The six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will hold its 12th summit on Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing, dedicated to further deepening win-win cooperation among the members.
Analysts say the SCO, since its establishment on June 15, 2001 in Shanghai, has transformed into a new model of regional cooperation fake oakleys, rather than an alliance bullying others, serving as a boon for regional peace and prosperity.
The intergovernmental organization now groups China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, with India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan as observer states, and Belarus and Sri Lanka as dialogue partners.
PROMOTING REGIONAL SECURITY
Dubbed a new mode of regional cooperation, the SCO was founded with the aims of promoting regional security and fighting terrorism, Chen Yurong, director of the SCO Research Center of the Institute of International Studies, told Xinhua.
The organization has pledged to get rid of menaces to regional peace and stability, such as terrorism, separatism, extremism, drug- and arms-trafficking, which have run rampant across the region, she said.
She said during the past 11 years, SCO members have maintained close contact and mutual support in the fight against the negative elements, inked declarations and established mechanisms for regular meetings on regional security and stability.
Since 2004, when the SCO's regional anti-terror structure, the only other permanent organ besides the secretariat, was established, Chen said, over 500 terrorist plots have been foiled and thousands of lives saved in the region.
Member states have also staged successive joint drills to enhance the interoperability of their militaries and law enforcement agencies and deter potential troublemakers.
BUILDING PARTNERSHIP, NOT ALLIANCE
The organization enshrines the principles of non-alignment oakley sunglasses, not being directed against any other country or region and openness to the outside, as it resulted from the need to maintain regional security in the new era of economic globalization.
Based on the Shanghai Spirit that features mutual trust and benefit, equality, consultation, respect for cultural diversity, and pursuit of common development, the SCO has created a model of partnership rather than an alliance, Chen said.
She added the organization has established effective contact with the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, among others, to jointly promote peace and prosperity in the region and across the world.
Tatyana Sinitsina, editor-in-chief of the Russian InfoSCO website, recently told Xinhua that the member states have equal rights inside the SCO though they are quite different in economic weights.
"It was an unheard matter, because in all Western coalitions the power rules the way or another. Never a weak one sits at the same table with the strong one like the United States, as they all sit according to the rank," Sinitsina said.
REJUVENATING SILK ROAD TRADE
Besides security collaboration, economic cooperation among SCO member states is valued as the other one of the two wheels of the organization, and has been one of its top priorities, Chen said.
She said the SCO has rejuvenated the booming ancient Silk Road trade, which was reflected in the sharp increase of China's trade with other SCO members during the past decade, from 12.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2001 to around 113 billion dollars in 2011.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping recently said the SCO, whose members cover 60 percent of the Eurasian landmass, has achieved deepened economic cooperation and identified cooperative potential in the areas of finance, transportation, energy, agriculture and technology.
The concrete moves include the construction of a railway, highway and pipeline network linking landlocked Central Asia and its rich natural resources to the global economy, analysts said.
Meanwhile, SCO members have also established the Business Council and the Interbank Association, two non-government organizations foakley sunglasses, to better promote and finance cooperation projects within the framework.
"The SCO has developed into an indispensable constructive force on the Eurasian landmass and a regional cooperation organization that the member states can trust and rely on," Cheng said.
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