The SCO Is A Suitable Framework For Ensuring India’s Strategic Interests In Eurasia

The SCO isn’t a perfect platform and there are clear limits to multilateral cooperation within it, but it still plays an irreplaceable role in managing the interests of Eurasia’s direct stakeholders, especially in its Central Asian core region. Those like C. Raja Mohan who believe that membership in this group is a “burden” and are thus subtly lobbying for countries such as India to distance themselves from it either don’t understand its strategic purpose or are deliberately trying to stoke a security dilemma for divisive ends.

Indian intellectual C. Raja Mohan published a piece last week about how “SCO meet highlights China’s growing role in inner Asia, India’s challenge”. In brief, he warned that China’s rising economic influence within the bloc’s member states, particularly those in Central Asia, supposedly poses a challenge to India. In particular, he’s concerned that the aforesaid trend will erode Russia’s influence there, thus potentially shifting the regional balance and eventually threatening India’s strategic interests in Eurasia.

Mohan concluded his piece by writing that “For India, a strong and independent Russia is critical for maintaining the inner Asian balance. But Delhi is in no position to ensure Moscow’s strategic autonomy from Beijing; that depends on Russian strategic choices. Delhi’s burden in SCO must now be to protect its own interests amidst a rapidly changing regional power distribution in China’s favour. That India does not have direct geographic access to the landlocked region makes that challenge a demanding one.”

The only part of the preceding paragraph that accurately reflects reality as it objectively exists is the first sentence regarding India’s interests in a strong and independent Russia. Everything else that Mohan wrote is influenced by his fears of China, which resemble the West’s zero-sum worldview that he arguably subscribes to as evidenced by the opinions that he’s expressed in previous pieces. By falsely describing the SCO as a “burden” for India, he’s implying that Delhi should distance itself from the group.

That would be a mistake of epic proportions since the SCO is a suitable framework for ensuring his country’s strategic interests in Eurasia. No other platform compares to its continental reach, which gives India a seat at the table as an equal participant in its members’ discussions. About those, while they initially focused on countering unconventional security threats like terrorism, separatism, and extremism, the SCO has increasingly begun to focus on connectivity, finance, and trade too.

While it’s true that there are limits to the effectiveness of its members’ multilateral cooperation on these issues, especially security ones for obvious reasons stemming from India and Pakistan’s accusations against each other, it’s still better to participate in these discussions than to sit them out. The same principle holds true when it comes to the group’s talks on connectivity, finance, and trade issues as well. Despite these limits, both dialogues provide India with creative opportunities to expand its influence.

The Central Asian Republics (CARs) are actively multi-aligning in the New Cold War exactly as the latest Pentagon leaks claimed, and each keenly understands the importance of relying on India as a neutral third-party balancing force for maximizing their strategic autonomy vis-à-vis Russia and China. India can complement those two’s security and economic roles respectively by sharing its decades-long experience countering unconventional threats and continuing to pioneer the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC).

Regarding the first, bilateral engagement between their armed forces and security services is the most effective means to this end, while the latter is advanced multilaterally. Moreover, just like the CARs collectively cooperate with China, Russia, and the US via their corresponding C5+1 platforms, so too have they recently started doing the same with India after last year’s first-ever summit. The difference between those three and India, however, is that nobody regards Delhi’s ties with the CARs as a threat.

China and Russia are against the US’ plans to comprehensively expand its regional influence, while the US is against those two doing the same, each for their own reasons related to the New Cold War rivalry between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Sino-Russo Entente. India is truly neutral in their competition, however, hence why neither of those two have any problem with it playing a balancing role in Central Asia or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

If India were to distance itself from the SCO like Mohan implied that it should due to what he described as the so-called “burden” that membership in this group supposedly places on his country nowadays, then the New Cold War competition over the CARs could easily spiral out of control. Removing India’s truly neutral balancing role from the geostrategic equation could catalyze fiercer rivalry there between the Golden Billion and the Entente, which risks destabilizing the Eurasian Heartland.

To be sure, those two de facto New Cold War blocs are already competing there and elsewhere, but this particular front of their rivalry remains mostly manageable because none of the CARs are leaning closer to one or the other and thus inadvertently sparking a security dilemma since India’s role preempts this. Each of them knows that they can rely on India to maintain their respective multi-alignment policies without having to play the Golden Billion and Entente off against each other to the region’s detriment.

Be that as it may, this strategic equilibrium might not be sustainable since a major power play by either New Cold War protagonist could shake up the status quo and risk setting into motion a sequence of fast-moving events that influences regional countries to finally take sides in those two’s global competition. That scenario, however, would further bolster the importance of the SCO as the only platform capable of bringing Eurasia’s direct stakeholders together to discuss that destabilizing development.

Regardless of whatever unfolds in Central Asia as a result of the Golden Billion and Entente’s rivalry there, it’s of the highest importance that India continues playing a balancing role in that region and retaining a seat at the SCO table to participate in the group’s discussions. Its economic and security interests there aren’t under threat from China or anyone else, with both continuing to grow despite whatever some observers’ perceptions might be about Central Asia’s strategic trajectory.

The SCO isn’t a perfect platform and there are clear limits to multilateral cooperation within it, but it still plays an irreplaceable role in managing the interests of Eurasia’s direct stakeholders, especially in its Central Asian core region. Those like Mohan who believe that membership in this group is a “burden” and are thus subtly lobbying for countries such as India to distance themselves from it either don’t understand its strategic purpose or are deliberately trying to stoke a security dilemma for divisive ends.