The Economist explains

What is the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation?

Conflicting visions among its growing membership mean it poses little threat to the West

FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a photo at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province on June 10, 2018. President Xi Jinping is using his first trip abroad since the start of the pandemic to promote China's strategic ambitions at a summit with Putin and other leaders of a Central Asian security group. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
|3 min read

WESTERN LEADERS may cast a nervous glance at Samarkand, a city in Uzbekistan, where the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) gathers for a summit on September 15th and 16th. China’s president, Xi Jinping, on his first foreign trip since the outbreak of covid-19, is expected to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Others attending include Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi; his country is set to become a full member. Western leaders are pointedly not invited to the meeting, the organisation’s first summit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. What does the SCO do, and should it worry the West?

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