President Shavkat Mirziyoyev reviewed measures to expand public services in the justice system on September 5, the presidential press service reported.

Over the past eight years, nearly 70 laws and resolutions have been adopted to reorganize the judiciary, with more than 200 Public Service Centers established across the regions. Currently, over 500 services are provided on a “one-stop shop” basis, but officials noted that bureaucratic obstacles remain due to limited electronic cooperation between government agencies.

 

According to the plan, Uzbekistan will expand 900 public services over the next three years, simplifying 80 services annually through the “three steps” principle. In addition, 1,100 interactive kiosks will be installed in densely populated and remote areas to improve access.

As part of the reforms, the requirement for 30 types of documents from citizens will be eliminated. For example, medical examination results for marriage registration and residence change confirmations for conscripts will no longer be requested, as the data will be obtained online through government information systems.

 

The reforms will also affect notary services. While notaries currently provide over 80 services, only 11% are online. By 2025–2027, 20 types of notarial acts will gradually be moved online. The requirement for original identity documents will be replaced with Face-ID verification.

 

In the forensic sector, regional expertise centers will expand their services from 15 to 25 types. New technologies, including 3D modeling of accident scenes and video-photo expertise, will be introduced, with document exchanges fully digitalized. Non-state forensic expertise will also be allowed, and a Chamber of Forensic Experts will be established.

To raise awareness, targeted information campaigns will be conducted under the “smart propaganda” system, while a new “Adliya TV” platform will provide simplified explanations of laws with expert commentary.

 

Additionally, ministries and departments will gain the authority to adopt departmental regulatory acts. The procedure and timeline for registering such documents will be simplified, reducing the average processing time by half.

 

At the end of the presentation, President Mirziyoyev signed decrees and resolutions to implement the proposed measures.

 

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The SCO has often been described as a paper tiger, unable to effectively counter resilient Western institutions. Yet the real issue according to Eldaniz Gusseinov, a columnist for Daryo and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Haydar Aliyev Center for Eurasian Studies, lies elsewhere: the SCO does not aim to position itself as an integration bloc but rather as a club of states that share its core principles: respect for sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity; equality; mutual benefit; non-interference in internal affairs; and the non-use or threat of force as the foundation of “sustainable development of international relations.”

The expansion of partnerships is reinforced by the growth of resilient infrastructure. As these links deepen, the SCO gradually broadens cooperation, even if not strictly within the organization itself. Its instruments, such as regular meetings, provide a platform for member states to build new coalitions. The initiative to advance the international transport corridor “Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan,” for example, received an institutional framework at the first SCO Transport Forum in 2023.

 

The backbone of SCO development is transport and energy infrastructure, with security serving as its protective shell. At maritime frontiers, most members face both logistical challenges and U.S. tariff threats. Russia’s energy ties with the West continue to erode, as the EU shifts toward American LNG. China, meanwhile, has sought to reduce its dependence on seaborne raw material supplies, as seen in its reduced copper scrap imports from the United States during tariff disputes.

 

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan cast the SCO as a practical platform for Eurasian connectivity, security, and modernization. Uzbekistan pushed institutional upgrades and Global South outreach; proposed a trade-facilitation pact and new cooperation tools (energy consortium, critical-materials center, venture finance, business e-portal); called for a nuclear-safety declaration; linked the CKU railway to a future Trans-Afghan corridor; and urged reviving the SCO–Afghanistan Contact Group.

 

Kazakhstan emphasized the “Shanghai Spirit,” collective action against terrorism, extremism, cybercrime, and narcotics, humanitarian/technical support for Afghanistan, and closer SCO–CICA ties. Astana backed a SCO Development Bank, proposed an SCO Investment Projects Office at the AIFC, advanced North–South, East–West, Trans-Caspian, and “Trans-Altai” corridors, and launched a tech/green track (SCO AI forums; a Water Issues Center). Together they framed the SCO’s evolution from “paper tiger” to convening hub for coalition-building around infrastructure, trade, security, and applied technology.

 

These dynamics show that intra-continental connectivity is becoming the SCO’s main priority, which also raises the importance of regional security. For years, the lack of interest in continental projects slowed SCO development, but today the situation is changing. Central Asia has become a key driver thanks to its geography and balanced diplomacy, anchoring infrastructure initiatives launched before and during SCO summits. This is evident in deepening Russia–China cooperation and India’s growing presence in continental Eurasia amid conflicts with Washington over oil imports.

 

Eurasian energy and transport integration at the 2025 SCO summit

The September 2025 summit marked a turning point in Eurasia’s energy and economic policy. China and Russia signed a legally binding memorandum to build the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, linking Western Siberian gas fields to China through Mongolia. With a planned capacity of 50bn cubic meters per year, the project will far exceed the existing Power of Siberia pipeline.

For Moscow, the pipeline secures a new major export market after losing access to European consumers. For Beijing, it provides a stable, long-term source of energy in an era of geopolitical risks and import diversification. China also announced expanded cooperation in renewable energy with Russia and other regional states, alongside his call to establish a SCO Development Bank as soon as possible to finance projects through grants and loans.

 

These moves reinforced the rapid growth of Russia’s oil trade with China and India, establishing the SCO’s energy partnership as a shield against Western sanctions. Pricing and purchase volumes under Power of Siberia 2 remain unresolved, yet the signing itself strengthened Moscow and Beijing’s role as leaders of Eurasian energy integration. 

India’s economic shift

 

India’s strategy also reached a critical point. In August 2025, Washington imposed 50% tariffs on a wide range of Indian exports, from textiles to chemicals, in response to continued purchases of Russian oil. The tariffs sharply reduced India’s access to the U.S. market, threatening up to a 70% collapse in key export sectors.

 

New Delhi responded by accelerating its Eurasian pivot. Russia, Central Asia, and the Eurasian Economic Union emerged as alternative markets and energy partners. India sped up free trade negotiations, backed the International North–South Transport Corridor and the Chabahar port project, and strengthened energy ties with Moscow.

 

Rejecting U.S. tariffs as unjustified, Indian leaders reaffirmed their course of strategic autonomy. Sanctions and tariffs thus acted as a catalyst for building new hubs of energy and transport in Eurasia, where China, Russia, and India are gradually shaping alternative power centers less dependent on U.S. and EU markets.

Central Asia’s dual role

Central Asia lies at the heart of these transformations. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, SCO summits in Dushanbe, Samarkand, New Delhi, and Astana have underlined the region’s importance. Alongside these gatherings, SCO expansion accelerated: India and Pakistan joined in 2017, Iran’s accession process began in 2021, and Belarus became a full member in 2024. Earlier, Mongolia had become the first observer in 2004, followed by India, Pakistan, and Iran the next year.

 

From a geographic standpoint, Central Asia is the SCO’s core. Yet from an economic perspective, the SCO has also become the core of Central Asia, channeling trade and investment flows. In 2024 the four Central Asian members (excluding Turkmenistan) recorded $252.84bn in total trade, of which $134.60bn (53.2%) was with SCO partners based on the International Trade Center data. The structure is asymmetric: 38.3% of exports go to SCO markets, while 66.6% of imports come from them. Put simply, the SCO dominates what Central Asia buys but not what it sells.

 

China and Russia drive this system. Central Asia sends about 14.5% of its exports to China and 12.7% to Russia, while intra-regional exports account for just 9.4%. On the import side, China and Russia dominate machinery, consumer goods, and intermediate inputs, while intra-regional imports make up only 6.9%. Roughly 45% of total Central Asian trade is with non-Central Asian SCO members, and only 8% is intra-regional.

 

National patterns differ. Kazakhstan’s imports are dominated by SCO partners (61.7%), especially Russia and China. Its exports remain oriented outside the SCO, with 63% going elsewhere, nearly half to the EU in the form of crude oil. Investment trends are rising: SCO-linked FDI into Kazakhstan reached 31% in 2024, almost entirely from Russia and China. Uzbekistan’s SCO trade rose from $12.9bn to $32.5bn between 2017 and 2024, with imports increasingly SCO-driven and nearly half of FDI and credit inflows coming from SCO members. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are the most SCO-dependent, with 70–75% of their total trade linked to SCO partners and investment flows mirroring these patterns.

 

Two conclusions stand out. First, SCO expansion has broadened geography, but the operative economics still rely on China and Russia, leaving intra-Central Asian trade modest. Second, SCO platforms increasingly shape investment, not just trade, with project pipelines and financing channels tied to SCO initiatives. For Central Asia, this is both an asset and a constraint: reliable suppliers and finance on one hand, but concentration risks and commodity dependence on the other.

 

Ghosting the SCO: West Skips the Parade, Sweats the Photo

 

Western capitals answered the Tianjin SCO summit and Beijing’s 80th Victory Day with a coordinated diplomatic cold shoulder and critical messaging. Most leaders stayed away, with only a few exceptions such as Slovakia’s Robert Fico, while governments moved to discourage participation: Japan urged allies not to attend and Taiwan threatened penalties for those who did, accusing Beijing of historical revisionism.

 

Western media and analysts cast the optics, especially the image of Xi, Putin, Kim, and Pezeshkian together, as an “axis of upheaval” aimed at the U.S.-led order, and European security voices warned the display reinforced Moscow’s claim that it can endure because it has powerful friends. The collective absence signaled a refusal to legitimize what many in the West view as an explicitly anti-Western coalition.

In Washington the summit triggered immediate political backlash and a broader strategic rethink. President Trump publicly rebuked Prime Minister Modi over Russian oil purchases, Treasury voices amplified criticism, and figures across the spectrum, including Gavin Newsom and John Bolton, argued that tariff-heavy policies were pushing India closer to China and Russia.

 

The administration tightened pressure on New Delhi over sanctions compliance even as critics pointed to a paradox, since U.S. tariffs and other unilateral measures, singled out in the summit’s language, may be accelerating non-Western alignment. Policy circles rallied around friend-shoring and control of chokepoints in finance, supply chains, and technology, with scenarios ranging from managed transactionalism to harder bifurcation or crisis-driven polarization. The prevailing view is that the unipolar moment is ending and the United States must adapt to a more complex multipolar order where even democratic partners exercise strategic autonomy.

 

Conclusion

 

The SCO’s recent evolution shows both promise and limits. It has become a framework for Eurasian energy and transport integration, reinforced by Russia–China pipeline projects, India’s Eurasian pivot, and Central Asia’s bridging role. Yet the experience of Iran demonstrates the shortcomings, so Asia Times.

 

Iran joined the SCO in 2023 hoping regional finance would ease its banking isolation, but by 2025 these expectations remain unmet. The bloc still lacks shared financial systems, leaving Iran dependent on the Chinese yuan rather than a balanced currency basket. China has avoided major investments, focusing instead on Central Asia and Pakistan, where projects like CPEC receive strong backing. Iran’s North–South Corridor lags behind better-funded routes such as the Middle Corridor, leaving Tehran with little more than symbolic political legitimacy.

 

This shows that the SCO still has a long road ahead — yet dismissing it as a mere paper tiger would be a serious mistake.

 

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