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Finbarr Bermingham

Catherine Wong

Zhang Ming, until recently China’s ambassador to the European Union, is the new secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, one of the world’s largest political and economic groupings.
The appointment makes Zhang the first Chinese head of the group since veteran diplomat Zhang Deguang left office in 2006.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin confirmed the appointment on Wednesday, describing Zhang as an experienced diplomat who was capable of pushing the development of the bloc.
“China will continue to support the work of the SCO secretariat and the secretary general,” Wang said.


Zhang will be based in Beijing, at one of the group’s two headquarters – the other is in Uzbekistan – after last month leaving his posting in Brussels having served a single four-year term. He will take over as SCO secretary general from Vladimir Norov, the Uzbek who had held the role since 2019.
A new Chinese ambassador to the EU has yet to be named, but the appointment is being watched closely in Brussels. Zhang left his posting with EU-China relations delicately poised.
Among the matters adding strain to the relationship in 2021 were tit-for-tat sanctions, growing concerns over China’s human rights record and perceived economic foul play, an escalating feud with Lithuania over Taiwan, and a growing armoury of trade weaponry being cooked up in Brussels.
Zhang, however, was generally well respected by Brussels emissaries and officials. Multiple sources said he was viewed as an old-school diplomat, at a time when Chinese envoys across the world were gaining a reputation for being more assertive.
Few have described him as a Wolf Warrior, a tag commonly foisted on a new wave of diplomats using social media to aggressively push their positions and lash out against criticism.
Four years of navigating the bureaucracy and labyrinthine institutions of Brussels may stand Zhang in good stead at the SCO, a sprawling, Byzantine organisation that – like the EU – is sometimes dismissed as a complicated “talking shop”.

Spanning large swathes of Eurasia, the SCO includes countries that account for 40 per cent of the world’s population and almost a quarter of global gross domestic product, making it second only to the United Nations in scale.
The other members are India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia have observer status, while Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey are dialogue partners.
It was established 20 years ago under terms that seemed to directly counter what was seen as adventurist American foreign policy, echoing language commonly used by China’s foreign ministry today.
Members said they would rail against “intervention in other countries’ internal affairs”, and not push humanitarianism or human rights agendas.
They collaborate on a plethora of issues ranging from trade and economy to education, tourism and health care. The SCO’s overarching aim, according to its website, is to move “towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order”.
These aims overlap with those of other Chinese foreign policy channels, notably its infrastructure investment strategy the Belt and Road Initiative, and chime loudly with Russian objectives to disrupt the post-war, American-led order.
But observers say that the alliance has punched below its weight. It has yet to make the impact on the global geopolitical or economic landscape that befits its magnitude.
Could the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation help stabilise Afghanistan?
“They’re constantly holding meetings, constantly talking, constantly doing training and counterterrorism exercises together,” said Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “They hold all sorts of working groups. They’ve created various youth groups, they’ve got a university exchange scheme, a marathon, a film festival.
“But it doesn’t make a strategic difference and the organisation never really seems to move and speak as a whole. It hasn’t actually achieved any outcomes that we would recognise in the West.”
Temur Umarov, a research consultant at Carnegie Moscow Centre, said the organisation was hamstrung by its need for political consensus, which is also a charge frequently levelled at the EU. He added that its progress was hampered by squabbling between India and Pakistan.
“Based on how decisions are made, which is a consensus between all of the member states, it’s impossible to make any real change work,” Umarov said. “So I think the SCO has become this discussion club, and that China and Russia are using it just to portray themselves as globally ambitious countries, like the US – but they don’t actually have real instruments.”
China already had an outsize influence on the organisation, with Chinese and Russian being its two official languages, but having the first Chinese appointee at the helm could steer it further in Beijing’s chosen direction, Pantucci suggested.
“Once they have a guy sitting there who is organising the meetings, pushing the agenda forward, it does make a difference,” he said.


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News

China

Diplomacy


Zhang Ming is to take over as secretary general, making him the first Chinese to head the Eurasian grouping since 2006
His appointment could extend China’s influence in the group, which – much like the European Union – has sometimes been described as a ‘talking shop’



Zhang Ming is the first Chinese since 2006 to head a Eurasian grouping that, much like the European Union, has sometimes been described as a ‘talking shop’.


Shanghai