Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (21st Century Crisis)

he Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) (Chinese: 上海合作組織, Urdu: شنگھائی تعاون تنظیم, Turkish: Şangay İşbirliği Organizasyonu, Arabic: منظمة شنغهاي للتعاون), or Shanghai Pact, is a Eurasian political, economic, and military alliance, the creation of which was announced on 15 June 2001 in Shanghai. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Charter, formally establishing the organisation, was signed in June 2002 and entered into force on 19 September 2003. The original five nations, with the exclusion of Uzbekistan, were previously members of the Shanghai Five group, founded on 26 April 1996. Since then, the organisation has expanded its membership to eight countries when India and Pakistan joined SCO as full members on 9 June 2017 at a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. The Heads of State Council (HSC) is the supreme decision-making body in the SCO, it meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organisation. Military exercises are also regularly conducted among members to promote cooperation and coordination against terrorism and other external threats, and to maintain regional peace and stability.

The SCO is widely regarded as the "alliance of East", due to its growing centrality in Asia-Pacific, and has been the primary security pillar of the region. Being the world's forefront regional organisation in economic power and political influence, and one of the world's strongest military alliances, it is also the largest regional organisation in the world in terms of geographical coverage and population, covering three-fifths of the Eurasian continent and nearly half of the human population. At present, the SCO is one of the world's most powerful and influential organisations.

With the growing power and enlargement of the organisation, its scope of unity and cooperation has expanded to many other areas, including education, science, technology, health care, environmental protection, tourism, media, sports, humanitarian and culture, while extending its principle to include global governance and fostering of international relationships. It has been a major partner of the Russia-led CSTO, however with recent events in 2018, relations between the power blocs have been strained into hostility.