Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) like to boast that their organization is special. The Chinese, for example, refer to the SCO’s “Shanghai Spirit” and the “mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultation, respect for diversified civilizations and pursuit of common development” that it has created. Russian officials like to contrast the organization with NATO and other US-led alliances. As Moscow sees it, the SCO is neither anti-Western nor anyone else, and does not try to force its members into adhering to common political or economic values. Yet despite being one of the largest regional organizations in the world, with an equally sprawling agenda of security, economic and geopolitical concerns, the SCO has lost momentum over the past few years, and even disappointed its partners with its lack of achievements.
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Commuters drive past a billboard bearing pictures of Masoud Pezeshkian, Mohammad Bagheri, and Benjamin Netanyahu in Tehran on October 27, 2024. (Atta Kenare via Getty Images)