The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s changing role

Tech is the new tank. An SCO-led technology alliance could be the twenty-first-century answer to last century’s NATO-led military alliance

The Heads of State Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) last week was a big affair. It was the first time Xi Jinping met with Putin face to face since the war in Ukraine started; Iran was elevated as a full member after a fifteen-year wait since it first applied to join the club; Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were formally introduced as dialogue partners with a view to later full membership, and Turkey was promoted from dialogue partner to observer and is now also seeking full membership. Several other Middle Eastern leaders were also in the room. Yet many Western analysts continue to naively disregard the SCO as little more than a regional forum for high-level networking among leaders with ambitions far greater than its actual reach. An article in the European Council of Foreign relations called it “Rogue NATO”, while others were quick to point out that the SCO is no New Warsaw or eastern NATO, that several of its members aren’t exactly friends and that some even occasionally lash out at each other over long-standing territorial disputes threatening to drag others into their bust-up. Sure enough, the SCO is no eastern NATO despite Russia’s wishful thinking. But quite simply, an eastern NATO is not what China wants the SCO to be anyway. By arrogantly looking down at the SCO and dismissing it because ‘it is not like NATO’, we are missing a big point, and by doing so we are dangerously failing to acknowledge the importance of not what the SCO is, but what it may become.

Tech is the new tank

Putin’s distorted obsession with World War II has skewed his political rhetoric and international ambitions with bizarre self-contradictions. Tanks became a great symbol of military power during the Second World War and the Cold War, the bigger the better – the first medium tank of the cold war, the T-54, was driven by the Soviet vision of “quantity has a quality in itself”. That Putin still sees them that way is gobsmacking but has meant that Russia has sought to frame the SCO as a sort of anti-NATO alliance and pushed for a reinforcement of the organisation’s military dimension. However, China’s Xi Jinping has a more pragmatic approach and sees it as a way to increasing China’s technological reach in the world. Since 2018, the SCO has become more vocal about its ambition to build a technology alliance between its member states in the areas of digitalisation and ICT. Last year, members agreed to strengthen their cooperation in science, technology and innovation. The reality is that China’s vision of the SCO is less about tanks and more about tech. In contrast to his tank-loving Russian counterpart, Xi Jinping understands how much warfare has changed and realises that tech is indeed the new tank.

SCO may be on the verge of acquiring a whole new dimension

As I said, many Western analysts continue to disregard the SCO as just another regional organisation, and if truth be told that’s what it has been for twenty-years since its creation in 2001, trying to balance security, economic and geopolitical dimensions, while struggling to build a track record of effective conflict prevention even within its own members as reflected by the ongoing border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan, both of whom have been SCO dialogue partners since 2015. But behind the scenes and almost invisible to the naked eye, a subtle yet hugely significant change is underway. At a time of growing geopolitical tensions between east and west and amid China’s increasing confidence and aptitude at the game of global technology politics, the SCO may be on the verge of acquiring a whole new dimension as a technology alliance focused on establishing its technological spheres of influence – the twenty-first-century answer to last century’s NATO-led military alliance.

Over the past five years, China has made enormous investments and implemented policies that have contributed significantly to its economic growth, military capability, and global influence. In some areas, China has eclipsed, or is on the verge of eclipsing, the US – particularly in the rapid deployment of certain technologies such as Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) where it now seems poised to become the first major economy to launch an official CBDC. But unlike US and Europe until very recently, China views technology not only through an economic lens but also through the prism of its own geopolitical influence and has become adept at deploying its ambitious digital diplomacy strategy. It understands how geopolitical technology can be and certainly recognises how geopolitical the current generation of emerging digital technologies has become. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is keen on using the SCO to shape its own regional and global technological sphere of influence.

From China’s perspective, the move makes total sense amid a deteriorating global environment in which the US has imposed export controls on semiconductors aiming to cut off China’s supply lines and pressed its allies worldwide to kick Chinese companies out of strategic markets, such as 5G. It was recently reported that the US is planning to broaden curbs on shipments to China of semiconductors used for artificial intelligence and chipmaking tools. And from the West’s perspective, failing to recognise this move risks a balkanization of our technology innovation in key areas such as CBDC-based systems which require global cooperation.

We should not write off the SCO just yet. Instead, we should invite them to our table and discuss a global rather than a regional technology alliance.