Abstract
outh Asia is one of the least integrated regions in the world, with persistent India–Pakistan rivalry acting as a major stumbling block to regional
cooperation through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC). Nonetheless, both India and Pakistan continue to experiment
with multilateral arrangements and both became members of the Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in 2017. While it is too early to predict
the impact of the India–Pakistan rivalry on the SCO, dominant scholarship
highlights the likelihood of a negative influence. This paper would like to
present an alternative possibility – of the SCO providing opportunities for
collaboration in the areas of security and counterterrorism, which in turn
may positively influence Indo–Pak relations. Further, the likelihood of the
Indo–Pak conflict negatively impacting the SCO is low primarily because,
unlike SAARC, the SCO is led by China and Russia, who are actively
invested in keeping the SCO influential to serve their key interest in challenging the dominant Western world order
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 5-30 |
Journal | Pacific Focus |
Volume | 34 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2019 |