Will the Shanghai Cooperation Organization be a real forum for the Central Asian states or will it continue to be dominated by Russia and China? Sean Yom suggests that the answer to the question lies in the United States' willingness and ability to control violent Islamist groups in Central Asia, a role that Central Asian states had previously expected Russia and China to fulfill.

Sean L. Yom is currently a research analyst at the Carnegie Council on Ethics & International Affairs in New York City. His previous appointment was as a strategic analyst in the Islamic Studies division at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, DC. He is affiliated with the Department of Political Science at Brown University.          

Since the end of the Cold War, Central Asia has acquired a reputation as a volatile, unpredictable region.1 Economic instability, weak civil societies, and repressive political climates have shrouded the post-Soviet states since their independence eleven years ago. Indeed, the World Bank has called the last decade a "triple-transition" for the Central Asian countries: they simultaneously faced the macroeconomic shock of the Soviet disintegration, the abrupt shift from centralized state governance to more democratic, market-driven strategies, and the sudden shift in geographic position to being in the middle of two much larger nuclear powers.2 Compounding its internal problems, Central Asia held a low-priority status within the broader foreign policy framework of the US; Washington’s primary interests concerned nuclear nonproliferation and energy security rather than intermediate-term political stability or even long-term regional economic development.3 As a result, the Central Asian states turned to Moscow and Beijing for their immediate security and economic needs; for example, Russia and China had signed formal trade or friendship treaties with all of these countries’ governments prior to the summer of 2001, and Moscow in particular projected its politico-military predominance by stationing troops in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan under mutual security arrangements.4 Thus, until this year, Russian and Chinese, rather than Western, interests were assumed to most heavily shape the region’s future.

9/11 and the consequent war in Afghanistan, however, thrust Central Asia into the international limelight, highlighting its strategic importance to the West as the "geopolitical pivot" and "shatterbelt" of the extensive Eurasian landmass.5  The Central Asian states now enjoy greater political attention from the West than at any other time in their short existence; as a result, the region is no longer assumed to lie safely within the Sino-Russian sphere of influence. A new constellation of political dynamics has radically altered the balance of power in this fragile region, which finds itself once again in a ‘great game’ of geopolitics between major powers. With the current American presence in Central Asia, Russian and Chinese influence have been temporarily diluted. New pressures on the normally close Sino-Russian relationship, as well as the ongoing violence of Islamist militants, have cast uncertainty over the future evolution of the region. As one native regional expert articulated, given Central Asia’s rich strategic and physical resources, "one can expect potential clashes of global interests of great powers for domination of the region."6 

One major influence over the region’s future is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the nascent political alliance of Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan created in June 2001. The SCO arose out of the Shanghai Five, a loose security group that comprised every current SCO member except Uzbekistan. The Shanghai Five was originally formed in 1996 as a confidence-building measure in which member states could cooperate on border delineation issues.7  During the summer of 2001, under the guidance of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin, the organization added Uzbekistan to its roster and officially renamed itself the SCO, declaring itself as a regional forum and pledging to forge stronger ties between member states while providing for the collective security of Central Asia.

In its first year of existence, the SCO concerned itself primarily with regional security and border control. At its founding, the six countries had pledged to combat the "three evil forces" of terrorism, extremism, and separatism, the last being a thinly disguised reference to violent Islamic radicalism.8  Some advocates envisioned the group as not merely a security mechanism, but also as a promising framework for building tighter trade, investment, cultural, environmental, and technological relations between member states; the SCO would accordingly become "the region’s authoritative voice."9  The group applied for UN recognition and has even approached Mongolia, Pakistan, India, and Iran for prospective membership. If the SCO expands and encompasses not just security issues, but also addresses economic and social concerns, then it will be a powerful regional player indeed.

Certainly, the rhetoric of the SCO points towards the future possibility of it becoming an influential multilateral organization. However, the prospect that the young SCO will blossom into a powerful regional bloc requires many assumptions. For example, each country would need to invest the necessary political will into the SCO framework; the organization would have to develop its own autonomous agencies and capable leadership, distinct from its constituent states; the UN, US, and EU would have to recognize the group as a credible international organization; and most importantly, the SCO would have to operate as a legitimate vehicle for the collective interests of its members rather than as an organ dominated or directed by one or two states.

That final condition is difficult to satisfy. Upon its formation over a year ago, the SCO was described within many Western policy and intelligence circles as merely a synergistic tool of Russian and Chinese foreign policy, a vessel by which these two powers could court Central Asian states into steadily growing military and economic relations while simultaneously coordinating policies to crush internal threats like militant Islamist movements. Russia and China, by virtue of their much larger geographic size, economic strength, and military power, have dominated the group from the start by pressuring the leaders of their smaller neighbors to support their policies; indeed, the SCO began largely out of the directives of these two countries’ leaders. This has allowed the foreign ministries of Russia and China to tightly guide the SCO’s stance on many issues, such as its general anti-US slant as well as its zero-tolerance approach to Islamist and separatist movements.

In the eyes of Russian and Chinese policymakers, then, the SCO was a way to seal the strategic Sino-Russian dominance over Central Asia while engaging in friendly relations with their Central Asian neighbors. They all shared common concerns, such as the need to stifle increasingly violent ethnic and Islamist insurgencies; however, unlike their smaller fellow members, Moscow and Beijing desired to directly confront American hegemony, especially in a region they long considered their natural sphere of influence. No matter how alluring the possibility of the SCO becoming a model forum for regional cooperation, the reality seems to be  that Russia and China wish to use the SCO to eventually build a new regional security architecture that reinforces each other’s territorial integrity while retrenching Western influence at the same time.10 For instance, shortly after its inception, the SCO released a joint communiqué that stressed, among other things, the folly of the US National Missile Defense system, the integrity of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the legitimacy of the PRC government as the sole representative of both mainland China and Taiwan.11 These were concerns that Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan seldom voiced, if at all, before the formation of the SCO. They are also, unsurprisingly, deeply held interests of Moscow and Beijing that are now being articulated as the official position of this new multilateral organization. The SCO has become a de facto podium for its member states, especially Russia and China, to express their political views to an international audience.

The Central Asian states have accepted the Sino-Russian domination of the SCO more out of need than desire. Over the past several years, the leaders of these states allied themselves with Russia and China in order to gain support for their harsh domestic policies of severely repressing religious and political opposition movements, spanning from civil-political parties to violent Islamist guerillas. Lack of Western attention to the region resulted in many regional leaders, such as Uzbek President Islam Karimov, concluding that only Russia and China would commit the military troops and aid needed to defeat these internal and regional threats.12  Thus, in the late-1990s, the Central Asian states began to strengthen their relations with these two powers, and they welcomed the formation of the SCO with enthusiasm.13 For their part, Russia and China looked to gain the cooperation of their neighbors in dealing with their own problems; for instance, China has placed strong demands on the extradition of any wanted Uighur nationalists who escape into neighboring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

9/11 and the Afghan conflict have thrown immense uncertainty over the future of the SCO. The current presence of American military forces in Central Asia has injected a new dynamic into regional politics. It has highlighted the blunt dominance of Sino-Russian interests within the SCO framework, as well as the weakness of the framework itself as both a security mechanism and a forum to combat the growing American influence in the region. The evolution of the SCO, then, is a salient yardstick that measures how well Russia and China will coexist with each other as well as with the newly present US; it represents the struggle to maintain Sino-Russian hegemony over Central Asia in the face of growing US interests and the stubborn presence of violent Islamist-oriented movements.

Thus far, the SCO has been conspicuously silent – an uneasy quiet that many observers interpret as a sign of the organization’s weaknesses. In the past year, the SCO did not exercise a single military or political response to any terrorism-related issue, beyond offering condolence to the US for the 9/11 attacks. This is significant because a core part of the organization’s raison d’être was to ensure the regional stability of Central Asia by confronting terrorism and Islamist extremism. Hence, when the group gathered in St. Petersburg in early June 2002 to sign its official 26-point legal charter,14 Western diplomats called the SCO a "stillborn" organization, an ineffective young alliance made largely irrelevant by the insertion of US troops into the heart of Central Asia.15 They pointed out that the SCO could not marshal any military answer to the Afghan problem; furthermore, much to the alarm of Moscow and Beijing, its Central Asian members, particularly Uzbekistan, gladly welcomed US requests to station its military forces on their soil. This apparent lack of internal unity, compounded with its inability to mount a cohesive strategy towards the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan – a proximal danger literally next-door – has duly hurt the SCO’s credibility.

The SCO enters its second year of existence with an unclear future. It lies at the nexus of Sino-Russian attempts to consolidate, strengthen, and expand control of the Central Asian region and American economic and political interests. What began as an optimistic alliance to cement the strategic relations of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan has now become a reflection of the three primary vectors driving the economic and political future of Central Asia: Sino-Russian relations, US interests in the region, and the ongoing violence of Islamist militants. The future of the SCO will mirror Central Asia’s gravitation towards any one of these different dynamics; examining these factors will lead to a richer understanding of the power politics that now dominate the region.

Russia and China were the engines driving the SCO’s creation and therefore have the most at stake in its survival. Over the last six years they have engaged in increasingly tight bilateral relations, cooperating on issues like trade and border demilitarization; the June 2001 "Good-Neighborly Treaty on Friendship and Cooperation" was the first formal treaty of friendship between the two since the beginning of the Cold War.16 Yet the agreement merely codified ongoing developments that have increasingly linked the geopolitical strategies of these two countries over the last decade. They have exchanged engineers, scientists, and military officers in mutual training programs, engaged in joint military planning exercises, and even pooled technological resources in order to research shared defense threats, such as American stealth technology.17  

At the moment of its formation, the SCO seemed the perfect intersection of these two countries’ interests. It fused Moscow’s long-standing quest to increase control over the region with Beijing’s desire to create a multi-polar world. They envisaged the organization as an instrument to ensure the safety of Central Asia from foreign encroachment by exerting dual hegemony over the region. For Russia, the organization seemed like a convenient way to maintain suzerain control over the Central Asia region via the "Belorussian option" – allowing the preservation of formal national sovereignty of former Soviet states while deeply reintegrating them into the Russian zone of influence via economic, cultural, and diplomatic means. Such control would bring stronger border security and also easy access to the rich energy reserves of the region.18  For its part, China has long wished to develop the energy resources of the region in order to achieve civilian and military production targets over the next two decades; it also needed to safeguard its western flank from intrusion from foreign powers, particularly as it faces US military installations or US-supported military forces on its eastern front via South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.19  Mutual support for each other’s policies defined much of the Sino-Russian relationship at the close of the 1990s, and the SCO represents a continuation of this trend.

However, the Sino-Russian relationship has faced considerable stress over the last year. During the war on terrorism, the Bush administration spearheaded an American rapprochement with Russia that clearly troubled Chinese leadership. The May 2002 Treaty of Moscow (which called for the most ambitious Russian arms reductions in a decade) and the creation of the NATO-Russian Council, which allowed Russia a voice in NATO policy for the first time, raised considerable disquiet in Beijing. Chinese leaders worried that Russia would be pulled into the orbit of the West. President Jiang Zemin feared that this would marginalize China and weaken its relative position vis-à-vis the Beijing-Moscow-Washington strategic triangle.20  An uncommitted Russia would force China alone to push the SCO forward and thus bear the burden of dealing with the region’s major problems, from the illegal drug and weapons trade to radical Islam.

Despite these recent changes, however, the Sino-Russian relationship will endure. Moscow still maintains strong ties with China, with which it shares a border of 4,600 miles. Putin has strenuously reassured Jiang Zemin at every SCO meeting that he will not abandon the strategic framework of the group.21  Trade turnover is greater with China than with the US, and the Chinese military buys more than $1 billion in Russian arms annually.22  Furthermore, Russian foreign relations do not revolve around zero-sum logic; even as Russia grows closer to its Western allies, it will grow closer still to China since some of its most pressing domestic issues – particularly Islamist-styled separatist movements – are also shared by China. In fact, some analysts have argued that Russia may be simply biding its time in order to measure its strength against the US before assuming its more traditional posture of opposition.23  Hence, it is highly likely that both countries will continue to invest in the SCO framework despite Moscow’s warming to the White House. The SCO will remain a front for Sino-Russian interests to control the Central Asian region’s development. Moscow and Beijing much prefer their Central Asian neighbors to rely upon their economic and military assistance rather than ask for Western aid. This would make certain that the rich physical resources of the region remain untapped by the West, and that the foreign policies of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan remain congruent with the broader desires of the Russian and Chinese defense ministries.

The growing American presence in Central Asia has radically distorted the political topography of the region; it has uncovered the limitations of the SCO and will force Russia and China to alter their strategies vis-à-vis the security and military concerns of the SCO states. The initial appearance of US troops in the region underscored the internal dissension among SCO members: the Central Asian states embraced the arrival of US troops on their military bases, while Moscow and Beijing were dismayed by their arrival.24 For Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, positive relationships with the US unlocked new opportunities to obtain political and economic aid from the West. Such relations allow these countries to complement Sino-Russian attempts to court them with newfound Western attention. Reciprocally, the US and its allies have enjoyed the free use of their territory in order to stage military operations into Afghanistan.

The current war on terrorism has given the US, which has traditionally been excluded from Central Asia, a key foothold in establishing its influence in the region. From a long-term vantage point, the US holds two primary interests in the area: first, it has long eyed the region’s rich oil and gas reserves, as American companies eagerly wish to develop this energy wealth; second, it desires tactical ground to observe nearby political developments, especially in South Asia. A strong presence in Central Asia could be used as leverage in its political influence in shaping Indian-Pakistani relations, for instance, particularly at a time when the US is building stronger military ties with both countries. Some observers note that these issues are linked: some energy analysts, for example, claim that a US-controlled oil and gas pipeline running from Central Asia through Pakistan and India can bring much-needed revenues to these warring states, giving the US greater influence over the peace process in the subcontinent.25 

The US has laid the foundation for a potential long-term presence by nurturing close partnerships with the Central Asian states. Economic assistance to these states has drastically risen (aid to Uzbekistan nearly tripled this year alone), and the State Department has toned down its usually stringent criticisms of their poor treatment of human rights while simultaneously recommending key economic and political reforms.26  However, it is still not clear what lasting imprint any American presence will leave. For example, while its military bases in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan will not remain open indefinitely (especially as other fronts in the war on terrorism open, such as Yemen, Georgia, and now perhaps Indonesia), plans have been drawn for future military cooperation and training exercises with these countries.27  The frequency and depth of such confidence-building measures, however, have yet to be determined, leaving open three possibilities: the US may withdraw completely, as the regional theater of military operations winds down in favor of nation-building efforts in Afghanistan; it may decide to leave an enduring military presence in the Central Asian states; or, it might choose to withdraw its armed forces, and instead engage in deeper political and economic relations with the Central Asian states.

Russia and China wish to avoid the scenario of the US forging stronger political and economies ties with the Central Asian states while also leaving a long-term military presence in the region. The greater any future US presence in the region, the greater the chances that the SCO will continue to lose credibility as a regional security forum. Certainly, a powerful US presence would lure Central Asian states away from Moscow and Beijing, to whom they have traditionally deferred. To some extent, this has already occurred; Uzbekistan, for instance, has begun a new "strategic partnership" with the US that has unsettled President Putin, whose offers to help patrol the Uzbek-Afghan border with Russian frontier guards have been met with only lukewarm responses.28   The Central Asian states’ leaders feel that "their bargaining power with the West has palpably risen since the start of the war in Afghanistan," even as a bristling Russia steps up its offers of joint military training and arms sales at concessionary prices, and China attempts to accelerate its lucrative energy development and pipeline projects in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.29 

The Central Asian states’ rapprochement with the US and increasing inattention to the desires of Moscow and Beijing signal the SCO’s lack of unity. Russia and China, of course, are concerned about losing concrete influence in neighboring states over which they almost always have exerted great authority. The presence of American forces so close to Russia and China – US troops in Bishkek, for instance, are only 200 miles from the Chinese border – and within SCO member states themselves effectively nullifies the security framework of the group, since it conveys the image that the SCO states cannot police Central Asia without Western assistance. If its security components are found deficient, the SCO will essentially be reduced to a mere political forum, a podium for Russia and China to address the world rather than a genuine attempt to forge a new security strategy for Central Asia.

Islamist Militancy

The final factor influencing the SCO and Central Asia is the ongoing struggle with Islamist militancy. While the war in Afghanistan restrained violent Islamic radicalism, it did not eliminate it, and in fact it multiplied the threat by dispersing the various Islamist groups operating out of Afghanistan into hiding across Central and South Asia. In addition, relatively moderate Islamist groups, such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Islamist Freedom Party), have actually grown more radical and violent since the inception of the Afghan conflict due to increased enmity towards the US as well as the procurement of new arms and equipment left by fleeing Taliban and Al Qaeda units.30 

Notably, the perceived potential danger of Islamist militants is the main threat that binds the regional security policies of the SCO countries together. All its members share growing unease with Islamist-styled militancy or separatist movements, and that disquiet helped fuel the formation of the SCO. China faces its perennial Uighur separatist problem in Xinjiang; Russia wages its costly war in Chechnya while also uneasily observing public sentiment in its predominantly Muslim provinces, such as Tatarstan and Dagestan; and Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan all struggle with violent Islamist movements, like Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), fermenting in the volatile Ferghana Valley.31 

While some of these groups have been decimated by the US campaign – for instance, the IMU’s leader Juma Namangani was reportedly killed in Afghanistan earlier this year, and many of its fighters were captured or killed – the perceived threat of radical Islam has been constructed to be far beyond the actual capacity of Islamic extremists to challenge the Central Asian governments.32 In reality, while they certainly possess the logistical capabilities and manpower to wage destructive urban and guerilla campaigns, they do not have the ability to topple the Central Asian governments. Central Asian leaders have over-projected the danger of Islamist militancy and nurtured the image of their states as besieged entities under constant attack from Islamic fundamentalism. By doing so, they justify their hard-line political tactics that consolidate their authoritarian positions, such as harassing and imprisoning major Muslim leaders, registering and monitoring all religious groups, and downplaying any public displays of Islamic identity within civil society. Despite heightened criticism from human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, these authoritarian tactics have intensified over the last year. Furthermore, the US has notably softened its usual condemnations of such repressive tactics in its attempts to nurture more cordial relations with these states.

Ironically, this strategy actually sustains an ebb-and-flow cycle of Islamist violence. Brutal repression alienates unemployed youths who face little real economic and political opportunity. This, combined with extensive disillusionment regarding the persistent institutional failures of their governments to provide even the barest semblance of a just, efficient state, has allowed Islamist militant networks to easily recruit more fighters. In turn, continuing urban bombings and infrequent but deadly attacks on rural and military posts spur these governments to maintain their religious and political repression. In Chechnya and Xinjiang, for instance, the low-level violence of Islamist separatist groups has allowed Moscow and Beijing to further suppress the population under the justification of providing for national security. Unsurprisingly, the ethnic-separatist conflicts in these two regions, inflamed by radical Islamists, still linger. This assures that Islamist groups, while not strong enough to topple the Central Asian states, can still seriously undermine the ability of these governments to effectively rule their territory. There is also the distinct danger that Islamist groups may be joining forces in order to better coordinate future attacks. Kalyk Imankulov, head of the Kyrgyz National Security Service, believes that logistical cooperation and joint planning have already commenced between the IMU, Tajik and Kyrgyz Islamists, and even Uighur nationalists from China.33 

The SCO finds itself in a precarious position with respect to the issue of Islamist violence. Clearly, none of the SCO states besides Russia and China can contain Islamist militants alone. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in particular lack the domestic resources to permanently sustain any effective military campaigns against them. For example, for years Russian troops have patrolled the Tajik border with Afghanistan at the request of the nervous Tajik government, who feared Islamist incursions from the then-Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Such perception that Russia and China were the only powers that would contribute to the region’s security compelled the Central Asian states to support the formation of the SCO in the first place. Moscow and Beijing recognize this, and hence much of the organizational rhetoric of the SCO has often focused on Islamist terrorism and its danger to regional stability. The group has even planned a regional anti-terrorism center in Bishkek, which would pool the intelligence operations of each member country and maintain a standing rapid deployment force comprised of Russian and Chinese troops.34

Yet, while the SCO proclaims terrorism and religious extremism to be two of its primary targets, the group has not taken a single collective measure against any Islamist movement within its member states. Prior to 9/11, the Central Asian states, for lack of a better option, supported Russia and China’s policies within the SCO, gaining promises of regional security in exchange for mutual cooperation in battling the perceived Islamist threat. The new US presence changed this geopolitical situation. Warmer relations with the US have temporarily lessened the Central Asian states’ dependence on their two larger neighbors, leading some observers to propose that they will now have to make a permanent choice between the US and the SCO.35  However, it is unclear whether future American economic and strategic interests will translate into direct support for these states in their fight against Islamist groups over the next five to ten years. Thus, the fact that no Central Asian state has pulled out of the group, well over one year after the initial US entry, signifies that many leaders still believe that Russia and China are the best guarantee for regional security, in light of the uncertainty hovering over the future presence of the US in the region.

Conclusion

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and by extension the economic and political evolution of Central Asia, reflects three different dynamics – Sino-Russian relations, the new US presence, and the continued threat of Islamist violence. Moscow and Beijing wish to expand and strengthen the group in order to control the course of the region’s political and economic evolution; their attempts have been bolstered by the shared, perceived threat of Islamist violence and terrorism. The new US presence, however, has underscored the SCO’s weakness by drawing the Central Asian states away from Moscow and Beijing, who themselves are continuing a tight relationship with each other despite the diplomatic detente of Russia to the West. How the SCO and its member countries navigate these conflicting trajectories is a litmus test for the geopolitical direction of Central Asia.

The key variable for the future of the SCO is the form and function of the US presence after the Afghanistan conflict winds down: the Sino-Russian relationship will continue to be strong, and the persistent threat of radical Islam, however inflated and manipulated in the public imagination by authoritarian leaders, will compel the Central Asian states to maintain friendly relations with Russia and China. Yet if the US intends to keep a long-term military presence in the region and plainly indicates to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that its forces are willing to engage violent Islamist groups that threaten the region’s security, then Russia and China might find themselves unneeded and perhaps unwanted in a region they long considered their exclusive zone of influence. Accordingly, both Russia and China will intensify their attempts to maintain strong economic, political, and military relations with their smaller SCO neighbors. The US, being the fulcrum upon which the economic and political future of the region swings, must still decide how much it is willing to expend in Central Asia.

Endnotes

1. Central Asia denotes the geographic region comprising Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. For the purposes of this article, by Central Asia I mean to refer only to those regional members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – namely, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
2. Johannes Linn, "Central Asia: Ten Years of Transition," Talking Points for Central Asia Donors’ Consultation Meeting of World Bank, March 1, 2002, <http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/eca/eca.nsf/General/7035BF2B6C6043EB85256BA3005E2A5B?OpenDocument> (June 19, 2002).
3. Robert Cutler, "The West’s Irreducible Interests in Central Asia," Focus (Newsletter of Center for Post-Soviet Studies) Vol. 3: No. 11 (November 1996), p.1-2.
4. Mark Katz, "Central Asian Stability: Under Threat?" SAIS Review Vol. 17: No. 1 (1997), p.31-46.
5. Robert Cutler, "US Intervention in Afghanistan: Implications for Central Asia," Foreign Policy in Focus, 21 November 2001, <http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/commentary/0111afghanint_body.html> (July 3, 2002).
6. Borys Parakhonsky, "Central Asia: Geostrategic Survey," Central Asia and the Caucasus Information and Analytical Center, June 2000, <http://www.ca-c.org/dataeng/parakhonsk.shtml> (June 18, 2002).
7. Resolving border conflict issues has been foremost on the regional agenda of the Central Asian states since their independence; see, for instance, "Central Asia: Border Disputes and Conflict Potential," International Crisis Group – Asia Report No. 33, April 4, 2002.
8. "St. Petersburg Summit of SCO Concludes with Rich Fruit," Xinhua News Agency, June 7, 2002.
9. Sergei Blagov, "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Prepares for New Role," EurasiaNet.org, April 29, 2002.
10. Stephen Blank, "The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and its Future," Central Asia & Caucasus Analyst, May 22, 2002.
11. "SCO Defense Ministers Stress Military Cooperation," People’s Daily (English Version), June 16, 2001.
12. Robert Cutler, "The Shattering of the Sino-Russian Entente Over the Shape of Central Asia?" Central Asia & Caucasus Analyst, November 21, 2001.
13. Notably, even Kazakhstan – the largest Central Asian state, and the one with the least visible threat of radical Islam – greeted the SCO’s birth with keen interest. See, for instance, "Kazakh President Points to Importance of Shanghai Five Summit," ITAR-TASS News, June 18, 2000.
14. "Charter for Shanghai Cooperation Organization Adopted at Summit in Russia," People’s Daily (English Version), June 8, 2002. While the SCO was officially inaugurated one year earlier, the Charter was supposed to cement its international legal status by providing comprehensive parameters for the defining issues, roles, and priorities of the organization.
15. Oliver August, "Stillborn Charter is Signed in Russia," The Times of London, June 8, 2002.
16. Sherman Garnett, "Challenges of the Sino-Russian Strategic Partnership," The Washington Quarterly Vol. 24: No. 4 (2001), 41-54.
17. Willy Wo-lap Lam, "Combating American Hegemony," CNN.com, June 20, 2001, <http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/19/china.russia.willy/> (July 6, 2002).
18. Fiona Hill, "The United States and Russia in Central Asia; Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran," Speech Given at Aspen Institute Congressional Program, August 15, 2002.
19. Raviprasad Narayanan, "China, Terrorism, and the SCO," Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies Release, July 8, 2002.
20. Ching Cheong, "US-Russia Summit Worries China," The Korea Herald, June 1, 2002.
21. Philip Bowring, "The Changing Geopolitical Role of Putin’s Russia," International Herald Tribune, June 7, 2002.
22. "Russia-China Trade Turnover Amounts to $11 Billion," ITAR-TASS News Agency, June 6, 2002.
23. Antoaneta Bezlova, "Beijing Plays Down Newfound Russia-US Warmth," Inter-Press Service, June 3, 2002.
24. Bruce Pannier and Antoine Blua, "Central Asia: Six Months After – Alliances Shift With West, Russia (Part 1)," RFE/RL, March 12, 2002.
25. James Borton, "US’s Afghan Aid Package Fuels Pipeline Politics," The Asia Times, May 19, 2002.
26. "Uzbek-US Declaration Kept Secret," The Washington Post, p. A11, June 1, 2002.
27. Sergei Blagov, "SCO Continues to Search for Operational Framework," EurasiaNet.org, June 11, 2002.
28. Dmitry Litvinovich, "Why is Karimov on Friendly Terms with the USA?" Pravda.Ru, October 26, 2001.
29. "Americans in a Strange Land," The Economist, May 2, 2002.
30. Pannier and Blua, "Central Asia: Six Months Later – Security Still Top Interregional Issue (Part 2)," RFE/RL, March 12, 2002.
31. "Central Asia: Islamist Mobilization and Regional Security," International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 14,  March 1, 2001.
32. Davron Vali, "IMU Movements May Press Tajikistan to Forefront of Security Concerns," EurasiaNet.org, April 18, 2002.
33. Zamira Eshanova, "Are Radical Groups Joining Forces?" RFE/RL, October 8, 2002.
34. "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Seeks to Strengthen Anti-Terrorism Component," EurasiaNet.org, January 8, 2002.
35. Shahram Akbarzadeh, "Tashkent Caught Between the United States and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization," Central Asia & Caucasus Analyst, June 5, 2002.