SCO Photo: VCG

One of the goals of my recent business trip to Kyrgyzstan was to better understand the host country of this year's Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. For many years, the SCO has been widely associated with regional security cooperation, a core mission since its founding in 2001. Naturally, I expected my first stop in Bishkek would be a government institution or an agency engaged in regional security affairs.

To my surprise, my visit began far from official meeting rooms - at a quiet traditional Chinese medicine clinic tucked on a peaceful street in the Kyrgyz capital.

Walking into the China-Kyrgyzstan Qihuang Traditional Chinese Medicine Center, I was greeted by posters on the walls explaining acupuncture, cupping and other treatments. Were it not for the language, the scene could easily have been mistaken for a clinic in China.

Inside the clinic, a local patient lay quietly as needles were placed along her back to treat a spinal problem. In the room next door, a Russian-speaking patient was receiving cupping therapy.

He told me he had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. "Traditional Chinese medicine works very well for me."

The center's director, Dr. Qin, told me about another patient who had heard about the clinic and driven from Kazakhstan to Bishkek for treatment. The man had a problem with his leg and came specifically to see the doctors there.

"Afterward, he said he felt much better," Qin said, with a hint of pride.

The center's work extends beyond treating patients. Qin said its doctors also provide training and promote traditional Chinese medicine elsewhere in the region, including Russia, an SCO member state. These interactions are simple, practical and people-centered.

The patients coming through the clinic are not confined to one city, or even one country. Neither are the center's exchanges. Patients cross borders to seek treatment, while doctors travel across borders to share experience and skills. These informal, daily exchanges quietly bridge communities across Central Asia, transcending national boundaries.

The SCO is often viewed through the lens of security, and that is understandable. When the organization was founded in 2001, security cooperation was at the heart of its agenda, and it remains an important part of its work. However, what I found inside a medical center in Bishkek was a long way from that familiar image.

Here, little of what I saw resembled "SCO cooperation" in the conventional sense. There were no flags, conference tables or official statements in sight - just doctors treating patients, sharing their experience and responding to the needs of people who had walked through the door.

Grassroots health cooperation has already become a formal and stable part of the SCO agenda. In April, Bishkek hosted the ninth meeting of health ministers from SCO member states, where officials discussed disease prevention and treatment, healthcare services and professional exchanges, among other issues. The meeting was another example of how health cooperation has become a regular part of the SCO's agenda.

The same broadening can be seen elsewhere. As this year's SCO chair, Kyrgyzstan has been hosting a series of meetings and activities leading up to the summit, bringing officials and professionals from member states together across different fields. SCO members now cooperate closely in education, science and technology, culture, tourism and environmental protection. These areas may attract less attention than security or major economic agreements, but they are where cooperation becomes part of everyday life.

For the SCO, these everyday forms of cooperation serve a different purpose than security ties. They give people and institutions more reasons to interact, even when there is no immediate crisis to address. Over time, those repeated contacts can make neighboring societies more familiar with one another.

Regional cooperation is often discussed in terms of summits, agreements and government meetings. But its effects can also be found in quieter places - in classrooms, laboratories, hospitals and cultural venues, or, in Bishkek, in a small clinic where a patient waits for the next needle and hopes to walk out feeling better.

That is another way of looking at the SCO: not only through the lens of security, but through the everyday connections that bring people across its member states closer together.

Small as it is, this traditional Chinese medicine clinic in Bishkek embodies the core value of today's SCO: connecting people, improving livelihoods, and building closer regional solidarity through down-to-earth daily cooperation.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. This article was originally published in Kyrgyzstan's newspaper Kyrgyz Tuusu. xiawenxin@globaltimes.com.cn