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- Sana Hashmi, visiting fellow of Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation
TAEF visiting fellow Dr. Sana Hashmi has contributed a chapter entitled “ China and Shanghai Coopeartion Organisation'' to a recent publication by University of Malaya, Malaysia – Asia and Europe in the 21st Century: New Anxieties, New Opportunities.
This volume discusses emerging critical issues in International relations that raise the concerns from both Asia and Europe, such as the Indo-Pacific constructs, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
“Since the 1990s, China has been focusing on improving relations with its neighbours. Chinese leaders have made deliberate efforts to formulate an integrated peripheral policy (zhoubian zhengce) also known as ‘good neighbourly policy’ (mulin zhengce), aimed at exploring common grounds with neighbouring countries in economic and security domains and conveying the image of China as a responsible international actor willing to contribute towards greater stability and cooperation in its neighbourhood.”
“One of the important outcomes of China’s good neighbourly and peripheral policy was to institutionalise its relations with the Central Asian Republics. This led to the formation of Shanghai Five in 1996 and its subsequent upgradation to Shanghai Cooperation (SCO) in 2001.”