far limited their collaboration on the BMD issue to joint declarations. At the summit, Lavrov stated that Moscow and Beijing were “analyzing the U.S. global missile defense plans targeting Europe and the East,” but added that both governments were addressing the issue independently, if in parallel, and had not yet considered formally cooperating on BMD matters. Such collaboration could range from simply exchanging intelligence assessments to establishing bilateral research and development programs aimed at jointly producing counter-BMD technologies. At present, Lavrov stated only that Beijing and Moscow “share a vision of how to provide security.” [8]

Nonetheless, in a July 17 article published this year in the People’s Daily, Wang Baofu, deputy director of China’s influential Institute of Strategic Studies, implicitly endorsed Russia’s policies regarding European BMD. For example, Wang wrote that Moscow’s decision to suspend participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty process indicated “firstly its reluctance to make any additional unilateral compromises on the major issue of national security ... and, secondly, its unwillingness to sit idle and remain indifferent as the U.S. is attempting to deploy an anti-missile system in Eastern Europe in a bid to seriously affect the Russia-U.S. strategic balance.” [9]

Two days later, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao, citing Russia’s CFE suspension, stated that, “China always holds that the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems will undermine the current international strategic balance and stability. It is not conducive to regional security and mutual trust between countries, and might give rise to the new problem of missile proliferation and end up with an arms race.” [10]

After the summit, Russian officials reaffirmed their opposition to the U.S. BMD deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic. [11] (See “Special Report: The European Ballistic Missile Defense Dispute,” WMD Insights, April 2007.) They did, however, indicate their continued willingness to grant U.S. analysts access to intelligence from Russian-controlled radars located near Iran, such as the missile early-warning radar at Gabala in Azerbaijan or the new radar under construction in the Krasnodar Territory of southwest Russia. Russian representatives maintain that, by using such facilities in partnership with Russia, U.S. military intelligence would receive ample warning if Iran ever obtained threatening missile capabilities. [12]

Iran Seeks Membership
In making his statements against BMD, Ahmadinejad might have been seeking to gain Russian support for Iran’s aspirations to become a full SCO member. Transitioning to full membership in the SCO would help the Iranian government counter the U.S.-led strategy of isolating Tehran in order to compel it to curb sensitive elements of its nuclear energy program. [13] In particular, joining the SCO could strengthen Iran’s ties with China and Russia, the two permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power, who have the ability to defend Iran from a third round of punitive sanctions. The sanctions have been threatened because of Iran’s continued unwillingness to comply with Security Council demands that it halt its activities related to uranium enrichment and plutonium production – two technologies that can provide access to nuclear weapons material. In addition, as concerns mount in Tehran over a possible U.S. or Israeli military strike against the country’s nuclear facilities, the Islamic Republic may perceive joining the SCO to be a shield against such an attack. In fact, the charter of the organization stipulates that “any attack against one of its [SCO] member-states is considered an attack on the other member-states.” [14] This implies that Russia and China would be legally bound to side with Iran in the event of an attack.

In addition, Tehran wants to cultivate ties with the SCO member governments to discourage them from granting the U.S. military access to Central Asian territory, airspace, or military facilities in the event that Washington decides to pursue military options against Iran. [15] Following the Uzbek government’s 2005 decision to expel all American military personnel from its territory, Kyrgyzstan has hosted the sole remaining U.S. military base in Central Asia at its Manas International Airport, located near the capital city of Bishkek. Kyrgyz authorities, under pressure from some SCO members to end this arrangement, have repeatedly stated that conditions only permit the 1,000 U.S. military personnel to use the facility to provide support for coalition operations in Afghanistan. [16] The Russian Air Force has its own military base at Kant, also located near Bishkek. [17]

At the summit, Ahmadinejad also called for enhanced cooperation among SCO members and observers in addressing various security threats, including the narcotics trafficking from Afghanistan that is flowing through Iran and other Central Asian countries. Furthermore, he reaffirmed Tehran’s interest in helping the SCO create a regional “energy club,” offering to host a meeting of oil and gas policy-makers from SCO nations to “optimize cooperation in transportation, prospecting, development and refining.” [18] In addition to its extensive oil resources, Iran possesses the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, and Ahmadinejad’s offer underscored Iran’s importance to ensuring the success of any SCO project involving energy resources. In the future, energy collaboration under SCO auspices might extend to encompass nuclear energy, a step that could legitimize Iran’s nuclear program, including activities that have raised international concern.

Although the Chinese government backed the Russian-Iranian position opposing U.S. BMD programs, its representatives expressed less support for other Iranian positions. For example, when discussing Tehran’s SCO membership aspirations prior to the summit on August 10, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui said that Iran had “contributed a lot” to the SCO as an observer. This formulation, by underscoring the positive nature of its current observer status, praises Tehran, while simultaneously weakening the rationale for making Iran a full SCO member. [19] Other hurdles may prevent Iran from becoming an SCO member. Asharqalawsat, a London-based moderate Arabic language newspaper quoted Lu Hwei, the assistant Chinese foreign affairs minister as saying, “The organization [SCO] does not have a legal framework for new member-states to join.” [20] The Chinese official was explaining why Iran might not be able to join the SCO.

The day before the summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao met one-on-one with Ahmadinejad in Bishkek. [21] The Iranian leader later told reporters that China had backed Iran’s nuclear program at their meeting. [22] According to China’s state-run media, however, while Hu did indicate that China wanted to see the dispute over Iran’s nuclear programs resolved diplomatically, i.e., without force, he also “urged the Iranian side to size up the current situation and show certain flexibility in its efforts to properly address the remaining problems so as to ensure the issue to go forward in a correct direction.” [23]

The Bishkek Declaration
The summit attendees signed eight important documents at the meeting, including an agreement on “information security” that could justify increased censorship of Internet access for their citizens. They also issued a concluding communiqué and signed a treaty on good-neighborliness, friendship, and cooperation.

From the perspective of WMD issues, the“Bishkek Declaration,” which addressed various international security issues, was the most important. The text opens its discussion of security by stressing that, “The SCO member states consistently stand up for the strengthening of strategic stability [and] non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The declaration then affirms that the SCO member states “consider it an important and urgent step to draft an international legal document on preventing the deployment of weapons in outer space, and the use of force or the threat of using force against space objects.” [24] Given that China and Russia have long opposed alleged U.S. plans to deploy weapons in space, it is probable that Chinese and Russian policy-makers took the lead in inserting this clause into the declaration. Notwithstanding Beijing’s test earlier this year of an anti-satellite weapon, the Chinese and Russian governments have for years promoted various disarmament initiatives at the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, most recently the negotiation of a treaty on the “Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space” (PAROS). [25]

The Bishkek Declaration singles out the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, signed the previous September at Semipalatinsk, as an agreement of great significance. It cites a resolution adopted by the 61st session of the UN General Assembly to illustrate how the international community “highly values the contribution of Central Asian states to the cause of consolidating the regime of nuclear non-proliferation, advancing cooperation on peaceful use of nuclear energy, as well as strengthening the international and regional peace and security.” The declaration affirms the support of the SCO heads of state for “the efforts of the participating states of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty on concluding a Protocol on Security Guarantees with the nuclear-weapon states, which would ensure genuine existence of a nuclear free zone in the region.”

The former Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are all parties to the treaty. Article 3 of the CANWFZ prohibits the signatories from researching, developing, manufacturing, stockpiling, or otherwise trying to acquire a nuclear explosive device. Furthermore, the parties pledge not to allow other parties to conduct such activities on their territories and not to assist third party nuclear activities elsewhere.

The Protocol, as with other NWFZ treaties, provides that the five “nuclear weapons states” recognized by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty pledge not to station or test nuclear weapons in the treaty zone. It also contains the standard clause whereby the states recognized as Nuclear Weapon States under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States) guarantee neither to attack nor threaten to attack the NWFZ signatories with nuclear weapons. China and Russia have pledged to support the CANWFZ. France, Great Britain, and the United States, however, have declined to sign the Protocol.

First, France, Great Britain, and the United States complain that, rather than prohibiting the transportation of nuclear weapons through the CANWFZ outright, Article 4 of the treaty allows each signatory to decide independently whether to allow nuclear weapons transit through its territory, creating a potential loophole. Second, the Western nuclear powers criticize the absence of a provision excluding additional countries from joining the CANWFZ. They fear that Iran might sign the CANWFZ to strengthen its claims that its nuclear program has exclusively peaceful purposes. Finally, Paris, London, and Washington have expressed apprehension regarding Article 12, which affirms the continued validity of existing international agreements. In particular, they worry about the Collective Security Treaty (CST), signed in Tashkent in 1992, whose pledge of mutual assistance could theoretically place the treaty parties under the umbrella of Russia’s nuclear deterrent. [26]

Shortly after the summit, the Kazakhstan Foreign Ministry hosted an international conference entitled “Kazakhstan’s Way to A Nuclear Weapon-Free World,” to mark the 16th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. The symposium’s organizers described its purpose as “intended to attract the world’s attention to the example of Kazakhstan, which has shown that the most effective and preferable path to ensuring the security of a nation lies through a nuclear weapon-free choice and a consistently peaceful foreign policy, and not through the creation and development of weapons of mass destruction.” [27] The conference also likely sought to enhance support for the CANWFZ treaty and for Kazakhstan’s ambition, despite its contested democratic credentials, to become head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. [28]

Conclusion
Positions taken by individual SCO members, observer countries, and the organization collectively are frequently at odds with U.S. preferences, if not openly hostile to them. Some of the institution’s members see it as a means for countering U.S. influence in Central Asia and, potentially, beyond.

Nonetheless, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Evan Feigenbaum said in a speech in Washington, DC: “We don’t fully understand what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization does.” [29] “We in the United States,” he continued, “are still struggling to sort fact from fiction, to distinguish statements from actions, and to differentiate what is good for our interests from what might be rather less productive.” Challenging critics of the SCO, who argue the organization is bad for the United States, Feigenbaum stressed, “But we also know at least some of what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is not a new Warsaw Pact. Because while the Pact permitted Soviet troops and bases across the territory of its members, Central Asian states are, in fact, asserting their sovereignty and independence.”

At the same time, the group’s members appear to be cautious about opening the organization to participation by states whose varied relationships with Washington, diverse strategic agendas, and possession or pursuit of nuclear weapons might dilute the group’s cohesiveness. Despite the SCO’s interest in disarmament matters, current proliferation challenges, such as constraining Iranian nuclear advances, integrating India into global nonproliferation institutions, or averting the leakage of Pakistan nuclear know-how, appear to be outside the organization’s core agenda.

Richard Weitz – Hudson Institute