The SCO and the illusion of moral multipolarity

As the organisation evolves from a regional security forum into an ambitious network spanning finance, technology, energy and connectivity, its growing influence must be judged not by its opposition to Western dominance, but by the same standards of power, accountability and equality it demands of the West

China’s rise is real. The SCO’s institutional expansion is real. The erosion of the old assumption of uncontested Western primacy is real. But the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek last week has once again confirmed that global politics is moving away from the old assumption that one power can organise the international system largely on its own terms. The SCO also insisted that it is not a military bloc and does not seek bloc confrontation. Yet beneath the familiar diplomatic language lies a more consequential development. The organisation is no longer merely a forum in which China, Russia, India, Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian republics discuss security. Its 28 outcome documents extend cooperation into counterterrorism, narcotics, information security, artificial intelligence, computing infrastructure, ports and logistics, energy, climate, biodiversity, nuclear security, emergency assistance and cultural cooperation. The SCO is becoming an institutional network, and that makes it far more significant than the slogan of a new multipolar world suggests.

But there is a problem with the triumphalism surrounding this transformation. A world with several centres of power is not automatically a fairer world. Multipolarity describes the distribution of power; it does not determine how that power is used. This distinction is frequently lost in the political language surrounding the SCO. Western military intervention, sanctions, financial coercion and double standards deserve criticism where the evidence warrants it. Opposition to Western power is legitimate. But the fact that Washington has abused economic and military power in particular circumstances does not give Beijing, Moscow or anyone else a licence to exercise their own power without scrutiny.

The history of the SCO explains why this question matters. The organisation emerged from the Shanghai Five in 1996, when China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sought to manage border disputes and build confidence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Uzbekistan joined in 2001, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was formally created. Its subsequent expansion changed its scale. India and Pakistan joined in 2017, followed by Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024. Calling such a collection an anti-Western alliance is analytically lazy. It is more accurately understood as a mechanism through which states with very different interests can cooperate without accepting a single political centre.

China’s influence is more subtle and, in some respects, more consequential. Beijing has spent decades converting economic strength into structural influence. It has built trade relationships, financed infrastructure, expanded industrial investment, supplied telecommunications equipment, developed transport corridors and increased its role in energy and technology. In Central Asia, the Chinese presence is no longer confined to imported consumer goods or large infrastructure projects. It is increasingly entering productive sectors. A Chinese-backed fertiliser plant in Kyrgyzstan’s Osh region, for example, is intended to produce hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually, potentially exceeding the country’s current domestic requirement. Such a project can reduce Kyrgyzstan’s dependence on imports and create genuine industrial capacity. It can also connect production, Chinese technology, distribution networks and regional transport corridors more deeply to China’s economic system. Neither interpretation can be excluded.

China has become an extraordinary export power and continues to run enormous trade surpluses. Chinese manufacturing has produced competitive machinery, electronics, electric vehicles, batteries, renewable-energy equipment and industrial products on a scale few countries can match. Developing countries buy Chinese goods because they often offer affordability and availability. That is not exploitation by definition. But neither is it evidence of equality. China’s trade with Central Asia is heavily tilted towards Chinese exports. Chinese customs data put trade with the five Central Asian republics at more than $100 billion in 2025, with China’s exports substantially exceeding its imports. Discrepancies between Chinese and Central Asian trade statistics make the issue even more important because governments cannot properly negotiate equitable commercial relationships when basic figures are difficult to reconcile.

China’s enormous trade surplus with the world presents the same contradiction on a larger scale. Beijing can legitimately argue that its exports reflect competitiveness and that weak domestic demand contributes to the surplus. It can also point to the enormous quantities of goods that developing economies have obtained at relatively low cost. But a persistent surplus on this scale means that other countries are, collectively, running the corresponding deficits. It cannot be defined as Chinese wrongdoing, but it is certainly evidence of an imbalance with consequential effects. If Western governments are criticised for using financial and economic asymmetries to pressure weaker states, the same intellectual standard must be applied if China uses its industrial capacity and market clout to manipulate target countries. There cannot be a duality in morality.

The SCO’s proposed Development Bank exposes the gap between political ambition and institutional reality. Yet the Bishkek summit did not launch an operating bank. Kyrgyzstan wants to host it, while Kazakhstan has offered to host the headquarters. Fundamental questions concerning capital, membership, governance and location remain unresolved. That is not a trivial administrative delay. It demonstrates how difficult it is to convert declarations about financial autonomy into a functioning alternative financial institution. An alternative world financial system cannot be created by speeches about de-dollarisation. It requires capital, liquidity, credible governance, settlement mechanisms, investor confidence and institutions capable of surviving political disagreements.

The same caution should apply to claims about alternative payment systems. China’s CIPS and Russia’s SPFS can reduce dependence on Western financial infrastructure in particular transactions, and local-currency settlement can reduce exposure to the dollar. But neither system has displaced the global importance of the dollar, and neither has reproduced the depth and liquidity of the international financial architecture centred on dollar markets. It is perfectly reasonable for countries to seek protection against the political use of financial sanctions. It is unreasonable to pretend that an alternative system already exists when it remains incomplete. The SCO’s economic future will be judged by what its institutions can actually finance, not by how strongly its communiqués denounce Western financial dominance.

There is another contradiction that the SCO cannot permanently avoid. It speaks of sovereignty and non-interference while involving itself in the political future of Afghanistan. It speaks of equality while containing countries whose economic and military capabilities are separated by enormous margins. It condemns double standards while its members themselves interpret terrorism, sovereignty and international law according to national interests. The treatment of Ukraine and Iran illustrates the difficulty. The Bishkek declaration adopted strong language concerning military strikes on Iran but did not mention Ukraine. India, China, Russia and the Central Asian states have different interests in the Ukraine conflict, and those differences prevent a common position. That is not necessarily hypocrisy. It is evidence that the SCO remains a coalition of interests rather than a unified geopolitical ideology.

This is why the debate about the SCO should not become another morality play in which the West is portrayed as the old imperial power and China, Russia and their partners as the innocent architects of liberation. History is rarely that simple. The United States and its allies have repeatedly used economic and military power in ways that deserve serious criticism. China has every right to oppose sanctions that it considers illegitimate. Russia has every right to argue against a Western monopoly over international decision-making. India has every right to resist pressure from any bloc. But every one of these countries must also answer for how it uses its own power. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif returned to Islamabad last week with the SCO presidency, setting up a potentially decisive year for the organisation - and perhaps its most intriguing moment if he, or whoever is Prime Minister then, must decide whether to invite his Indian counterpart to Islamabad. A country does not become benign because its rival is worse.

China has become an extraordinary export power and continues to run enormous trade surpluses. Chinese manufacturing has produced competitive machinery, electronics, electric vehicles, batteries, renewable-energy equipment and industrial products on a scale few countries can match. Developing countries buy Chinese goods because they often offer affordability and availability

The writer is a columnist based in Colombo; Views presented are personal.