Limitations of India at SCO: UPSC Daily Important Topic | 3 September 2022

Limitations of India at SCO

 ✓Since China and Russia are co-founders of SCO and its dominant powers, India’s ability to assert itself would be limited and it may have to content itself to playing the second fiddle.

✓In addition, India may also have to either dilute its growing partnership with the West or engage in a delicate balancing act.

✓Except India, all the other members of SCO have endorsed China’s BRI initiative. India’s 

primary concern is related to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Infact, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan had long crossed India’s sovereignty red lines when they signed the Quadrilateral Traffic in Transit Agreement (QTTA) with Pakistan in 1995 to use the Karakoram Highway (KKH) passing through Gilgit-Baltistan as a transit corridor.

✓Given the state of relations between India and Pakistan, many assume that the spotlight would shift away from Central Asia towards tensions in South Asia, thus making regional cooperation hard to foster.