
This study is focused on evaluation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (hereafter, SCO) - one of the key regional organizations established in the Eurasian continent - from the multilateral perspective. The SCO is often understood as a group containing the US’s unilateralism with the concert of Russia and China plus other member states in Central Asia. From the multilateral view, certain aspects of the SCO appears weak because it shows a low degree of functionality, institutionalization, orientation and consensus among member states. However, despite the mentioned limitations, we can see some achievements and developments made by the SCO in the Central Asia where multilateral experiences are less exposed to so far. The SCO has been especially showing positive consequences on cooperation in non-traditional security sectors such as border security, radical separatism, terrorism and drug and illegal weapon dealing as well as cooperation in economic domain like energy resources development and infrastructure building. From the view of regional powers, the SCO is one of the mechanism that Russia has been taking advantage of in order to reinforce her international status aftermath the financial crisis and the Georgian war. In case of China, the SCO is the main path to extend her economic influence up to the Eurasian continent beyond the Central Asian region. Meanwhile, Central Asian states regards the SCO as an useful instrument to confirm their independence and strengthen diplomatic positions against the neighboring power states. With taking such achievements and limitations into consideration, the viable factors being able to influence over the future prospects of the SCO are identified with as followings: the change of the US’s policy towards Central Asia and its impact, future development between Russia-China relations, competitions and conflicts among Central Asian states and their directions of development. Nevertheless, the predominant opinions are most likely to point out that SCO would develop as an influential player in the Eurasian international oder for the time being.
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