Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart of Edgbaston, for securing this debate and to all the other fascinating contributions. There seems to have been a concentration, in this corner, from the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, and my noble friends Lord Moynihan and Lord Hannan, of talk about Uzbekistan—somewhat surprisingly. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, reminded us, when we were MEPs, we had the opportunity to visit that country on two or three occasions. It was fascinating, and we suffered from what was referred to as “terrorist hospitality”: on a number of occasions, food and drink was literally forced on us and we were unable to refuse, whether we liked it or not. It did, of course, have an appalling human rights record, at the time, machine-gunning demonstrators and boiling opponents in oil. This was a number of years ago; I hope its record has got slightly better recently.

Given the domination of China-related news in recent days, I am sure noble Lords will have arrived at this debate with the topic at hand already at the forefront of their minds. This is an extremely topical debate—the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, must have had a vision of the future when she secured it. I hope that we can leave here after the contribution from the Minister feeling somewhat slightly less bemused by the Government’s approach to China. I also hope, however, that ongoing events have made them acutely aware the threat of the Chinese Communist Party’s growing global influence to international stability and order. As my noble friend Lord Hannan pointed out, the clue to who runs the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is indeed in the name, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, pointed out in her excellent introduction, the international order that has held since the end of the Cold War is fraying.

Out from under the threat of communism arose a liberal system that centred itself on the rule of law through robust yet unimposing international treaties and institutions—in no small part catalysed and maintained by this country—an order emerged that allowed states, both big and small to interact, to coexist freely and with their own sovereignty. Now, as growing economies begin to compete with the upholders of the prevailing peaceful order, new spheres of influence are cropping up to fracture the old and impose their authority on the new. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation—slightly misnamed in my view—and its component countries, has no small part to play in that.

The Russian Federation, nations that it engulfed under the Iron Curtain just half a century ago, India, Pakistan, Iran and China make up nearly half the global population and are using their strength and manpower to ally and to exert their influence in an aggressive and partisan manner. The last of those countries, China, has managed to influence and manoeuvre some of the most developed nations in the world—and we here are indeed a case in point. Imagine the free rein that they have with the more underdeveloped nations in search of a route to supposed prosperity. It may seem an attractive notion: rich and poor partnerships aimed at guiding countries to the promised land but the empirical evidence suggests otherwise. The belt and road initiative, coated as a benevolent partnership, has led to many countries in Africa and elsewhere becoming shackled to the Chinese by a collar of unshakeable debt, allowing their guarantor to exercise control and coercion with no repercussions whatever.

The SCO is the other side of that same coin but, rather than one nation, it is, as I said, a near majority of the globe acting to impress themselves into the international order. It is a danger under the guise of a developer. Let me just cover a few of the demonstrations that we saw from the organisation’s summit last month, when it announced, with no hint of irony, its global governance initiative. It pledged to promote democracy when leading members are explicit authoritarians. The interesting sole exception to that is of course India, as the noble Lord, Lord Bruce, pointed out. I struggle to see why it would want to be part of such an organisation. The SCO pledged to abide by the international rule of law, “equally and uniformly”, it says in its declaration, all of course while one of its members is waging an illegal war on Ukraine. It preaches multilateralism when decisions are made unilaterally and with force on smaller surrounding countries.

The SCO represents a clear worry to the peaceful system that has governed our relations for the past three and a half decades. The current Government, I say with sadness but not surprise, have not so far stepped up to this threat. The only place that I can begin is with a brief overview of what has unfolded with regard to China in the past few weeks. A prosecution accusing two men of spying on behalf of China was dropped on 15 September due to a lack of evidence, a decision followed by proclamations of astonishment and surprise from Ministers. The Minister of State for Security told the Commons that the decision had been entirely independent, before the DPP revealed that he had spent months asking the Government to release evidence before the case was dropped. The Education Secretary was then wheeled out at the weekend to do the media rounds, in which she changed the Government’s tune, claiming that the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser was not involved in “the substance” of the case, whatever that means, amid speculation as to whether or not he attended a meeting on whether a conviction would have negative economic and diplomatic effects. Then, on Monday, the Minister of State for Security once again took to attempting to convince the House that the National Security Adviser does not actually advise on matters of national security.

At PMQs yesterday, in the most explicit and unequivocal of terms, the Prime Minister affirmed that neither the National Security Adviser, the Home Secretary nor anyone at No. 10 made decisions about this case. The case is developing as we speak—there are more news releases all the time—but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, representing the Government today, can clarify how these two diametrically opposed courses of action can be modified.

In light of the SCO summit and its overt aims at securing more global influence at our expense, and this Government’s mishandling of our national security interests, it would be helpful for several steps to be laid out in the Minister’s response. What practical steps are being taken to compete with the economic opportunities that are offered to developing countries by China, thereby bringing more countries into our rules-based liberal system? Secondly, what is being done to counter the aggression of the Chinese Government towards Tibet and other nations surrounding the South China Sea? Thirdly, when will all the facts be released about the Government’s role in the failed prosecution? Lastly, given the information that has already come to light, will the Government now oppose a Chinese super-embassy in London in the interests of national security—although I just saw on my phone as I was standing up that a news release has just come out that the Government have now delayed yet again, for the second time, a decision on that embassy. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.