The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation: Eurasia’s Other Architecture of Power

Marco Alves

From Security Cooperation to the Construction of a Multipolar Order, with Iran as the New Test of Power

Twenty-five years ago, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was still merely a relatively discreet regional structure, born out of the security concerns of China, Russia, and the Central Asian republics. Its main focus was on borders, terrorism, separatism, and the stability of a region that had long been regarded as peripheral by the Western powers.

Today, its weight is entirely different.

The Bishkek summit, in Kyrgyzstan, taking place at the beginning of September to celebrate the organisation’s twenty-fifth anniversary, offers a striking example of this. Alongside Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi are, among others, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the leaders of the Central Asian states, Pakistan, and Belarus. The SCO now has ten member states: China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The meeting is taking place, above all, in an exceptional context: since February 2026, Iran has been involved in a military confrontation with the United States and Israel, marked by attacks, a crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, and a succession of ceasefire attempts. In Bishkek, Masoud Pezeshkian stated, moreover, that Tehran was prepared to resume its commitments if Washington once again fulfilled its own, within the framework of the memorandum signed in June.

The simultaneous presence of the Iranian leader alongside the presidents of China and Russia therefore gives the summit a significance that goes far beyond regional cooperation.

The question now is the following: Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation becoming a genuine power structure capable of altering international balances of power, or does it remain, above all, a diplomatic platform bringing together states with divergent interests?

The answer probably lies somewhere between the two options.

I) The Genesis of the Organisation

A) An Organisation Born on the Margins of the Former World Order

To understand the SCO, it is necessary to return to Central Asia in the 1990s.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, five new independent republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, emerged in a strategic region situated between Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, and the Indian subcontinent. The collapse of the USSR therefore triggered a dual movement. Moscow sought to preserve its influence in what it considered its “near abroad”. Beijing, for its part, wanted to stabilise its western borders and prevent Central Asia from becoming a zone of instability, radicalism, or American influence.

It was in this context that the “Shanghai Five” emerged in 1996, bringing together China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan subsequently joined the process. The initial objective was very concrete: to resolve border issues and reduce military tensions inherited from the Soviet period. On 15 June 2001, in Shanghai, the six states officially founded the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Initially, therefore, there was absolutely no intention of creating an organisation designed to compete with NATO or Western institutions. But the international context would gradually transform its purpose.

The attacks of 11 September 2001 and the American intervention in Afghanistan placed Central Asia at the centre of American strategy. Washington subsequently established military infrastructure in the region and developed close relations with several Central Asian states. The SCO was thus confronted with a new reality: the space it sought to stabilise also became a theatre of competition among great powers. The fight against terrorism, separatism, and extremism became the organisation’s official cement.

But behind this security cooperation, a broader ambition gradually emerged: to build a Eurasian space in which the major regional powers could defend their interests without systematically depending on institutions dominated by Washington.

B) Expansion Completely Transforms the Nature of the SCO

The real turning point came with enlargement. In 2017, India and Pakistan became full members. The organisation was no longer essentially centred on China, Russia, and Central Asia. Two rival nuclear powers entered the same organisation simultaneously. The paradox is considerable.

India and Pakistan frequently disagree over the Kashmir issue. They have fought several wars and continue to regard each other as strategic adversaries. Nevertheless, they agree to sit at the same table within the SCO. This situation captures the organisation’s philosophy quite well: it is not necessary to be an ally in order to cooperate.

Iran officially joined the SCO in 2023, followed by Belarus in 2024. The organisation now has ten members. This evolution has profoundly altered its geography.

With China and India, the SCO includes two of the world’s most populous countries. With Russia and Iran, it brings together two major energy and military powers. With Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it incorporates states possessing significant energy and mineral resources and occupying central positions along Eurasian land corridors. The SCO therefore becomes simultaneously a security organisation, an energy space, an economic platform, and a diplomatic instrument.

According to World Bank data, China and India alone represent considerable demographic and economic weight. Taken together, the ten members account for 3.5 billion people and a substantial share of global production, particularly when measured in purchasing power parity. However, it is important to avoid a mistake in interpretation: adding together the populations or GDPs of the members does not mean that the SCO possesses collective power equivalent to the sum of these values.

This is precisely one of its fundamental characteristics: the organisation is neither a state nor an integrated alliance. Its potential power is greater than its institutional power.

II) The New Quest for Power?

A) Tianjin: The Return of the China-Russia-India Triangle

The Tianjin summit in September 2025 constituted an important stage in this transformation. The meeting between Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Narendra Modi gave renewed visibility to the old “RIC” concept, Russia, India, and China, conceived in the 1990s by Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.

Primakov’s idea was simple: faced with an American power that had become dominant after the end of the USSR, Moscow should promote closer relations among the major continental powers of Eurasia. For a long time, this project appeared more theoretical than real. Sino-Indian rivalry, in particular, prevented the emergence of a genuine strategic triangle.

But Tianjin showed that something had changed.

After several years of tensions, particularly the deadly clashes in the Galwan Valley in 2020, Beijing and New Delhi began seeking a form of stabilisation. The logic is not one of alliance, but rather of pragmatism: Sino-Indian rivalry persists, but neither power necessarily wants it to develop into a permanent confrontation. This distinction is essential.

India maintains close relations with the United States, particularly within the Quad, alongside Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra. At the same time, it purchases weapons from Russia, develops its relations with the Gulf monarchies, and participates in both BRICS and the SCO. New Delhi therefore refuses to enter into a bloc-based logic. This is precisely what makes India such an important actor for the future of the SCO. It prevents China from automatically transforming the organisation into an instrument of its own strategy.

B) China Now Seeks to Equip the SCO with Instruments of Power

Tianjin was also important for another reason: China’s determination to strengthen the organisation’s economic capabilities. Xi Jinping proposed the creation of an SCO development bank and announced Chinese financing, including approximately 10 billion yuan in loans over three years, equivalent to roughly US$1.4 billion, in addition to grants. This detail is far from anecdotal. An international organisation only truly becomes an architecture of power when it possesses instruments capable of transforming political declarations into concrete interdependencies.

A bank, payment mechanisms, infrastructure, railway corridors, energy investments, or trade agreements create a much more durable form of power than a simple diplomatic declaration. China understands this. Its model of external power is precisely based on the combination of infrastructure, financing, trade, and diplomacy. The SCO could therefore become an institutional extension of this strategy.

But once again, Beijing encounters a limitation: its partners do not necessarily want to become dependent on China.

Kazakhstan, for example, maintains close relations with Beijing while also seeking to preserve its ties with Russia, the European Union, and other partners. India, for its part, explicitly seeks to preserve its strategic autonomy. The SCO is therefore also a space for negotiating Chinese power.

III) The Global Context That Changes Everything

A) Iran: The Member That Changes the Geopolitics of the Organisation

Iran’s integration probably represents the most strategic development of recent years. When Tehran officially joined the organisation in 2023, Iran was already subject to a massive regime of Western sanctions and had long sought to diversify its economic and diplomatic partnerships. Its entry into the SCO provides it with additional legitimacy. But above all, it brings the Eurasian space closer to the Middle East. Iran constitutes a geographical bridge between Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, the Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. It is also a major energy power. And, above all, it is located at the heart of one of the planet’s most strategic passageways: the Strait of Hormuz.

Data from the United States Energy Information Administration show that, in 2024, approximately 20 million barrels of oil and petroleum products passed through the strait every day, representing roughly 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption. In the first half of 2025, the flow reached approximately 20.9 million barrels per day.

In other words, a crisis involving Iran does not concern only Israel, the United States, or the Middle East. It can affect the entire global economy. This explains why the meeting between Pezeshkian, Xi, and Putin in Bishkek carries particular significance. Iran is not joining the SCO merely as another member. It is joining as a country at war, under sanctions, possessing considerable energy resources and controlling one of the world’s main transit points for the global oil trade.

B) The War Against Iran Transforms the SCO Question

Since February 2026, the Iranian question has taken on a new dimension. The United States and Israel launched military operations against Iran, targeting primarily its nuclear and military infrastructure. The confrontation continued with air strikes and fragile negotiations. In this context, the reactions of China and Russia are particularly important. Neither Beijing nor Moscow necessarily wants to enter directly into a war with Washington. But both have an interest in preventing Iran’s strategic collapse.

Russia seeks to preserve its influence in the Middle East and prevent the United States from consolidating its position in the strategic space between the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf.

China has a different but complementary concern: energy and the stability of trade routes. China is the main destination for Iranian oil and therefore remains directly exposed to disruptions in energy markets. Recent analyses highlight that Beijing absorbs a very significant share of Iranian oil exports despite American sanctions. The equation is therefore straightforward. Washington can exert considerable financial pressure on Tehran. But as long as China remains willing to trade with Iran, particularly in the energy sector, the ability of American sanctions to completely isolate the Islamic Republic remains limited.

This is where the SCO may become interesting: it provides its members with a political environment in which economic relations can continue to develop despite Western sanctions. However, this capacity should not be exaggerated. The SCO currently has no financial system comparable to those of the United States or the European Union. Nor does it have a common currency. But it contributes to the emergence of parallel mechanisms: trade in national currencies, the development of alternative payment systems, Chinese financing, banking cooperation, and the development of land corridors.

Power, therefore, does not disappear from the world system. It shifts.

C) The Real Battle: Who Controls the Flows?

The question of power in the twenty-first century is no longer reduced to the number of tanks, aircraft, or missiles. It also concerns infrastructure:

Who controls the ports? Who controls the railway corridors? Who finances infrastructure? Who controls supply chains? Who can continue trading when the United States imposes sanctions? And, above all, who can transform a regional crisis into a global problem?

Iran possesses a particular capacity in this regard because of its geographical location. The Strait of Hormuz is the most spectacular example. But land corridors are equally important.

The SCO space lies at the centre of the new trade routes linking China with Europe, the Middle East, and Russia.

Russia possesses energy and mineral resources. China has industrial and financial capabilities. India has a gigantic market and a strategic position in the Indian Ocean. Iran provides a direct connection to the Gulf, the Middle East, and the maritime routes of the Indian Ocean. The Central Asian states, in turn, contribute their natural resources and geographical position.

The SCO’s potential lies precisely in this complementarity.

IV) What Should the SCO Become?

A) But the SCO Is Not a Bloc: Its Contradictions Are Numerous

This is where caution is needed to avoid an excessively sensationalist interpretation. Presenting the SCO as an “Eastern NATO” would be a mistake. It has no Article 5. It has no integrated military command. It does not oblige its members to adopt a common foreign policy. And its members maintain considerable rivalries among themselves.

India and China are competitors. India and Pakistan are adversaries.

Russia and China cooperate closely, but their interests in Central Asia are not always identical.

The Central Asian states, for their part, generally seek to avoid having to choose between Moscow and Beijing.

This diversity explains why the SCO operates more through consensus than through coercion. The organisation’s foreign ministers’ communiqué in July 2026, moreover, emphasised a “multipolar” conception of the world while affirming that the SCO does not target other states or international organisations and is based on consensus and respect for national interests. This formulation is fundamental. The SCO does not officially seek to create an anti-Western bloc. Rather, it advocates a world in which no single power should be able to impose its rules alone. This is an important distinction.

B) India: A Potential Arbiter Between Two Visions of Multipolarity

One of the principal challenges for the future of the SCO will therefore be India’s position. Because, in reality, there are two conceptions of multipolarity:

• The first, defended primarily by China and Russia, emphasises transforming the US-dominated international order and creating a more balanced system among the major poles of power.

• The second, expressed in more nuanced terms by India, consists of rejecting any form of domination, including domination by a non-Western power.

New Delhi does not wish to replace American hegemony with Chinese hegemony. This is why India simultaneously participates in structures as different as the Quad, BRICS, and the SCO.

This strategy may appear contradictory. But it is not. It reflects a logic of strategic autonomy. India seeks to have multiple options rather than depend on a single alliance. And this is precisely what could prevent the SCO from becoming a rigid bloc. Paradoxically, however, this lack of alignment may also be what makes it durable.

C) An Organisation Learning to Transform Power into Influence

The SCO will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2026. Its evolution has been remarkable. In 2001, it brought together six states around essentially regional issues.

In 2026, it has ten members and lies at the centre of a strategic space stretching from Eastern Europe to the Indian Ocean and from Siberia to the Middle East.

But the next stage will be decisive. To become a genuine architecture of power, the SCO will have to move from political cooperation towards functional integration. This means developing trade, infrastructure, investment, payment mechanisms, energy projects, technological cooperation, and security capabilities.

The SCO Business Council has already been working in this direction. In June 2026, a meeting in Bishkek focused, among other issues, on trade, investment, and industrial cooperation among member states. This may be less spectacular than a summit of heads of state. But it is probably more important. An international architecture only becomes powerful when it creates economic interests strong enough to make cooperation durable.

Conclusion: The SCO, a Laboratory for a World Without a Single Centre

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is therefore neither a new NATO, nor an Asian military alliance, nor a homogeneous bloc led by Beijing. It is something more flexible and perhaps more representative of the historical period now beginning. It is a laboratory of multipolarity. Its originality lies in its ability to bring together powers that share neither the same political system, nor the same interests, nor the same worldview, but that have a common interest: greater strategic freedom.

And Iran now constitutes the most important test of this ambition. The war between Washington, Israel, and Tehran effectively transforms a regional issue into a Eurasian problem. If China and Russia succeed in keeping Iran economically and diplomatically connected to the Eurasian space, then Western sanctions will demonstrate their limits.

If, on the other hand, Iran remains isolated despite its membership in the SCO, this will show that the organisation remains, above all, a political forum, incapable of transforming its economic and demographic weight into genuine collective power.

The Bishkek summit should therefore be viewed less as yet another diplomatic meeting and more as an indicator. Behind the handshakes between Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, and Masoud Pezeshkian lies a much deeper question: is it possible to build an international power without creating a new bloc?

This is probably the great geopolitical experiment being conducted by the SCO. For the power of the twenty-first century may no longer be organised around a single centre, a single alliance, or a single currency. It could instead be distributed among several poles, several networks, several institutions, and several corridors. In this new landscape, China possesses industrial and financial power, Russia considerable energy and military resources, India a growing demographic and economic mass, Iran a strategic geographical and energy position, while Central Asia constitutes one of the great crossroads of the continent. None of these actors controls Eurasia alone. But together, they contribute to profoundly reshaping its strategic geography.

The SCO may therefore not yet be an alternative global architecture. But it has become one of the spaces where such an architecture is being tested. And although the Western world has long regarded the SCO as a peripheral organisation, the time has probably come to see it differently. Not because it is already capable of replacing Western institutions, but because it contributes to creating something more difficult to counter: a world in which the West is no longer the only centre around which international relations are organised.

The real challenge facing the SCO is therefore not whether it will one day become the Eastern equivalent of NATO. The real challenge is much deeper. It is whether, gradually, it will be able to transform the demographic, economic, energy, and geographical mass of its members into an autonomous capacity for action.

If it succeeds, the SCO will cease to be merely a cooperation organisation. It will become one of the political infrastructures of the multipolar world. And in that world, the question will no longer be where the centre of power lies, but how many centres of power will henceforth be able to coexist.

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Marco Alves

Master in Political Science from the University of Paris West Nanterre, in International and European Law from Grenoble Alpes University, and in International Relations and Business from the Institute of International Relations of Paris (ILERI).

He has professional experience in 30 countries, including Brazil, where he worked for 10 years (notably for the State Government of Pernambuco as a development specialist). He has worked for NGOs across the African continent as a specialist in economic recovery in post-conflict zones.

Today, he serves as the director of an international consulting firm specializing in social sciences and social engineering, with operations in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Niger. He is also the correspondent for France and Europe for the radio station CBN Recife, President of the Assembly of IFSRA (Institute for Social Research in Africa), a social entrepreneur, speaker, and mentor for the international organization MakeSense, and a consultant in strategic intelligence and risk management for the corporate sector.