Abstract:
The SCO has become an influential in-
ternational structure today. Through-
out its existence, the Organization
has acted as an important mechanism for
ensuring regional stability, as well as sustainable political and economic cooperation
in the area in which it operates. Today the
SCO is playing an increasingly efficient part
in building the global security system, which
is largely due to the new threats and challenges the world community now faces.
Kazakhstan’s chairmanship in the SCO
ended with a celebratory sitting of the Council
of Heads of Member States held on 15 June, 2011 in Astana. At this meeting, the Astana
declaration of the SCO’s Tenth Anniversary
was adopted, which states that during this
time, the Organization has successfully advanced from its institutionalization to the establishment of efficiently functioning mechanisms of interaction in different spheres.
The SCO is a regional international organization, the main tasks of which are
strengthening stability and security in the
broad area that joins the states belonging to
it, fighting terrorism, separatism, extremism,
and drug trafficking, developing economic
cooperation and energy partnership, and
enhancing scientific and cultural interaction.
The SCO is an essentially new model
of geopolitical integration that makes it possible to unite the interests of Central Asia, Russia, and China. This statement is based
on the experience of the SCO member
states that are pooling their efforts to oppose
non-traditional threats to security in Central
Asia—terrorism, flagrant fundamentalism,
drug crimes, and separatism.
Of course, there are political reasons
for unifying the countries within the SCO
borne by the desire to ensure security in the
region, while economic factors predominate
in the traditional integration models. In this
case, free trade is the springboard for forming a political union.
However, despite the prime importance
of the political component in the SCO’s activity, it is the economic factors that make it
possible to oppose the negative trends in
the life of the Central Asian region.
