Call it forced tourism, or convenient temporary relocation. However you dub it, Shanghai is losing population this week. The major cause for this Shanghai shoo job is the fifth annual meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the hydrocarbon-rich juggernaut that may reshape the world's political landscape.

The traffic may be congested in Shanghai's city center, but the opposite quandary persists in the country's west, and in the arid steppe of Central Asia. Countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are resource-rich but pipeline-poor, and they would love to have a boost from Beijing in that regard.

Seeking Beijing's Backing

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization states explicitly in its charter that member states will cooperate to counteract "terrorism, separatism and extremism."

As of this week's convention, SCO members are China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

I will not address the human rights aspect of these countries' integration, partially because it is not germane to the realpolitik of this alliance, and also because all western countries have conveniently seen, heard, and spoken no evil when fossil fuel has been promised from repressive regimes.

What does result from such an alliance is a semblance of regional stability and supply assurance. If each member state is capable of branding internal rival factions as any of the -isms mentioned above, a mutual defense pact along the lines of NATO or the erstwhile Warsaw Pact would compel neighbors to band together no matter the domestic logic.

If the desired conduits are built from Turkmenistan to China (a gas pipeline agreement was inked between the two this April), then it benefits both parties to squash potential saboteurs.

China and Kyrgyzstan staged their first joint military exercise in October of 2002, and during Kyrgyz President Bakiyev's first state visit to China last week, the touring leader announced that his country is ready to begin exporting electricity to western China.

Kyrgyzstan is "ready," but Bakiyev added a hint that Chinese electricity companies would be welcome to participate in the construction of the necessary transport infrastructure. "Only 10 percent of the power resources have been tapped," Bakiyev said, out of a total capacity of 142 billion kilowatt-hours per year.

According to Bakiyev, Kyrgyzstan holds the third-largest hydropower capacity in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which comprises most of the former Soviet Socialist Republics (with the notable exception of the Baltic States). This would contribute an element of diversification to China's incoming power supply, which mainly consists of oil and gas imports.

On that note, let's look at some other recent developments within the SCO.

Feel the Flow

As to SCO compeer Uzbekistan, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) today tendered contracts with Uzbekneftgaz to initiate exploration.

The Uzbek contract will open five oil and gas fields to China, and CNOOC will drill 15 prospecting and 12 evaluation wells. The commitment will total $208.5 million over the next five years.

China has also committed 397 mil. USD to Uzbekistan for ten infrastructural and city-building projects, as part of some $900 million that it has committed to SCO nations for similar help.

Kazakhstan recently let loose a 625 mile oil link from that country to occidental China, supplying the Middle Kingdom with 190,000 barrels a day throughput. The bilateral connections are strong and getting stronger, and not just through pipelines.

China and Kazakhstan are connected by 64 highway routes, 33 for passengers and 31 dedicated to cargo shipments. With both countries' huge land areas, this trade and travel network will itself necessitate much of the black and invisible gold they promise to share.

Again, Chinese consumption sets the tone.

Who Next?

Those who figure perhaps most prominently in the current round of SCO meetings are those who are not yet member states.

Turkmenistan, for example, is not a part of the core 6 members, though its memoranda of understanding with China read almost verbatim to the SCO charter. India, Mongolia, Pakistan, and Iran will also be at the Shanghai meetings as observers, the last of which of course ruffles some Washington feathers.

But supply security is the game, and China and Russia both openly trust Iran to aid them in that respect. Holding its own massive reserves and being adjacent to the budding Caspian Sea oil economy, Iran is a territory too large and weighty to ignore. Turkmenistan's capital, furthermore, sits on its border with the land of the Ayatollahs.

Pakistan's President Musharraf will be in Shanghai, as will India's oil minister. It will be especially interesting to see if one of these two nuclear rivals bows out of the path to partnership in favor of all-out competition.

I say India will tend toward the latter, but the fact that India is observing rather than sitting out means that the subcontinent's Hindu element will listen as closely as it can for as long as it can. Mutterings are as interesting as pronouncements in this Asian security game.

I wish Shanghai residents a pleasant holiday, and I wish the SCO a transparent and minimally belligerent round of talks.

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