The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) is set to approve its first comprehensive strategic plan at its summit in Beijing next month, which could pave the way to upgrade the regional security group to an economic and geopolitical alliance as well.
The six-nation group's June 6 meeting, in which it will likely adopt Afghanistan as an observer and Turkey as a dialogue partner, comes amid a recent push by the United States to increase its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The inclusion of the two nations and the effort to expand its scope has led some observers to wonder whether the SCO could develop into a fully fledged regional group, like Asean, or a platform to counter Nato's influence.
Mainland analysts, however, say such speculation is premature. And Deputy Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping rejected comparisons of the group to Nato.
'The SCO is an organisation concerned with political, economic and security co-operation,' Cheng said yesterday. 'It doesn't have a military function. Therefore it can't be compared to Nato.'
Nevertheless, Cheng described a plan to expand the SCO into a larger and more permanent platform for co-operation on issues beyond the traditional security concerns in the organisation's second decade.