Appendix E: Military and Law Enforcement Cooperation between Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Appendix E: Military and Law Enforcement Cooperation between Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Introduction

Since they first began in 2002, joint military and law enforcement exercises between member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been an important component of strategic regional collaboration under the SCO framework. With troops often numbering in the thousands and staged mass maneuvers showcasing a full complement of military equipment, vehicles, and weaponry, these exercises have, among other things, served to communicate a strong rhetorical message to international audiences that the SCO is prepared to meet ‘terrorist’ threats with full, united force. As with the SCO’s other forms of regional cooperation, the emphasis on the “Three Evils” – terrorism, separatism, and extremism – underlying military and law enforcement cooperation has blurred the line between genuine and permissible counter-terrorism activity and state actions that do not conform with international human rights obligations.

To provide an overview of the scope and implications of these joint military and law enforcement exercises between SCO member states, Human Rights in China has compiled publicly available data on past exercises staged between October 2002 and September 2010, including information on member state participation, geographic locations, numbers of troops and equipment, and stated objectives for joint exercises. This data is presented in a comparative chart that follows.

The picture illustrated by available information is incomplete, in part because the SCO itself has released relatively few details to the public. Accordingly, in addition to official SCO data, Human Rights in China has relied on a variety of supplemental sources, including reporting from state-run news agencies such as Xinhua, People’s Daily, and the PLA Daily.¹ Nonetheless, the overall picture documented in the following chart raises serious concerns about the implications of joint military and law enforcement exercises between SCO member states, including:

• Tactics of joint intimidation: Despite the non-threatening names given to these exercises, invoking peace, cooperation, etc., and SCO rhetoric emphasizing deterrence of  “terrorist” threats, the stated objectives and geographic locations of the exercises suggest an intention to target “problem” populations. The exercises send a chilling message: threats deemed “terrorist,” “separatist,” or “extremist” in nature will be met with heavy-handed force. The climate of fear perpetuated through these joint exercises has the effect of intimidating and compromising domestic populations, particularly ethnic groups such as Uyghurs, by deterring them from exercising their legitimate rights, including the exercise of freedoms of association, expression, and religion – activities that officials regularly characterize as “separatism” or “extremism.”
• Increasing militaristic ambition and experimentation: Joint SCO military exercises marked a number of first-time milestones for China, including participation by the People’s Liberation Army in a joint military maneuver with a foreign army and the conduct of a long-range bombing mission.² Notable exercises included simulated attacks against a nuclear physics institute operating a nuclear reactor, and using propaganda leaflets as “a psychological tactic to shake the enemy’s will.”³
• China’s domestic agenda: Joint SCO military and law enforcement exercises are of major importance to China, which has participated in nearly every exercise since they began in 2002. Two joint exercises took place near North Korea and three were staged at least partially in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The exercises complement China’s efforts to enforce social stability and control over XUAR and to demonstrate China’s priorities within the SCO. The timing of PLA exercises in relation to those of the SCO has, on occasion, suggested that China is using SCO exercises as a means to bolster its domestic agenda with respect to XUAR in particular. One example is the conduct of a domestic counter-terrorism exercise in XUAR on August 23, 2003, just eleven days after the conclusion of “Coalition 2003.”⁴

In addition to the joint military and law enforcement cooperation exercises listed in the following chart, there have also been other official joint SCO exercises. For instance, from May 19 to May 22, 2009, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Tajikistan participated in the Bogorodsk Joint Disaster Relief Exercise. This exercise took place in the Russian city of Noginsk and involved reconnaissance, inspection, repair, and rescue exercises, including a staged rescue operation involving high-rise buildings.⁵ There have also been border protection exercises, including an unnamed training event involving China and Russia that took place along the Heilongjiang border in January 2003. This exercise was aimed at the “apprehension of illegal border crossers.”⁶ A similar exercise, the “Border Blockade Exercise,” also involving China and Russia, took place on February 26, 2009, at the Heihe-Blagoveschensk border area.⁷

At the end of 2010, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman declined to confirm media reports that China and Russia will hold a joint military exercise in the Sea of Japan in 2011, but “praised the role of such drills in safeguarding regional peace and stability.”⁸

Taken together, these trends in expanding joint military and law enforcement cooperation, with increasing levels of cost, size, and scope of joint exercises, call for closer scrutiny. Instead of promoting greater peace and security in the region, these exercises may in fact be contributing to further militarization, instability of the region, and a climate that is conducive to the undermining of fundamental rights and freedoms.

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