TITLE:
Twenty Years of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects
AUTHORS:
Yamei Xue, Benjamin Mwadi Makengo
KEYWORDS:
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Multilateral Cooperation, SCO’s Achievement-Challenges-Prospects
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.10,
October
22,
2021
ABSTRACT: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) started
from solving boundary issues, grew from counter-terrorism cooperation,
developed and deepened in political, economic, cultural, educational and other
fields of cooperation, and gradually developed into a new model of multilateral
cooperation. This paper intends to outline the main achievements, challenges
and prospects of the SCO after the two decades of its existence. After debate
and discussion, the results that emerge from this paper show that over the past
20 years since the SCO establishment in June 2001, its concept of cooperation
has been constantly enriched and developed. Its cooperation mechanism has been
constantly enriched and improved; and its areas of cooperation have been
expanded. However, with its development over time and the advancement of its
cooperation practices, the SCO also faces challenges and development difficulties
on its way forward; these include the facts of: the intensification of
great power game in the region, the weakness of the sense of community between
its member states and the transformation of cooperation pattern faces after
expansion. Looking ahead, the Shanghai Spirit will guide its multilateral
cooperation vision. The SCO mechanism provides an important guarantee for its
multilateral cooperation ahead. The new type of international relations will
serve as an important driving force for its multilateral cooperation vision.
Based on our findings, this paper reasoned that the SCO is fully capable of
exerting greater influence and delivering greater results in the years to come.