beijing and today we are visiting sco secretary general zhang ming.a wonderful concept as the shanghai spirit. that's what for me personally does this mean shanghai spirit to you and how? this, well, let’s say, shanghai spirit can help the international community in our difficult world. the concept of shanghai spirit for the first time. it is the principle of the shanghai spirit that creates a favorable environment for the calm coexistence of mutually beneficial partnerships between countries with very different political and cultural traditions, economic and social levels. the sco has nine member states: india, iran, kazakhstan, china. kyrgyzstan, pakistan, russia, tajikistan, uzbekistan. three states observer: afghanistan, belarus, mongolia. 14 dialogue partners: azerbaijan, armenia, bahrain, egypt, cambodia, qatar, kuwait, maldives, myanmar, nepal, uae, saudi arabia, turkey, sri lanka. initially, the sco included only six member states. in 2017 , the republic of india and the islamic republic of pakistan joined the organization for the first time.