Expert: How to improve SCO's international influence
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As one of the world largest international organizations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) includes nations with a total population of nearly 3 billion, surpassing one third of the global population, whose GDP surpassed $16 trillion in 2017.

The SCO Summit 2018 is scheduled to be held in Qingdao, Shandong Province on June 9 and 10, which has attracted worldwide attention.

The People's Daily conduct interviews with some leading international relations experts who believe that the SCO summit will promote a more impartial and open world.

Xiong Lili, a professor with the University of International Business and Economics, tackles ways to improve the SCO’s international influence in this exclusive interview with the People's Daily.

"For the SCO to enhance its international prestige, the priority is to find a suitable direction, namely, economic cooperation. Initially, the SCO was established to combat regional security uncertainties and boost regional cooperation," said Xiong. "It is different from exclusive military alliances, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or US-Japan alliance, which is targeted at specific countries or regions."

He noted that security concerns in member states have been greatly resolved after nearly 20 years of coordination. Because of the SCO, it is likely that no major conflicts will break out among member states, enabling members to focus on issues with more practical significance, such as closer economic ties, which are essential to deal with prevalent trade protectionism.

Xiong noted that after its expansion in 2017, SCO has become a greater multilateral platform for countries to avoid misunderstanding and to handle divergent national interests, especially China and India, whose mutual trust could be promoted through dialogues within the framework of SCO.

Compared with the first summit in 2001, China has played a more active role and it is expected to contribute more proposals to global governance, which will benefit the SCO member states and the international community as a whole, said Xiong.