Who’s really running the SCO?

If your family dinners feel tense, take some comfort from the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, which just took place in Bishkek.

Founded in 2001 by China, Russia, and four Central Asian neighbours, the SCO started out as a pact to stamp out the "three evils" of terrorism, separatism, and extremism.

Fast forward a quarter century, and it's now billing itself as a 10-member heavyweight representing a quarter of global GDP, 3.4 billion people, and four nuclear powers, all as Eurasia's answer to a Western-dominated world.

Their joint declaration adopted 28 documents (!), but here are the five lines you really need to know, starting with...

1. 🇨🇳 "The SCO should step forward to shoulder its historic responsibility and steer the course for the future" — Xi Jinping

Translation? Xi actually then offered his own blunt translation, arguing the SCO should help build an "equal and orderly multipolar world" — ie, an end to any US-led hierarchy. He offers some familiar steps to get there, too, including his flagship Global Development, Security, Civilization, and Governance Initiatives.

Or to put it all another way? He wants the SCO to matter more, and it should matter more in ways that sound a lot like China’s own vision for the world.

Xi got an amen from...

2. 🇮🇷 "An SCO Bank would be an effective step to reduce the vulnerability of trade and supply chains" — Masoud Pezeshkian

Translation? Drowning in sanctions, Iran needs a bank the US can't switch off.

He also wants an export-insurance union and an energy consortium for similar reasons. And of course, the top supporters are those also drowning under sanctions: Putin and his Belarusian puppet. China has also been pushing the idea since 2010.

So... why's it not up and running? Some (Uzbeks) are trying to balance world powers rather than jump deeper into bed with Beijing. And others (Kyrgyz and Kazakhs) are squabbling over who gets to host.

But the biggest hurdle is probably...

3. 🇮🇳 "Reliable and inclusive connectivity must respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries" — Narendra Modi

Translation? India is wary of rival China using the SCO generally and any SCO Bank specifically to further its own regional dominance.

Modi has always bristled at China's big 'Belt and Road' infrastructure projects through neighbouring rival Pakistan, but particularly in disputed Kashmir.

And while we’re on Modi’s dunking on Pakistan...

4. 🇮🇳 "Terrorism should never be treated as a strategic asset" — Narendra Modi

Translation? Stop it, Pakistan.

Modi's price for playing along in the SCO has always been to milk tough SCO text on Pakistan-based Islamist groups hitting India. This time, interestingly, he got the SCO to adopt his "no double standards on terrorism" language, which looked a lot like a jab at China (it routinely blocks UN terrorist designations that could be embarrassing for Pakistan).

Anyway, Modi also had a pretty blunt message for Putin...

5. 🇮🇳 "We must move from endless war towards an end to war" — Narendra Modi

Translation? Wrap it up, Vlad.

Dropped during a one-on-one, and in front of the cameras, it was a spicy moment that made Putin visibly squirm. And Delhi might well argue that this is the value of Modi keeping his Putin ties warm: the tsar has no choice but to cop it.

What nobody mentioned was that maybe this war would've ended years ago if India (with China) had stopped financing it via energy deals. Plus the final SCO resolution found plenty of room to condemn strikes on Iran, but only more silence on Ukraine.

As for Putin's response? The next day he warned (with a straight face) that "we must do everything in our power to prevent a return to the global practice of instigating armed conflicts” — still framing his decision to roll tanks across Ukraine's borders and slam missiles into Ukrainian homes as someone else's fault.

Quite the move from a guy who treats NATO's voluntary eastern democracies as casus belli, but the SCO's westward expansion (hi Belarus) as mere multipolarity.

Sound even smarter:

• Amusingly, Pakistan initially cropped India’s Modi and others out of its version of the official ‘family photo’, moving PM Sharif closer to the centre.