Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made a strong speech on Monday for further counter-terrorism cooperation among SCO countries to foster a safe and stable environment for development. In his speech at the virtual meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) hosted by India, Li said that the members of the SCO grouping should actively promote a safe and stable environment for development.
“With growing uncertainty and destabilizing factors in the region, we must work together to defend regional peace and stability,” he said. Counter-terrorism cooperation featured in the first of four proposals he submitted for the advancement of the eight-member organization. .
Joint counter-terrorism exercises should continue to be held to prevent sabotage by terrorist, separatist and extremist forces exploiting the pandemic, Li said. Over the years, the OCS has developed an antiterrorist force called the Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS), which was considered one of the organization’s main strengths.
China is concerned about the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan as it halts the regrouping of Uighur militants under the separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an al-Qaeda-affiliated group active in China’s volatile Xinjiang province, from Muslim majority, which shares borders with countries. like Afghanistan and Pakistan. We will also cooperate with Afghanistan making full use of the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group to support Afghanistan’s national reconciliation process and help it restore stability and development at an early date, Li said.
The SCO is an economic and security bloc to which India and Pakistan were admitted as full members in 2017. Its founding members include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Li said institution-building and cooperation on de-radicalization should be strengthened to effectively address emerging threats and challenges, such as cyber terrorism and biosafety, and expand the breadth and depth of SCO cooperation. in law enforcement and security.
He said the SCO member states must seriously lay the foundations for integrated development. To promote integrated and interconnected development, we must take advantage of our complementarity and further ground the areas of cooperation to put the economy on a recovery course, he said. Referring to China and 14 other countries that recently signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, he said that under the SCO, we must also enhance the liberalization and facilitation of regional trade and investment. , and establish institutional arrangements. for regional economic cooperation of the SCO.
India withdrew from RCEP last year because joining it would have had quite negative consequences for the country’s economy. The government has said that India pulled out of the RCEP, which is said to be the largest free trade agreement in history, as a number of key concerns raised by it were not addressed.
In his virtual speech, Li also said that China suggests intensifying efforts to develop the SCO University, bring more universities and disciplines to this network, and cultivate more future-oriented professionals. China proposes to establish an international alliance of SCO museums and sign a memorandum on mutual translation of literary classics, with a view to promoting mutual learning among civilizations and bringing our peoples closer together, he said.
He also proposed to accelerate cooperation in research and development of vaccines and drugs to combat coronavirus
pandemic. COVID-19 vaccines, when developed and deployed in China, will become a global public good. This will be China’s contribution to ensuring the accessibility and affordability of vaccines, the prime minister said.
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