SCO, an Asian NATO?
In spite of the stated goals, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) might become an Asian counterpart to NATO.It is interesting to learn the identity of the "three evil forces" that joint military exercises are supposed to combat. This report comes from Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.
SCO joint drill to crack down on "three evil forces"
"The ongoing 'Peace Mission 2007' anti-terror joint drill, sponsored by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), will target the 'three evil forces' but will not push SCO into a military alliance, Chinese and Russian experts said on Saturday.
"'To crack down on the "three evil forces" - terrorism, separatism and extremism - is a key aspect of defense and security cooperation among SCO members and the joint exercise reflected its long-existing stance,' said Pan Guang, director of a Shanghai-based SCO study center.
"'To enhance multilateral cooperation in a bid to maintain regional security and stability has been a priority in SCO cooperation since the organization was established in June 2001,' Pan said, noting the SCO has taken substantial steps in such fields as signing protocols and setting up anti-terrorism branches...
"The military exercise, however, will not direct at any third party and conforms with the interest of all the six members, namely China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. 'It means the SCO cooperation in the defense field will not turn it into a military alliance,' Pan said.
"Russian commander Vladimir Moltenskoi said the exercise will take a new step in the training of armed forces of SCO members "'or jointly combating the threats of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism existing in the region.'..."
Another view of the SCO and its exercises is offered by Bruce Pannier at the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty web site.
In an article titled, Central Asia: SCO To Hold Largest Military Exercises To Date, he offers the thesis that the focus of the SCO is the maintenance of authoritarian power in member nations.
"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will begin counterterrorism exercises on August 9 that will involve some 6,500 troops from the organization's six members...
"China analyst Duncan Innes-Ker at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London says that the fight against terrorism has become one of the major aspects of cooperation for the SCO. 'The fight against Islamic terror groups is one of the few strands that really does sort of bind the cooperation group together fairly strongly,' he notes.
The SCO started truly focusing on counterterrorism in 1999. That year, the SCO summit was in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, and at the time the summit was held Kyrgyz forces were fighting Islamic militants in the southern part of the country. China was conducting a crackdown on Muslim Uyghur separatists in the western Xinjiang Region and Russia was on the eve of starting the second Chechnya war of the 1990s...
"But the size of these exercises has led some to speculate that they are not aimed solely at terrorist groups. Stephen Blank is a professor of national security studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College. In views that he stressed are solely his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the War College or the U.S. Defense Department, Blank commented on the scope of the SCO military exercises.
"'The size of these exercises is growing and many experts do not believe that they are confined only to so-called antiterrorist activities or even just to Central Asia,' Blank says. 'The August 2005 Sino-Russian exercises, which were conducted under the auspices of the SCO, were so large and so thoroughly combined arms and major-theater conventional warfare in their approach that people believed these were aimed as much at Taiwan and Korea as they were at any potential Central Asian contingency.'...
"Blank points to the so-called Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 -- when crowds of demonstrators chased former Kyrgyz President Askar Akaev from power -- as having prompted increased efforts at SCO military cooperation in an effort to prevent a repeat of such events in other member states.
"'At least hypothetically, there are grounds for thinking that something like [a terrorist attack or insurgency] could happen,' he says. 'I think it would happen if you had an uprising against the government and I think what galvanizes this on the part of China and Russia is that they were not able to do anything on behalf of Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and they've resolved never to be caught short again.'..."
Labels: China, globalization, Russia
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:17 AM
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