Political scientist explains why Belarus is attractive to SCO

Despite the fact that Belarus is a miniature state compared to Iran, it has its own interesting positions for the entire huge SCO – as noted by political scientist Yuri Shevtsov in his talk with Alfa Radio

First of all, Belarus is of interest to the Shanghai Co-operation organisation (SCO) because it is a land corridor between the EU and Russia, China and other countries in the East.

“We remain a bottleneck, which means that many communication projects within the SCO – aimed at land communications – have access through us to the European Union, which is very important,” the expert underlined.

Belarus is also a factor in regional security in Eastern Europe. Yuri Shevtsov explained, “The Ukrainian war is localised on the territory of Ukraine. But it could have been different: a big war could have broken out between at least two seas. Here the Belarusian position is one of the key ones, indirectly influencing the position of other SCO member states.”

Another important point is the interesting technological products that are being produced in Belarus, “We are in a very crisis region; nevertheless, we are undergoing technological development. In some cases, it begins to influence many, e.g., the Belarusian National Biotechnology Corporation (BNBC). If everything goes as expected, we will soon become one of top-5 – and maybe even top-3 – global vitamin producers. This is somewhat reminiscent of what Taiwan has become for the world in terms of chip production. This means new instruments for the Belarusian presence in the world and new interests in us and our stability on the part of other players. There are also other technological positions where Belarus has its own arguments.”