Paving the way for global cyber governance

When the Shanghai Cooperation Organization turns 25 on Monday, the world will see the familiar images: joint military exercises, coordinated border patrols, and the ongoing campaign against terrorism, separatism and extremism. While these images are true, they also hide the most remarkable thing this organization has quietly built.

The scale of the SCO is impressive. It has 10 member states, representing nearly half of humanity and a quarter of the world economy.

The organization's work is tangible: in 2023 alone, joint operations dismantled 95 terrorist cells and prevented 181 planned attacks.

But one of the SCO's most profound contributions is less noticed. The SCO established the first legal regime for cyberspace in 2009, years before most governments had any cybersecurity law. Cooperation plans were signed in Dushanbe in 2021 and renewed in Astana in 2024.

In September 2025, China hosted the largest SCO summit in Tianjin under the banner of upholding the Shanghai Spirit.

There, President Xi Jinping unveiled the Global Governance Initiative, calling for a fairer world where all nations have an equal voice. And President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan reminded fellow leaders of the Confucian wisdom: "Help others to stand, and you will stand yourself."

The Tianjin summit marked the pinnacle of rulemaking, with leaders signing an agreement to establish the Universal Center for Countering Security Threats and Challenges, and to protect critical information infrastructure. They also called for efforts toward the signing of the UN Convention against Cybercrime.

These efforts are reminiscent of the Silk Road, where caravans managed to cross continents not because there were roads but because there were rules and trusted guides.

Every caravan was led by people who knew the customs, the merchants' courts and the codes of trust at every stop. Roads carried goods. People who knew the rules carried confidence.

For a quarter of a century, the SCO has been writing the rules of a digital Silk Road. As a legal scholar from Uzbekistan — a founding member whose capital, Tashkent, hosts the organization's Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure — I have observed this evolution up close.

Today, the story has opened its newest chapter: cybersecurity through the prism of artificial intelligence. AI is both a sword and a shield, with software now creating phishing schemes, amplifying propaganda and designing synthetic drugs. Yet, AI also guards power grids and banks, monitors network traffic and detects forgeries.

This is where the SCO's approach to regulation is truly distinctive. While other organizations focus on rules that tell machines what they may do, the SCO emphasizes education.

It cultivates individuals who do not simply comply with artificial intelligence but govern it — the judge who can question an algorithm, the officer who can identify a deepfake, the teacher who trains both. Regulation that restricts produces obedience; regulation that educates produces mastery.

There can be various expressions of this philosophy. Uzbekistan has integrated AI and cybersecurity into its legal system — from the Constitution to a pioneering code of ethics for AI in education that prepares teachers and students to command the tools before the tools command them.

Kazakhstan adopted a framework law on AI in 2025. China meticulously regulates recommendation algorithms and generative AI, requiring all AI-generated content to be labeled since September 2025 to ensure transparency for citizens.

The approaches are different, but the objective is common: put capable humans at the center of the machine age.

The SCO's collective efforts are also advancing. The Tianjin Declaration affirms every country's right to develop AI and endorses a cooperation road map.

The Universal Center for Countering Security Threats and Challenges and the security dialogue planned in Tashkent will serve as platforms for experts to exchange knowledge and learn from each other.

It is a quiet form of leadership: while others still debate AI's implications, the SCO is already preparing the individuals who will navigate this new era.

Some might say that the SCO moves slowly. True, but so did the caravans on the Silk Road.

Yet their slow progress connected half the world because they followed certain regulations during the journey.

The first 25 years of the SCO laid the digital foundation and its guiding principles. The next 25 years will be shaped by people who are trained to govern technology.

The author is a professor in the Department of Cyber Law at Tashkent State University of Law, Uzbekistan.

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