The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and China’s Vision of International Relations

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the first and most established regional organization initiated by China. This book investigates China’s use of the SCO to shape global norms and argues that self-created regional organizations constitute ideal platforms for emerging powers to promote their normative views internationally.

Based on original Chinese-language documents and interviews, the book illustrates how China has used the SCO as a regional platform that both represents and promotes China’s core normative views and concepts internationally. The analysis offers crucial insights into the Chinese government’s ambitions for norms and rules of contemporary international relations.

Eva Seiwert is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at

The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, visiting researcher at King’s College London and associate research fellow at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek.