NEW DELHI: Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) are unhappy over India’s announcement to have the SCO Summit in a virtual format. “We have been looking forward to our leaders meeting in person until we heard that the summit would now be virtual. Since December 2022, we were gearing up for the event and stopped in our tracks when the announcement to host the event virtually was made in May,” said the representative of an SCO member country.
India took the chairmanship of the SCO from Uzbekistan after the conclusion of the SCO Summit in Samarkand in September 2022. After hosting nearly 134 meetings in person, the Ministry of External Affairs announced on May 30 that the summit would be held virtually on July 4.
“India has been too consumed by the G20 Presidency and the events revolving around it, as a result of which the events under the SCO chairmanship have been lost. The only time SCO came into prominence briefly was during the SCO foreign ministers’ meet in Goa,” said an SCO member.
The SCO grouping is by no means insignificant if one was to consider the geographic scope and population. “It is the world’s largest regional organisation in terms of area, covering approximately 60 per cent of Eurasia and 40 per cent of the world population, with a combined GDP of 20 per cent of the global GDP. So, it is only natural for us to have expected it to be more visible,” added another SCO member.