Kaveh L. Afrasiabi and Seyedrasoul Mousavi
On June 8-9, the 18th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will be held in Qingdao, China. Ahead of the summit, in an interview with the Chinese media, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that “the SCO member states account for one fourth of the world’s GDP, 43 percent of the international population and 23 percent of the global territory.”