Should India join SCO?

Not many would have heard of the SCO, but this entity has been around since 1996. According to this link, though the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) was founded in 2001 by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, it has existed since 1996 as the Shanghai Five. Since 2001, it has been called SCO thanks to the inclusion of Uzbekistan.

BBC China analyst Shirong Chen says that SCO was China's answer to a multi-polar world and increasingly it has played a role in promoting regional security, for example by contributing to reconstruction in Afghanistan.

If you want more details, you can check out the history of this entity. If you want more details, there is always this page, which is maintained by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People's Republic of China.

For a nice article on the SCO, visit the Council on Foreign Relations' page.

India currently has observer status in the SCO, but could be a crucial strategic partner in the future. And though India has openly said that it wants to join the SCO, this article says that India's entry would shift the SCO's geographical focus to South Asia, which has many problems of its own, different from Central Asia.