Any summit is inevitably going to be part of the domestic politics of the host country, mainly because it is the main event happening in the country. It is also strongly possible that the event might be the subject of criticism, and thus may attract protesters who may wish to express their dislike of whatever the Summit and its component governments stand for. Such protesters have afflicted the G7 Summits, where protesters have gathered to protest against the capitalism and greed that the G7 governments are supposed to represent.
It is not a military alliance, so a fairer comparison would be with the EU, or even with BRICS. It has not taken any sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, though its members have. The SCO thus takes along the BRI slogan of prosperity for all rather than the NATO idea of ‘better dead rather than Red.”
Interestingly enough, it was a government which first used a Summit to make a domestic political point. When India hosted the G20 Summit in 2023, its government chose to host it in Srinagar in Kashmir. Though one reason was supposed to be preventing protests, the real reason was supposed to be to show the world how well Kashmir had settled down after its 2019 revocation of its special status.
The government has not really tried to draw more than the usual domestic political capital out of it, but the PTI most definitely had, announcing a rally to press for the release of its Chairman, Imran Khan. How his release, or even any future plans involving him, like getting into Parliament though a by-election and then becoming Prime Minister, will be assisted by this rally was not clear.
However, it would have been an embarrassment for the government if the rally had been held, and especially if there had been any violence. The heads of government have not come to be part of Pakistan’s domestic politics, and to make them part of Pakistan’s domestic politics is not something they would like to do. It is clear that the main purpose of the PTI rally was to embarrass the government.
The PTI pulled out of the rally the day before, after first trying to negotiate at least a meeting between former PM Imran Khan and a party delegation headed by current Chairman Barrister Gohar, and then settling for a doctor’s visit. That smacked of an excuse, for it was the first that anyone had heard of these issues.
It seemed that this was somewhat like the sudden cancellation of a rally on August 22 after former Speaker Asad Qaiser met Imran Khan out of visiting hours. The eventual rally on September 28, was not as effective as could have been wished.
The PTI once again showed that it was obedient, and if given the chance, would be as mindful of the national interest as it was told to. In short,it was not so much showing a regard for the national interest as obedience to the establishment.
The PTI has been somewhat less enthusiastic about the purposes of the SCO, but it has never opposed them, which means that the rally has nothing to do with it. The SCO started out as a forum for the discussion of terrorism and how to get the USA out of Afghanistan. It is now evolving into a forum for the countries through which the New Silk Road runs. It is thus the organization which coordinates the Chinese Brick and Road Initiative.
In other words, the SCO is actually a Silk Road or BRI Users’ Association. Even though a US ally to the extent that is being propped up by it in opposition to China, that is the main reason India is part of the SCO. There is something of a holdover of the past, for Russia wants it as part of the SCO.
Its anti-terrorism function comes into the limelight, at least with respect to Pakistan, because there is an intersection, probably an overlap, between terrorism and the BRI. Within the Pakistani context at least, perhaps the biggest threat faced by CPEC (itself a vital component of the BRI) is from terrorism. It is probably embarrassing to Pakistan that the terrorists are homegrown. The nexus between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan via the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan may have been broken, but Baloch separatists have apparently arisen to fill the gap. Meanwhile, the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan has been doing its worst. Both have been targeting CPEC. The anti-terrorist focus of the SCO has thus got to shift.
The attention to Afghanistan has also got to change, for while the USA has been expelled from it, it has been replaced by the same Takiban as had been removed by the USA after 9/11. It is symptomatic of the fact that the SCO did not like the result is shown by the fact that Afghanistan is not attending this meeting because it was not invited.
It should be remembered that none of the other SCO members have accorded Afghanistan recognition. China may have received credentials from the Taliban-appointed ambassador, and may have had a new ambassador in Kabul present his, but it is preserving the refusal to recognize. Pakistan has moved from its DG ISI being photographed in Kabul to relations so strained that Afghanistan is accused to giving arms to those behind a new wave of terrorism, and providing them safe havens.
Afghanistan was not invited, but India while invited sent its Foreign Minister, not its Prime Minister. This may primarily be because Prime Minister Narendra Modi would prefer to avoid coming to Pakistan, leaving External Affairs Minister Jaishankar to risk the pollution this might lead to. As if that was not signal enough that there would be none of the sideline diplomacy that accompanies such summits, Jaishankar made a statement to this effect even before coming. As a BJP member, he was clearly sensitive to domestic political compulsions, with the BJP not really having done well in the polls early in the year. Therefore, it has doubled down on its anti-Muslim anti-Pajustan rhetoric, and the refusal to talk to Pakistan was basicakky meant for the party cadres.
On the other hand, China took the sidelines summiteering concept a step further, with Prime Minister Li Qiang arriving two days early, and combining an official visit with attending the summit. The bilateral visit focused on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is a branch of the New Silk Road, and thus China’s Belt and Road Initiative and thus making it fit in with the paradigm of the SCO.
Another, more sinister paradigm has been proposed by one think tank, that the SCO is the Russian and Chinese equivalent of NATO. NATO is a military alliance which the SCO is not. The presence of India ensures that there are members of the orgnization who are bilaterally hostile (India-China, India-Pakistan). NATO also buttresses the European Union, but its inclusion of the USA really has no equivalent in the SCO, which has no non-Asian members.
Again, it is not a military alliance, so a fairer comparison would be with the EU, or even with BRICS. It has not taken any sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, though its members have. The SCO thus takes along the BRI slogan of prosperity for all rather than the NATO idea of ‘better dead rather than Red.”
