Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)

Five countries met in 1996 to settle border disputes. That meeting grew into a ten-nation security bloc spanning Asia’s map from India to Belarus. This article covers the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on its own, split out from the broader groupings survey.

From Border Talks To A Continental Bloc

IntlRel0037

26 APR 1996

Shanghai Five Formed

China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan meet on border security

15 JUN 2001

SCO Founded

Uzbekistan joins, group is renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

2017

India And Pakistan Join

Both become full members together, at the Astana Summit

2023

Iran Joins

SCO grows to nine full members, during India’s own presidency year

The pattern: a five-nation border-security talk shop kept adding members as its founding purpose, regional security cooperation, proved durable.

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📑 Contents

1Timeline
2SCO’s Structure, Members, and Mandate
3India’s SCO Presidency and Key Dates
4Test Yourself
5How SCO Compares to Other Groupings
6Current Affairs

Timeline

On 26 April 1996, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan met in Shanghai. They formed the “Shanghai Five,” to build trust and settle border disputes.
On 15 June 2001, Uzbekistan joined the group. It was renamed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
In 2017, India and Pakistan became full members together, at the Astana Summit.
In 2023, Iran joined as a full member, during India’s own year as SCO’s rotating chair.

SCO’s Structure, Members, and Mandate Need to Know

SCO is one of the major groupings India belongs to, surveyed together with BRICS, G20, and QUAD in IntlRel0023. Here, it gets standalone treatment.
As of 2026, SCO has 10 full members. That’s the Shanghai Five plus Uzbekistan, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Belarus (joined 2024).
SCO’s core focus is security cooperation. Its Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), based in Tashkent, targets what SCO calls the “three evils”: terrorism, separatism, and extremism.
SCO frames itself around security, unlike BRICS’s economic focus. This is true even though China and Russia sit in both groupings.

India’s SCO Presidency and Key Dates Good to Know

India held SCO’s rotating presidency through 2022-23. It hosted that year’s summit virtually, on 4 July 2023.
RATS, the anti-terrorism body, was created separately in 2002, a year after SCO itself was founded.
Belarus became SCO’s tenth full member in 2024, one year after Iran joined.

Test Yourself

How SCO Compares to Other Groupings Great to Know

Naming the RATS mandate around “three evils” makes SCO’s security orientation explicit. BRICS never frames its own mandate in threat-based language like this.
India and Pakistan joining together in 2017 reflects a common diplomatic pattern. Regional rivals often get admitted to a bloc as a package, to avoid one side gaining an advantage over the other.
Growing from a five-nation border forum in 1996 to a ten-nation continental bloc by 2024 shows how quickly a security grouping can institutionalise, once its founding purpose keeps proving useful to members.

Current Affairs

23 June 2026: NHRC India took part virtually in the first-ever Consultative Meeting of NHRIs and State Bodies of SCO member states. The meeting focused on human rights protection, and was held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. NHRC India’s Chairperson, Justice V. Ramasubramanian, led the delegation. It was held under the Kyrgyz Republic’s SCO Chairmanship. NHRIs and bodies from Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Belarus also attended. Justice Ramasubramanian highlighted NHRC’s ITEC Capacity Building Programme for NHRIs. He noted that NHRC India, established in 1993, has handled nearly 2.37 million human rights cases over 32 years. The meeting also discussed a draft protocol on information exchange and best-practice sharing. It covered coordinated approaches to human rights issues among SCO members too. (Source: PIB)

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