In the past one or two years, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which we had high hopes for, has seen the ambitious aspirations of its early days gradually wane due to the fluctuating relationships among its member states, with relations sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes close and sometimes distant. Moreover, as the United States employs tactics of interest temptation, along with a mix of carrots and sticks towards smaller countries like Tajikistan, it has gradually driven a wedge between the four smaller countries — Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan — and the relationships with China and Russia.