Executive Summary:
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) serves as a framework for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to foster relationships with neighboring countries that share its vision of a multipolar world order. The SCO has recently expanded its mandate beyond the “Three Evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism to include law enforcement, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence (AI).
- The expanded mandate reinforces PRC priorities and emphasizes the principle of limiting external interference, without explicitly naming the United States as a violator. Individuals and organizations working against PRC interests in the region have been prosecuted or condemned for external interference.
- Many members of the SCO view information control, political stability, and technological sovereignty as key components to national security. Their preferences align with and are molded by those of the PRC, allowing the PRC to create additional mechanisms to globalize its security preferences.
Against the backdrop of the snow-capped Tien Shan mountains, the leaders of Iran, Russia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Türkiye, India, Belarus, Pakistan, and the Central Asian Republics met for the 25th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in early September (Xinhua, September 1). Economic cooperation, infrastructure, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence all featured prominently. Yet the summit’s most consequential decisions concerned security.
SCO Steadily Expands Mandate and Membership
Security has been central to the SCO since its inception, but the organization’s definition of security has expanded. The SCO grew out of the “Shanghai Five,” created in the 1990s by the PRC, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan to reduce military tensions and build confidence along their borders following decades of Sino-Soviet rivalry. Uzbekistan joined in 2001, when the six states formally established the SCO, with an early mandate centered on combating the “Three Evil Forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism, alongside broader goals of regional stability. The organization subsequently established a Secretariat in Beijing and the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure, or RATS, in Tashkent.
The SCO has since expanded both geographically and politically. India and Pakistan became full members in 2017, Iran joined in 2023, and Belarus in 2024, bringing membership to ten states. The result is an organization stretching from Eastern Europe to East Asia and including four nuclear powers. Türkiye, a long-standing SCO partner, may seek a closer relationship. Speaking to reporters after the Bishkek summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Türkiye’s perspective on possible SCO membership “never means turning its back on the West,” framing Ankara’s approach as part of a “360-degree” foreign policy (Anadolu, September 2).
Building a Multipolar International Order
The SCO is not a military alliance, and its own documents stress its “non-bloc” character. Its members do not share the treaty obligations or integrated military structures associated with NATO. They also have substantial disagreements among themselves, most obviously between India and Pakistan and, at times, between India and the PRC. What unites them is less a common strategic doctrine than an interest in preserving state sovereignty, limiting external interference, and promoting a more multipolar international order.
That political message was explicit in Bishkek. Members signed 28 documents at the summit (24.kg, September 1). The Bishkek Declaration, signed at the end of the event, reaffirmed members’ commitment “to build a representative, democratic, and just multipolar world order” (构建更具代表性、更加民主、公正的多极世界). [1] They “condemned” (谴责) military strikes on the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran that “resulted in numerous civilian casualties and significant damage to the country’s economy” (造成大量平民伤亡，对该国经济造成严重破坏) and, without naming the United States or Europe, criticized “unilateral coercive measures” (单边强制措施) targeting members (Xinhua; Kremlin, September 1).
Although it is not a trade bloc, economic cooperation also remains an important part of the SCO’s appeal. Trade between the members reached $720 billion in 2025 (PRC Today, September 3), with the PRC involved in nearly two thirds ($524 billion) (September 2). While economic cooperation and infrastructure development remain core priorities, security was the area where SCO members showed the greatest coordination in Bishkek.
Renewed Focus on Law Enforcement
The summit approved regulations for the SCO Universal Center for Countering Security Challenges and Threats in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The center replaces the RATS, which was created in 2004 to combat the “Three Evil Forces,” and has been granted an expanded remit (SCO, March 6). Under the new structure, an Information Security Center and a Center for Combating Transnational Organized Crime will operate within the broader security framework, with the organized-crime branch located in Bishkek (24.kg, September 1). The latter is intended to facilitate joint operations, intelligence exchange, searches for members of criminal networks, action against money-laundering channels, and specialist training. This marks a significant broadening of what the SCO treats as a collective security concern: not simply violent extremist groups, but the financial, digital, and criminal networks that operate across national borders.
The summit also advanced institutionalization of anti-drug trafficking work as a separate pillar. An agreement to establish an SCO Anti-Drug Center in Dushanbe was signed at the 2025 Tianjin summit, and the Bishkek meeting approved regulations for its executive committee (Kremlin, September 1, 2025). The center builds on years of cooperation among SCO counter-narcotics agencies and is intended to improve information sharing and coordinated operations against trafficking networks. The significance is especially clear given Afghanistan’s position at the center of Eurasian narcotics routes and the SCO’s longstanding concern that drug trafficking can finance militant and criminal organizations.
This is a particular concern for the PRC. A string of drug-trafficking-linked attacks on the Tajik-Afghan border in the past year have resulted in the deaths of Chinese mine workers. In two attacks in November 2025, five workers were killed. The Chinese embassy in Tajikistan urged Chinese enterprises and personnel to “urgently evacuate” (尽早撤离) the Tajikistan–Afghanistan border areas (CCTV, November 28, 2025; DW, December 1, 2025).
Members also agreed that “the provision of unauthorized satellite Internet services within the territory of Member States violates international telecommunications law” (擅自提供卫星互联网服务违反电信领域国际法) (Xinhua, September 1). This appeared to be a thinly veiled criticism of Elon Musk’s Starlink, which has been used to bypass censorship and internet blackouts in Iran (Arabiya, May 27). The statement reflects a core SCO principle: governments should retain sovereign control over communications infrastructure operating within their territory.
This is a particular concern for the PRC, which seeks to monopolize information flows at home and crack down on growing criticism of its government abroad. Beijing has pressured governments in Central Asia to detain those critical of its policies. In February 2025, for instance, Tajik researcher Rukhshona Khakimova was sentenced to eight years for treason and espionage. The charges stemmed in part from her participation in surveys on the PRC’s presence in the country for Central Asia Barometer (United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, June 25, 2025; Committee to Protect Journalists, accessed September 15). In November 2025, the Kazakh government arrested 19 activists from the Nagyz Atajurt Volunteers Group who had staged protests against the PRC’s policies in Xinjiang. The arrests followed a formal diplomatic note from the Chinese Consulate General in Almaty to Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry, calling the protest an “open provocation” (公然挑衅) and an insult to the PRC leadership (Human Rights Watch, January 15). A court sentenced 11 of them to five years in jail in April 2026 for “inciting inter-ethnic hatred” (煽动民族仇恨) (RFE/RL; China Aid, April 13). [2]
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being folded into the same sovereignty-centered framework. Bishkek summit participants reaffirmed the inadmissibility of using AI to “intentionally cause harm to human life and health, as well as to harm the national security, territorial integrity, and sovereignty of states” (蓄意危害人的生命与健康，以及损害各国国家主权、安全和领土完整) (Xinhua, September 1). At the same time, the organization is not approaching AI only as a threat. Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed his commitment to establish an international cooperation center on AI applications for SCO countries, something he has also announced for ASEAN, the Arab League, the African Union, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and BRICS countries (PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 17).
Conclusion
The results of the Bishkek summit show an organization moving beyond its original “Three Evils” framework. Terrorism, separatism, and extremism remain central concerns, but they now sit inside a wider conception of security encompassing cyber activity, communications networks, narcotics, organized crime, financial flows, and AI. That expansion reflects the priorities of the SCO’s members, many of which view political stability, control of information systems, and technological sovereignty as inseparable from conventional national security.
Notes
[1] Interestingly, although the Russian version of the declaration refers explicitly to a “multipolar world order” (многополярного мирового порядка), the Chinese version only refers to a “multipolar world” (多极世界). It is unclear why; other official PRC documents frequently refer to a “multipolar world order” (多极世界秩序).
[2] This is not an isolated case. The National Ethnic Affairs Commission (NEAC) in September announced the sentencing of a man for three years and six months for “inciting ethnic hatred” online (NEAC, September 14).
The post The SCO Expands Security Beyond Its ‘Three Evils’ appeared first on Jamestown.