SAFEGUARDING SECURITY AND STABILITY
Although the content of cooperation within the SCO has been enriched to include promoting economic development and fostering closer ties among ordinary citizens of the member countries, addressing regional security issues and enhancing defense collaboration remain an important pillar of the bloc's missions.
Since its establishment, the SCO has made maintaining regional security and stability a priority, and its enlargement will inject more potential into the organization for security cooperation. At the same time, the SCO will also shoulder more responsibilities and bear greater expectations from people in the region as well as from around the world.
Against the backdrop of continual threats posed by the "three evil forces" of terrorism, extremism and separatism, drug trafficking, as well as transnational organized crimes, Xi told a gathering of senior security officials of SCO member states in Beijing to "remain vigilant, think calmly, judge accurately and respond properly" in the face of contingencies.
Between 2013 and 2017, the SCO member countries have collaboratively foiled over 600 cases of criminal activities bearing hallmarks of terrorism, destroyed more than 500 training bases for armed militants, arrested some 2,000 members of international terrorist organizations, and confiscated some 1,000 self-made explosive devices, more than 50 tons of explosive materials, over 10,000 guns as well as some 1 million bullets, said Yevgeniy Sysoev, director of the bloc's anti-terrorism committee.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua in early May, Sysoev also said that the SCO member countries have blocked over 100,000 websites between 2016 and 2017. Those websites, the official said, published over 4 million pieces of information advocating terrorism and extremism.
With respect to the international anti-terrorism front, one of the pressing tasks facing the SCO is to continue fighting against militants of the Islamic State (IS) who, following the extremist group's defeat in Syria and Iraq, have returned to their native countries, some of which are SCO members or observers.
The SCO, Klimenko said, "must be able to defend its participants, especially because the situation is getting more and more complicated."
"We have Afghanistan at our side, to which IS militants are moving from the Middle East and are concentrating in the north of the country close to the SCO borders," he added. Afghanistan became an observer country of the SCO in 2012.
Acknowledging the number of military exercises such as the biennial Pacific Mission drills that are held on a multilateral basis within the SCO, Klimenko said, "All military contingents are preparing themselves to defend the SCO space."
ECONOMIC COOPERATION TO FACILITATE BRI
Seventeen years into its existence, the SCO can be said to have now entered adolescence. This process of maturation is in part marked by the bloc's resolve to engage in economic cooperation and realize common prosperity, a consensus agreed on by all member states that has been growing stronger every year.
To achieve that end, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a major potential platform for the economic dimension of the SCO. Proposed by China in 2013, the BRI is aimed at improving interconnectivity worldwide and promoting global trade links through infrastructure projects.
The BRI's full name is the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which suggests that the framework has a land-based component that stretches along the Ancient Silk Road, as well as a sea route that connects the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Combined, the two parts are expected to connect Asia with Europe and Africa.
Strengthening economic cooperation within the SCO on the BRI has special implications in the sense that all parties involved in the organization are located on the Eurasian continent, and that projects related to SCO member states carry particular significance in the BRI framework.
Take the China-Belarus industrial park for example. The park is the largest foreign investment project in Belarus -- also an SCO observer country -- and an important cooperation project between China and Belarus under the BRI.
Located at the junction between the Eurasian Customs Union and the European Union, Belarus views the industrial park as a strategic project that provides hope for the country's future economic development and is ready to forge a closer link between the two vigorous markets.
When hosting Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan who visited Belarus on May 27-29, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country is ready to join forces with China to align their development strategies and turn the China-Belarus industrial park into a pearl on the Silk Road Economic Belt.
The 34 enterprises based in the industrial park so far represent eight countries, namely China, Belarus, Russia, the United States, Germany, Austria, Lithuania and Israel, making the park a multinational business hub.
The park is now planning to cooperate with Duisburger Hafen AG, the German company that runs the country's Duisburg port, to construct a railway directly linking the park with the China-Europe rail lines, which are providing freight services to meet the ever-increasing demands of both sides.
