EDITORIAL: This year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit, chaired by India for the first time, was largely overshadowed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s enthusiasm for political point scoring.
For a start, he decided to have a virtual rather than an in-person summit, apparently, to avoid hosting his Pakistani counterpart, Shehbaz Sharif, who was likely to attend as had Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari the SCO foreign ministers’ conference in Goa last May - a first such visit in 11 years.
It was a principled decision not to allow bilateral tensions to take the limelight away from a multilateral forum of economic, political and security cooperation. Yet Modi used the occasion, without naming any names, to level his usual manifestly false allegations of cross-border terrorism against Pakistan, urging member nations to condemn this country.
That left no choice for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif but to respond in kind. Indirectly pointing to Modi government‘s “violent ultra-nationalist” policies, he said, “religious minorities should never be demonised in the pursuit of domestic political agendas.” And in an oblique reference to the situation in occupied Jammu & Kashmir, he called for establishing positive peace in the SCO region, emphasising that “to achieve that goal, the fundamental rights and freedoms must be guaranteed to all, including those under occupation.”
Along with Pakistan Modi also took a dig at Beijing on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a part of which passes through Gilgit-Baltistan, saying it is essential to “respect the sovereignty and regional integrity” of SCO member countries.
It is worth noting, however, that except for India all SCO members including Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and, of course, Pakistan have supported BRI in a joint declaration. India has also refused to sign the SCO’s 2030 Economic Development Strategy document, claiming it has excessive influence of Chinese policy.
The SCO encompassing the world’s largest geographical region and population has a huge potential to address the problems of terrorism, poverty, and climate change.
It also offers opportunities for leaders to meet informally during summits or ministerial meetings and resolve issues of dispute bedeviling their relations.
Unfortunately, the Modi government with its ideological and confrontational approach towards Pakistan and China is interested more in using this forum for settling scores rather than working in a spirit of cooperation in the greater interest of this vast region’s peace and progress.
The policy wins it brownie points in domestic politics, vitiating the regional atmosphere in the same measure.
As long as Narendra Modi-led BJP rules India, tensions with Pakistan will remain high. It is imperative therefore that the SCO members ensure that this mammoth Eurasian project of development does not become an organisation where leaders meet but achieve nothing.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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