Introduction

China's engagement in Central Asia differs uniquely from neighbouring countries with which it shares its border. In parallel with its bilateral relations, China is using a different form of regional diplomacy – an induced multilateral diplomacy in the form of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The controversy about the SCO's raison d’être continues despite an explicit statement in its charter on the region's security needs for an institution to guard against non-traditional threats (SCO 2010a).

The key argument I make in this chapter is that the SCO's regional security identity greatly impacts the national security identities of the member-states. The key driver of this influence is the SCO's collective security identity. It is a discourse built on the ideational constructs introduced primarily by China, such as the ‘Shanghai Spirit’ and the ‘Spirit of Good Neighbourliness’. The influence of the main security discourse in the SCO is expressed in behavioural changes of the SCO member-states that are eager to take certain roles and are replicating the ideas and themes introduced by the organization. They eventually reintroduce these themes in their respective domestic security discourses.

Academic literature on the SCO in the International Relations field can be split into three groups based on the underlying theoretical approaches: neorealism (Stobdan 1998; Smith 1996; Sheives 2006; Stobdan 2008; Swanström 2005; Menon 1995; Harris 2005; Collins 1996; Blank 2007), liberal institutionalism (Allison 2008; Aris 2009a; Bobokulov 2006; Chung 2006; Kavalski 2010) and different blends with constructivism (Akbarzadeh 1996; Carney & Moran 2000; Collins 2003; Fumagalli 2007; Kent 2002; Kubicek 1997; Kubicek 1998). The existing body of research on the region has at least two critical limitations. The first one is theoretical, as it usually comes with the restrictions associated with one school or the other. The second limitation is the level of analysis, which is generally either extra-regional or intra-regional. This polarization has limited the focus of the research and consequently numerous questions are either unexplained or ignored entirely.

The core point of this chapter is that ideas matter and that ideational constructs are at work in regional cooperation. These ideational constructs were important in creating propaganda during the Cold War and in the post-Soviet era.