The 15th International Conference on Central Asia & Shanghai Cooperation Organization was held online and offline at CNISCO from 7 to 9 September. Experts attending the meeting pointed out that the SCO should continue to uphold the Shanghai spirit, strengthen regional security cooperation, counter-terrorism cooperation and economic cooperation, continue to promote and deepen cultural exchanges, and play a more important role in ensuring regional and global stability, peace and development on the basis of consolidating good-neighborly friendship and cooperation.
Liu Xiaohong, Deputy Party Secretary and President of SHUPL and Director of CNISCO, delivered a welcome speech to the invited Chinese and foreign scholars. She pointed out that the SCO was born 20 years ago along the bank of the Huangpu River. The Shanghai Spirit has been guiding the new regional organization, which takes security, economic and cultural cooperation as its core content and calls for exploring a new type of international relations through mutual cooperation and seeking common ground while shelving differences. It is hoped that this high-level academic forum will strengthen practical cooperation, enable more Chinese and foreign scholars and relevant people to have an in-depth understanding of CNISCO, work together to further advance the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, and make greater contribution to the regional security, economic development and social prosperity of the SCO.
Chinese and foreign scholars like Pan Guang, Wang Kaiwen, Wang Wei, Yuan Shengyu, Sun Zhuangzhi, Wang Xianju, Xiang Lanxin, Huang Jing, Xing Guangcheng, Xu Tao, Gu Dingguo, Hu Jian, Yu Jianhua, Wang Zhen, Qiu Huafei, Zhang Shaoying, Wang Haiyan, Nanjie Longyingqiang, Yang Zhen, Raj Verma, Amina Khan and etc. made keynote speeches and held heated discussions on the development and achievements of the SCO, counter-terrorism and security, economic and cultural cooperation, the situation in Afghanistan, the future development path of the SCO and other topics with important reference value and academic value.
Chief Specialist of CNISCO and Director of Center of SCO Studies of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Pan Guang said that SCO is a successful practice of the construction of human community with a shared future. As the COVID-19 pandemicsweeps the world and the international situation changes rapidly, the buildingofan SCO community with ashared future isofgreat significance to ensure peace and stability in the region of the SCO.
Foreign scholars, including Raj Verma, Head of Research and Senior Fellow at Asia Pacific Intellisia Institute, and Amina Khan, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies, believe that China has played an extremely important role in the SCO. China has always participated in SCO activities with a pragmatic attitude and played a positive role in combating the three forces, encouraging member states to tap their own development potential and building regional security barriers. Zheng Shaohua, Vice President of SHUPL, pointed out at the closing ceremony that the experts and scholars attending the meeting summarized the achievements and experience of SCO in the past 20 years and prospected its development in the next 10 years. He believed that these achievements will provide important reference for building an SCO community with a shared future
In September 2013, President Xi Jinping attended the SCO Summit in Bishkek. He announced the establishment of CNISCO at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law. To commemorate the eighth anniversary of President Xi's announcement of the establishment of CNISCO, SHUPL, CNISCO, the Center of SCO Studies of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and the Institute of SCO Studies of the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law are co-hosting this seminar. Nearly 100 well-known scholars and related personages from China, Afghanistan, Germany, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Belarus, India, Uzbekistan and other countries and regions attended the conference.