When the foreign ministers of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) nations met in Dushanbe recently, they came with a palate of topics to discuss, including economic alignment, trade allocations, and the ongoing saga in Syria which, as the SCO nations certainly remember, applied to join the organization.

But the foreign ministers also used the gathering to discuss another issue. The unfolding crisis in Ukraine has sent reverberations through the larger SCO sphere.

Not only does Russia shoulder a large portion of blame for the continued violence in the rebel-held camps, since Russians, after all, are both leading and presumably supplying materiel to the rebels, but multiple reports have emerged of Central Asian nationals fighting alongside the separatists.

Moreover, as ethnic violence roils Xinjiang, the specter of separatism hangs ever-present.

China has offered some restrained support for Moscow, but the precedent set by Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine is not necessarily the most welcome geopolitical development to observers in Beijing.

Ukraine, indeed, has touched every member state of the SCO. And as the SCO has continued to expand within Eurasia, it only makes sense that the Ukrainian situation would crop up in discussions in Dushanbe.

To be sure, the SCO, as its wont, will refrain from rattling any cages. The group hasn't produced anything more than anodyne statements from the recent meeting, although according to one Russian-language report, at least one Central Asian nation pushed back at even calling for a swift end to the violence, perhaps believing it would lend too much support to the Russian position.

Either way, the SCO presented a unified front. It provided a reserved assessment. It has, at least on its surface, deferred to other international actors.

And this is probably the best tack for the SCO to take. There is an outside chance the forum could provide some form of mediation, but member states would rather focus on using the organization as an avenue for dealing with other concerns.
Indeed, it's no surprise that the biggest progress toward de-escalating border tensions in the Fergana Valley region came in the middle of the summit.

But that's not to mean that the SCO isn't watching Ukraine with a weather eye. Even if the group cannot directly affect and assuage the Ukraine crisis, there is reason to think that the crisis could only benefit the SCO in the long run.

Take a look at the ramifications the Ukrainian crisis has had on Russian-led organizations. Ukraine's non-participation in the Eurasian Economic Union has imploded Russian President Vladimir Putin's dreams of Moscow-first restoration within the former Soviet sphere.

Likewise, Kiev's move away from the Commonwealth of Independent States has further battered what was already a largely empty-suit organization.

It is perhaps just a matter of time before violence spills into Russia, But while there remains, technically, no reason for the employment of forces from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the lack of effective counterbalancing of NATO by the CSTO only exacerbates the impotent reputation the organization earned during the 2010 violence in Kyrgyzstan.

Prior to Ukraine, the Russian-led groups were approaching irrelevance, and heavily skewed toward one actor.

After the violence ringing Ukraine, though, it's become clear that this trend is only going to accelerate. And where these organizations fade, the SCO can move in.

Now, the SCO does not yet have a formalized security framework yet. And with Beijing's recent comments that it would not fill the security hole left by the Americans in Afghanistan, that doesn't seem likely to appear anytime soon. But that's not to say that it won't develop in an informal approach.

We've seen China utilize the SCO as a rubric for providing military aid to Central Asian states in the past. And with the violence spiking in Xinjiang, that would only seem likely to continue.

There's a notion that China will, once Ukraine settles, emerge as the geopolitical winner of the ordeal. That may yet be true. But it is also increasingly apparent that as Russian-led organizations falter in both membership and relevancy, other actors will pick up the slack.

A supranational vacuum is emerging within the region. And it is the SCO that will keep filling that space, and keep transforming the group into the most relevant association within Eurasia. 

The author is a Bishkek-based journalist and a graduate student at Columbia University's Harriman Institute. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn. Follow him on Twitter at @cjcmichel