- Prelims: Current events of international importance, Regional forums(SCO, NATO, etc)
- Mains GS Paper II: Significance of SCO for Asia and India, effect of policies of developed and developing countries on India.
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was a test case for governments on how to deal with current conflicts and attempt new guidelines for the future
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO):
- SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization.
- It’s a Eurasian political, economic and military organization aiming to maintain peace, security and stability in the region.
- India and Pakistan became members in 2017.
Objectives:
Why SCO is new non-alignment:
- Independent course: Steering an independent course despite open association with rival blocs.
- No sides: India refusing to take sides in the Ukrainian conflict
- Thanking both Russia and Ukraine: For the evacuation of Indian students from Ukraine, highlighting India’s posture of equidistance between the two countries.
- Quad: India’s participation in the Quad
Issues faced by India because of US sanctions on Iran:
- Having to pay higher prices for crude
- Inability to utilize the Chabahar Connectivity Project as an alternate route to Afghanistan.
India’s present foreign policy: India’s foreign policy is increasingly appearing passive rather than active:
- Voting in UN: Abstaining from voting in the United Nations on Ukraine.
- Immediate neighbourhood: whether Sri Lanka or Afghanistan, where India’s foreign policy prescriptions look better on paper than in reality.
Ties with China:
- Improvement in Indo-China relations: India’s foreign policy should be creative enough to leave an opening for an improvement in India-China relations over the longer term.
- Civilisational conflict: Current conflict between India and China should not lead India’s strategic establishment to overlook the fact that the primary conflict between India and China is ‘civilizational’, and not for territory.
- Opportunities: India’s foreign policy framers must look for opportunities for the betterment of relations at an opportune time.
- Closeness of China-Russia: Manage relations in the near term in the context of the growing closeness in China-Russia relations.
Issues related to Nuclear dimension:
- India has been a firm adherent of the ‘No First Use Doctrine.
- Wedges between nuclear powers: India cannot afford to overlook the nuclear aspect, as it is wedged between two active, and hostile, nuclear powers — China and Pakistan.
- Predictable and unpredictable consequences: The growing sophistication of Chinese nuclear forces and to a lesser extent that of Pakistan, which has the effect of putting India at a disadvantage.
Way Forward
- Not to become the odd man out: New priorities need to be devised without squandering the past inheritance of managing to remain independent of conflicting blocs.
- Manage relations between China and Russia: Our foreign policy experts need to consider how best to manage the relationship with both Russia and China in the extant circumstances
- Total transformation of the way India’s foreign policy planners: The coming decade promises to be extremely demanding, if not dangerous, with old fashioned geopolitical risks jostling alongside newer political challenges.
- Giving up existing policy constructs: It may well necessitate giving up many of the existing policy constructs, providing for a wider outreach, and ensuring that our policy is not merely in step with current needs but is always a step ahead
- Debilitating strategic instability: India should consider how best to prevent ‘debilitating strategic instability with regard to China in particular.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
- Critically examine the aims and objectives of SCO. What importance does it hold for India?(UPSC 2021)
(200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
