Central Asia is tilting more decisively towards China as geopolitical uncertainty deepens, with Beijing’s expanding influence recasting the former Soviet states’ strategic orientation. In the final instalment of a three-part series, Cao Jiaxuan examines how Central Asian members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation have shaped the bloc’s response to the US-Iran conflict. Read the first part here and the second part here.
As Kyrgyzstan gears up to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in August, the US-Iran conflict is testing the bloc’s ability to respond to a major external crisis involving a member state without undermining its defining principles.
While some observers have suggested the bloc could take a decisive coordinated stance, analysts said such expectations were unlikely to be met, not because the bloc was ineffective but because restraint was built into its design.
Iran became a full member of the SCO in July 2023. It has viewed the bloc, led by China and Russia, as an important platform to break free from US-led diplomatic isolation amid long-standing Western economic sanctions.
But Iran’s high tensions with the United States and Israel have cast uncertainty over the SCO’s regional agenda, with the conflict in the Middle East remaining unresolved even as a Pakistan-mediated fragile ceasefire enters its eighth week.
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