{"id":34427,"date":"2022-11-02T02:18:37","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T20:48:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=34427"},"modified":"2025-04-20T13:31:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T08:01:25","slug":"at-sco-meet-jaishankar-targets-bri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/at-sco-meet-jaishankar-targets-bri\/","title":{"rendered":"At SCO Meet, Jaishankar Targets Bri"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>SCO \u2013 About, observers<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The 21st Meeting of SCO\u00a0<strong>Council of Heads of Government<\/strong>\u00a0(CHG)\u00a0was\u00a0held on 01 November 2022 in the virtual format.<\/li>\n<li>The SCO CHG meeting held annually focuses on the trade and economic agenda of the Organization and approves its annual budget.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2022\/11\/2\/12\/33\/47\/636216533fe19d09d2763ffd_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation, created in June 2001 in Shanghai (China).<\/li>\n<li>Founding members included Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.<\/li>\n<li>This organization represents approximately 42% of the world\u2019s population, 22% of its land area and 20% of its GDP.<\/li>\n<li>SCO comprised eight member states, namely India, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.\n<ul>\n<li>In 2021 summit held in Dushanbe, members decided to include Iran as a full member.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Observers<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Before 2021, SCO had four observer states. This included &#8211; Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.<\/li>\n<li>In 2021, Iran became a full member and Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar were added as new observer states. Hence, currently, SCO has 6 observer states namely:\n<ul>\n<li>Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar represented India in a virtual meeting of the\u00a0<strong>SCO Council of Heads of Government<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It was hosted by the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang since the\u00a0Council of Heads of Government is chaired by China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>India\u2019s stand at the meeting<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>On connectivity projects in the SCO region<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Connectivity projects in the SCO region should focus on the interests of Central Asian states and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries.<\/li>\n<li>India said better connectivity will unlock the economic potential of the SCO region.<\/li>\n<li>In this context, Iran\u2019s Chabahar port and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) could become enablers.\n<ul>\n<li>India has developed a terminal at Chabahar port and there are plans to integrate the strategic port with INSTC.<\/li>\n<li>The port has also played a key role in the trans-shipment of goods from Russia to India following the start of the Ukraine war.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>India did not support China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India was the only SCO member state that did not reaffirm support for China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in a joint communique issued after the meeting.\n<ul>\n<li>Other countries reaffirmed their support for China\u2019s BRI and to work jointly to implement the project.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India has for long opposed the BRI because a key part of it \u2013 the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) &#8211; passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>On trade with SCO members<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Indian EAM said that our total trade with SCO Members is only $141 billion, which has potential to increase manifold.\n<ul>\n<li>The bulk of India\u2019s trade with SCO countries is with China, which crossed $100 billion this year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Fair market access is to our mutual benefit and only way to move forward.<\/li>\n<li>He also reiterated India\u2019s commitment to deepen multilateral cooperation in areas such as food and energy security, climate change and trade.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>On Mission LiFE (Lifestyle For Environment)<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>EAM also spoke about Mission LiFE launched by PM Modi, which envisions replacing the prevalent \u2018use and dispose\u2019 economy by a circular economy.<\/li>\n<li>He highlighted that in\u00a02023, the UN International Year of Millets, India intends to foster greater cooperation with SCO member states on countering the food crisis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>On India\u2019s ongoing chairship of the SCO<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India assumed the chairmanship of the grouping following the summit held in Uzbekistan.\n<ul>\n<li>The 22nd Meeting of the\u00a0Council of\u00a0<strong>Heads of State<\/strong>\u00a0of the SCO\u00a0was held in Uzbekistan in September 2022.<\/li>\n<li>India will host the next SCO summit (Meeting of Council of Heads of State) as a chairman of organisation in 2023.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>This was the first meeting of the SCO since India took over the bloc\u2019s rotating presidency.\n<ul>\n<li>The current meeting, hosted by China, was the meeting of\u00a0SCO Council of\u00a0<strong>Heads of Government.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is Eurasian political, international security and defence organization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":34428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}