La Shanghai Cooperation Organization - SCO - should mark the beginning of an alternative multilateralism that could join the efforts of China e Russia, especially today, in the controversial Afghan landscape. The speeches at the Dushanbe summit of Vladimir Putin need Xi Jinping they seem to lean in this direction. The Afghan crisis is creating a convergence of interests in the area, especially from the point of view of security, and the need to coordinate efforts to prevent Kabul from becoming a source of instability in the region or projecting a return of radical Islam in Central Asia.
Alexander Gabuev, international observer and analyst thinks differently and to Ansa he said: “The SCO is an 'empty shell', despite the Kremlin's propaganda promising otherwise. Russia and China have a very close dialogue on the Afghan dossier and the SCO remains too weak a platform to have a significant impact. In the end, the bulk, if there is one, will take the path of bilateral mechanisms, both on the Russian-Chinese axis and on that towards the countries of Central Asia ”.
The SCO, founded in 2001, with headquarters in Beijing, brought together Russia, China and the former Soviet republics at the same table with the aim of mitigating possible risks and instability in the area. China then tried to give it greater importance by proposing an investment bank in the area, a proposal at the time opposed by Moscow because it knew it could not compete with the strength of the Chinese economy. Russia, for its part, has pushed instead to expand the organization more and more, favoring the entry of India e Pakistan and now also ofIran. THE'Afghanistan. today he is only an observer and no representative has sat down to work in Dushanbe as the new Taliban government has not yet been recognized.
The SCO needs unanimous votes and this is a limit of the organization where the unilateral decisions of the individual states prevail. This time Xi Jinping has decided not to go to the summit in person, due to Covid. "Shortly after, coincidentally, Putin also denied attendance at the summit because he had to isolate himself given the explosion of coronavirus cases in his entourage", notes Gabuev. "It seems to me that Putin's choice shows two realities"the SCO is not really that important and if the Chinese leader deserted it, then the Kremlin must reply in a similar way, so as not to give the idea of being outdone ".