Pakistan-China To Strengthen Ties In Security Affairs

Pakistan and China will strengthen their cooperative partnership for maintaining regional security and stability, through the platform of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)

Beijing, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 17th May, 2018) : Pakistan and China will strengthen their cooperative partnership for maintaining regional security and stability, through the platform of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The two countries, along with other members states will make joint efforts to push forward security cooperation at the regional level. The SCO provides a big opportunity to participating countries to bring normalcy in their bilateral ties as well for addressing joint security's threats.

It will be first-time for Pakistan and India to attend the SCO Summit as a full members. The summit is scheduled to take place next month. China as a leading figure of the organization, wishes that the peace and security should be the top priority for each country.

According to SCO Research Center of the Chinese academy of Social Sciences, as a comprehensive regional organization with extensive influence, the SCO has played an important role in preserving regional stability and prosperity and set an example for the new-type international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation.

The SCO is a new-type regional cooperation mechanism created after the Cold War. Its predecessor, the Shanghai Five, started with China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan making arrangements for military mutual trust and mutual disarmament in the border area.

From the very beginning, the Shanghai Five was committed to eliminating the security hazards left from the Cold War period, and creating the new security thinking characterized by "promoting security through cooperation and solving international disputes through dialogue".

Later it expanded the cooperation to maintaining regional security and stability to great success. Since it was established 17 years ago, the SCO has adhered to the principles of openness, transparency and not targeting any third party.

It stresses partnership rather than alliance among the member states, doesn't seek to form military and political alliance, and firmly opposes the Cold War mindset and power politics.

These emphases make it an important force for maintaining regional stability.

The SCO advocates the new security outlook of "commonness, comprehensiveness, cooperation and sustainability", and enriches the new model of international relations centered on "partnership rather than alliance" initiated by China and Russia, and offers a new regional cooperation model featuring common advocacy, priority for security and mutually beneficial coordination.

In face of the complicated changes in the international and regional security situation, the SCO upholds respect for the United Nation's authority and the internationally acknowledged standard of international laws, opposes "violence for violence" and the zero-sum game, supports its member states' efforts to safeguard their security interests, and objects to foreign forces' interfering in the internal affairs of small and weak countries.

The SCO endorses the Central Asian nuclear-free-zone, and has taken an active part in advancing national reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan. The SCO member states have signed the Shanghai Convention against Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism, Counter-Terrorism Convention, Anti-Extremism Convention, agreement on countering drug smuggling, and annual plans for cooperation among the defense departments and militaries.

It has also activated a range of meeting mechanisms, such as defense ministers' meetings, secretary of security meetings, public security (internal affairs) ministers' meetings and border defense leaders' meetings.

The SCO was one of the first international organizations to recognize the harm of international terrorism and announced its counter-terrorism stance. In 2004, the SCO Regional Counter-Terrorism Structure (RCTS) was formed in Tashkent, which established a complete database of terrorists and terrorist organizations, organized anti-terrorism drills, and shared intelligence among the member states.