Tianjin, China – The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit drew wide attention as leaders from across Eurasia convened to emphasize the Organization’s growing importance. For smaller members, the meeting was a chance to show commitment to regional cooperation and alignment with the bloc’s major powers. Uzbekistan, under President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, stood out by using the platform to outline his intention to strengthen engagement within the SCO to advance both economic development and security.

Mirziyoyev’s speech stressed solidarity in the face of global uncertainty, institutional renewal to improve effectiveness, and deeper cooperation in areas such as security and nuclear policy. He also endorsed expanding membership, particularly from the Global South, while presenting proposals to boost trade, logistics, and investment. These priorities are consistent with Uzbekistan’s ongoing strategy of aligning its national agenda with the SCO’s broader evolution into a forum with Eurasian and global relevance.

Reinforcing Multilateral Solidarity

Uzbekistan’s solidarity with the SCO has been in the making for years, as Tashkent aligns parts of its security and economic strategy with the Organization’s framework. In his latest address, Mirziyoyev emphasized the role of solidarity amid rising instability: “A systemic crisis of trust, the escalation of conflicts, the weakening of multilateral institutions, and the fragmentation of the global trading system are undermining the foundations of the international architecture of security and stability. In these circumstances, mutual understanding and solidarity among the SCO member-states are not only a valuable asset, but also the key to preserving peace in our vast region.”

While Russia emphasizes the SCO’s role in fostering multipolarity and China focuses on resilient supply chains, Uzbekistan is leveraging the principle of solidarity to safeguard its national interests – reducing dependence on any single power. Uzbekistan is positioning itself within the SCO to align its domestic priorities with broader SCO agendas shaped by Russia’s focus on security and China’s emphasis on economic initiatives.

Expanding Membership and External Engagement

Mirziyoyev underscored the SCO’s “openness,” identifying expansion as central to its continued development. He welcomed greater engagement with new members and partners, though he did not specify particular regions.

Uzbekistan’s growing cooperation with countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia demonstrates how this vision of openness is taking shape in practice. Tashkent has actively supported Iran’s accession to the SCO and recently signed agreements on transport corridors that connect Central Asia to Iranian ports on the Persian Gulf, facilitating greater trade with Iran. In parallel, deepening ties with Saudi Arabia – particularly through ACWA Power’s renewable energy projects, now among Uzbekistan’s largest foreign-funded ventures – illustrate Uzbekistan’s broader engagement with the Global South in the areas of connectivity and investment.

These moves parallel Russia’s and China’s efforts to expand the SCO’s influence beyond its founding region. For Uzbekistan, expansion offers new avenues for trade, energy cooperation, and investment partnerships, while reinforcing its image as a bridge-builder. By publicly supporting this process, Mirziyoyev signaled that Uzbekistan expects wider membership to enhance both the Organization’s and its own standing.

Institutional Alignment with the SCO

A recurring theme in Mirziyoyev’s address was the importance of ensuring that Uzbekistan’s domestic institutions evolve in step with the SCO’s priorities. Tashkent has sought to embed its national reforms within the Organization’s security and economic frameworks, demonstrating a deliberate effort to align domestic development with multilateral commitments.

On the security front, Uzbekistan continues to engage with the SCO’s Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), reflecting its emphasis on countering extremism and terrorism through regional mechanisms. This cooperation ensures that internal strategies on law enforcement and public security correspond with collective approaches at the SCO level.

In the economic sphere, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Uzbekistan has used the SCO Business Council as a platform to promote national priorities, putting forward initiatives like SCO TradeNet, innovation clusters, and an SCO business school for SMEs to strengthen regional trade and investment. By aligning its institutional networks with regional mechanisms, Tashkent ensures that local businesses can benefit directly from the SCO’s expanding economic agenda.

Taken together, these measures illustrate Uzbekistan’s efforts to adapt its own institutional structures to operate in concert with the SCO’s evolving agenda. This approach positions Tashkent as both a contributor to the SCO’s multilateral initiatives and a beneficiary of the Organization’s institutional renewal.

Security and Nuclear Cooperation

Security cooperation was one of the most prominent elements of President Mirziyoyev’s proposals at the SCO summit. He called for adopting an SCO Declaration on Strengthening Multilateral Partnership for Nuclear Security, stressing peaceful nuclear energy, coordinated emergency response, and what he described as a “worthy contribution to the global non-proliferation regime under the auspices of the United Nations.” This initiative would position the SCO to contribute to areas traditionally led by institutions such as the IAEA.

Beyond nuclear security, Mirziyoyev urged practical steps to deepen law enforcement cooperation: reviving the Meeting of Ministers of Internal Affairs and Public Security, revising the Agreement on Cooperation in Combating Crime, and adopting a Comprehensive Anti-Drug Program through 2030. He also called for reactivating the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, echoing the Organization’s previous role as a dialogue facilitator on security and development in Afghanistan.

Taken together, these initiatives indicate Uzbekistan’s view of the SCO as more than a political forum – instead as a platform for structured security collaboration across Eurasia. Much like the CSTO provides collective defense and the OSCE emphasizes confidence-building, Uzbekistan envisions the SCO as a uniquely Eurasian mechanism for cooperative responses to terrorism, organized crime, narcotics, and nuclear risks.

Trade and Economic Integration

Economic cooperation was another central theme of Mirziyoyev’s address. He called for the adoption of a Trade Facilitation Agreement, the expansion of production and logistics chains, and stronger mutual investment among SCO states – proposals aimed at building parallel trade and financial mechanisms under the Organization’s umbrella.

These multilateral priorities align with Uzbekistan’s ongoing bilateral initiatives. Agreements with Iran on the Uzbekistan–Turkmenistan–Iran–Oman corridor and logistics hubs at Bandar Abbas and Chabahar give Tashkent direct access to Gulf ports. With Saudi Arabia, cooperation has focused on clean energy and infrastructure, where ACWA Power alone has committed up to $15 billion in renewable energy projects.

By coupling these bilateral efforts with its multilateral proposals inside the SCO, Uzbekistan is positioning itself as both a driver of its own initiatives within the SCO and a participant in the broader regional integration process led by the Organization. Through this dual-track approach, Tashkent is positioning the SCO as the central multilateral framework through which it seeks to advance regional connectivity and investment, as Mirziyoyev emphasized in Tianjin when he called for a ‘Common SCO Transport Space’ and the development of North–South and East–West corridors.

Channeling Ambitions

President Mirziyoyev’s speech in Tianjin underscored Uzbekistan’s decision to channel its security and economic ambitions through the SCO. By aligning domestic institutions with SCO mechanisms, endorsing the Organization’s expansion, and pairing bilateral initiatives with multilateral proposals, Tashkent is deepening its integration with the bloc. This strategy reflects a calculated bet: that the SCO’s evolution – shaped by Russia’s security agenda and China’s economic initiatives – will deliver Uzbekistan new opportunities to pursue stability and development in a period of global uncertainty. The wager, however, is not without risks: its success depends on whether the Organization can reconcile major-power interests, turn commitments into practical outcomes, and avoid leaving Tashkent exposed to unresolved security threats, fragile trade links, or external skepticism of SCO-led coalitions.