When the six member states of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) gather in Beijing for the group's annual summit tomorrow, they are expected to push an agenda showing the bloc is becoming more united and able to cast a larger influence on global affairs.
Since the organisation's establishment 11 years ago, its members - China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan - have been clear about their desire to distance the group from any alliance with Nato.
And analysts say the SCO, which focuses largely on security-related concerns in Central Asia, is likely this week to discuss the recent US-led Nato missile defence facilities in Europe that Moscow says could intercept all missiles launched from Russia.
'The SCO believes the Nato initiative will affect regional security, and this is expected to be an agenda item for the annual summit,' said Li Xing , an expert in international affairs at Beijing Normal University.
The SCO has previously been used as a platform for criticising the West. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country acts as an observer in the SCO, has made verbal attacks at the summit against the US, whose application for observer status in the bloc was rejected in 2006.
Xing Guangcheng , an expert on Russian affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, pointed to membership requests from observer nations such as India and Pakistan as evidence of the SCO's growing prominence in recent years.