Today, Russia is facing truly huge tasks in the East. First of all, they are related to the absolute need of priority development and modernization of Russia’s Far East and real inclusion of its economy, and the Russian economy in general, in integration processes ongoing in the Asian-Pacific region. This was clearly seen during the recent APEC summit in Vladivostok.

However, the goals of our politics in the East are not limited to this. Three major areas are emerging on which not only Russia, but also all members of the regional community should concentrate their efforts. These are ensuring regional security, resolving problems of economic development and shaping an architecture of regional cooperation that would conform to the interests of peace, security and economic prosperity. Today, work on these problems is unthinkable without proactive multilateral interaction, and such interaction has been gaining momentum in Asia Pacific in recent years. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has already made a name for itself, is meant to become a very useful party to the process. Not only in Central Asia, which is often mistakenly seen as the SCO region, but on a much broader scale of Eurasia and the Pacific, and for certain aspects, on the global scale.

What problems are we supposed to resolve, what threats to counteract and, most importantly, how can it be achieved? Answers to these questions are of supreme importance, as the reality is changing rapidly.

The beginning of the 21st century was marked by a visible change in the sources and nature of threats to security and development of all countries in the world. At the beginning of the 2010s, we witnessed these threats multiplying, mutating, proliferating and re-emerging in new forms. This trend is especially acute in the militarypolitical and social-political areas and presents a serious challenge that the global community, regional organizations and individual countries will have to respond to. At the same time, many threats to security from the Cold war era, unsettled conflicts and territorial disputes, new unconventional threats and challenges that came to the fore in the 1990s – terrorism, the danger of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, pandemics, natural calamities and industrial accidents – are still hanging above the humankind like the sword of Damocles. So we are now talking not new, but newest threats to security and stability. Let’s name some of them:

- arbitrary interpretation of norms and principles of the international law,

their unilateral violations, covering of illegal actions with ungrounded references to resolutions of the UN Security Council, abuse of the mechanism of international sanctions, implementation of practices of unilateral introduction of sanctions, attempts to impose individual countries’ internal legislation on other sovereign countries;

 - attempts to destroy strategic stability, regional military and strategic balance of forces, including by militarization of the space, deployment of anti-missile defense systems, provoking of regional tensions, including through use of latent conflicts and unresolved territorial disputes;

- the trend towards increased weapons imports by Asian countries, escalation of the arms race in Asia;

- growing threats to countries’ information security, information systems of state bodies of power and corporate structures, development of information weapons by states, learning of extremist elements of hacker technologies and skills;

- rampant drug trafficking, which is turning into the key source of financing for terrorism, extremist groups, separatist movements and arms trafficking;

- piracy as a new form of organized crime, coalescence of piracy with terrorism, extremism, weapons smuggling and human trafficking;

- instigation for a regime change in sovereign states, attempts of armed intervention from outside in the internal affairs of sovereign states under the pretext of supporting those protesting against the “authoritarian” or “corrupted” regimes;

- attempts to settle domestic conflicts or social and economic discontent through a violent regime change;

- use of modern information and telecommunication technology for a violent regime change;

 - uncontrollable development of public movements, use of biased reports in foreign mass media and also non-government organizations financed from abroad to change the vector of protests; - radicalization of public attitudes due to the escalating confrontation between the West and the Muslim world; - growing intolerance in today’s world, the growing frequency of cases when the feelings of believers are purposefully offended; - provoking of conflicts between and within denominations, with terrorists and extremists taking advantage of
growing mutual mistrust between representatives of different religions.

Of course, these threats are global, but they also have a direct bearing on Eurasia and the Pacific region. Even if some or other phenomena are not typical for the present-day situation in the region, they may appear here in the near future due to globalization.

It is extremely difficult to confront all known and emerging problems, but this can be done. Moreover, this needs to be done, and the faster adequate responses are found for these challenges, the better. Available options seem to be divided between two levels, national and international.

It is hardly worth saying that, to survive in the present-day world, a country has to be established and self-sufficient, properly carrying out its basic functions. First of all, and especially now, when we are facing new and newest threats to security, the authorities must do everything necessary to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their country. Second, governments should seriously address economic issues and work to improve the prosperity of their citizens, guarantee sustainable economic development and settle pressing social and economic problems. Finally, priority should be given to education of the population, development of culture, strengthening of healthy spirituality in society, support of harmony between denominations and ethnic groups.

These measures should be complemented with cooperation on the international level. Governments that clearly understand the existing dangers and the destructiveness of eroding the legal framework of the world order and weakening of the national state should unite their efforts, act collectively, through the United Nations, flexible coalitions of like-minded states and multilateral regional unions.

In this context, the SCO should be seen as a catalyst for shaping a balanced polycentric international system on the global and regional scale. The SCO stands by the inviolability of the international law, principles of equality, mutual respect of interests, indivisibility of security, and uses its own example to demonstrate the variety of models of development and value systems; it favors abandonment of bloc policies. The growing authority of the organization in the world is to a large extent due to this backbone of its foreign political philosophy.

At a time when the SCO is being eyed from all over the world, its voice on the international arena could be louder. The organization’s member states should make their stand heard more clearly, should make joint statements on relevant global political issues more often, quickly responding to important political events. The measures that are currently being taken to intensify consultations on foreign political issues and problems of regional security need to envisage involvement of both SCO observers and dialog partners in the dialog. There is a possibility for closer coordination of efforts with partner unions and for support of other players’ initiatives that are in line with the SCO’s approaches (BRICS, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the CIS, Eurasec, ASEAN, RIC and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African multilateral unions). A strong response to the existing security challenges could be made by expanding the SCO through admission of India and Pakistan.

The SCO is not just a political mouthpiece calling for democratization of international relations. It is an organization that meaningfully counteracts security threats, including the newest ones. It is enough to mention the joint efforts of the SCO member states to fight terrorism, stop drug trafficking from Afghanistan, counteract transborder organized crime, improve cooperation on information security, prevention of extremism, radicalism and xenophobia. Remarkably, a growing number of partners, including in Asia Pacific, are showing interest in the SCO’s achievements in these areas. The SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure is actively establishing contacts with specialized agencies in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

A special place in our interconnected and interdependent world belongs to economic "landmines" under the building of international and regional stability and security. Such basic reasons of local conflicts and internal political tensions as social and economic underdevelopment, poverty, inter-regional and inter-state development disproportions etc., are still here. Today, we can see old problems become aggravated with new factors of instability. The latter include first of all:

- negative consequences of the global financial crisis;

- a decline in the economic growth pace of developed countries;

- the crisis of the euro zone;

- the ongoing turmoil on financial and commodities markets;

- imperfections of the current international currency and financial system;

- clash of interests between countries with emerging markets and leading developed markets;

- escalation of international competition for access to sources of commodities, transport communications, investment and sales markets;

- attempts to counteract integration projects by developing alternative patterns for regional economic cooperation;

- inefficient management and corruption in certain developing countries;

- mass movements demanding protection of interests of workers and social and economic reforms.

Counteracting these threats is an important part of efforts to ensure international security. Among anti-crisis measures taken on the regional level, one that deserves a special mention is the development of integration processes in Asia Pacific, where the center of the world’s financial, economic and innovative development has moved for good, and in Eurasia. The strategic choice in favor of further trade liberalization and integration was confirmed at the APEC summit in Vladivostok.

Russia’s participation in regional integration can expand its geography and give additional advantages for the region’s economy. Moreover, Russia combines economic processes in East Asia and the Pacific with an integration nucleus that is currently being shaped in the center of Eurasia. As President Vladimir Putin said at the leaders’ meeting in Vladivostok, coordination of integration efforts in Eurasia and Asia Pacific will allow establishing cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union that is being set up and APEC, with involvement of other regional unions.

I am positive that the SCO, which, though not an integration union, has a significant potential for economic cooperation, will find its own niche in this new pattern of the dialog between for the future of the regional economy. The scale and pace of China’s growth, in terms of security and development of its neighboring countries, are both a unique advantage and a hidden trap: the economy has its own inviolable laws. It should be remembered that in terms of trade, China and its partners, including SCO member states, are in different weight categories. Signing of bilateral and multilateral economic pacts with China will require preliminary meticulous calculations with a forecast of consequences of some or other steps. So it seems that Russia and Central Asia would be justified to choose a step-bystep approach, focusing on the current stage of predominantly investment projects with Chinese participation and assistance in creating favorable conditions for gradual liberalization of trade.

Where China’s role can truly be of consequence – in cooperation with Russia and other countries – is in ensuring regional economic stability and sustainable development. This area should become one of the main common goals for Eurasian and Pacific countries, including in the context of economic cooperation within APEC, ASEAN, Eurasec, the Customs Union and the SCO. Their contribution to the common case could be broad interaction on issues of energy and food security, support to the weaker economies, reduction of poverty, creation of new jobs, and construction of infrastructure. It is hardly arguable that economic growth, development of trade and economic cooperation will objectively help to promote stability in Asia, both in Central, Northeast and Southeast Asia.

The long maturing process of shaping regional architecture of multilateral cooperation has finally begun in Asia Pacific. For the first time in many decades, the outlines of a more or less integral regional system for rational regulation of international relations are emerging in this part of the world. However, this already complicated process is strongly affected by conscious efforts to strengthen the anachronistic and provoking parallel architecture of military union under the auspices of the United States.

In order for the new regional construct to meet the interests of stability and development in Asia Pacific, to avoid being overtaken by the militarist ideology and practices, the existing defense "insecurity architecture", it is necessary to work for improving nonmilitary mechanisms of cooperation. Like many countries in the region, the SCO member states spoke in favor of creating open, transparent and equal architecture of security and cooperation in Eurasia and the Pacific, which would be based on the norms of the international law, non-bloc principles and consideration of legitimate interests of all countries, creating a partnership network of multilateral unions in this huge habitat. Geographically and politically, the SCO is an inseparable part of this network and it could make a bigger contribution to its development by:

- initiating a dialog on transparency and measures of trust in Asia, including using its experience of improving military trust in the border areas, accumulated by the SCO member states when preparing and implementing two agreements between Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and China dated 1996 and 1997;

- drastically boosting cooperation with ASEAN as a leading regional organization and a multilateral union that is the closest to the SCO spiritually, expanding areas of cooperation from security issues to economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation;

- establishing contacts with the ASEAN Regional Security Forum and organizing joint events with it;

- joining the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (after the Third Protocol to it comes into force, as it allows international organizations and not only individual states to join it).

- joining the mechanism of East Asia unjustified naval activities, etc, are no less dangerous. International players will have to show wisdom, reserve, tolerance, integrity, respect to partners, focus on cooperation and deep understanding of how varied and fragile today’s world is – the foreign political qualities that organizations like the SCO have.