Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Shanghai Cooperation Organization:

"Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS).This is a SCO permanent organ based inTashkent, capital ofUzbekistan.It will be officially launched in January 2004.Its main function is to coordinate SCO member activities against terrorism, separatism and extremism."

This is from a site maintained by the PRC's foreign ministry and describes one of the programs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization composed of PRC, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Note the mention of separatism and extremism as on a par with terrorism and you see more evidence that the PRC's interest in the West's war on terror is to provide cover for its efforts to suppress calls for greater autonomy or independence for its majority Muslim and Turkic (specifically, Uighur) province of Zinjiang.

Also of interest in this context was the recent comment by a senior Russian military official that the current war games with China do not signal the emergence of a China-Russia military alliance. In the same statement, however, this official said that close military cooperation would continue to develop between Russia and China within the framework of the SCO.