China and Russia are seeking to cement their strategic partnership and create a multi-polar world in which the United States will find it much more difficult to dominate international affairs.

It is tempting to see the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation as an expanding bulwark against Western influence in Eurasia.

Founded in Shanghai in 2001, the regional group has six full members: China, Russia and four former Soviet republics in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The organisation will hold its annual summit next month.

Neighbouring states are flocking to associate themselves with the group at the highest possible level. Among them is Iran, seeking protection and allies in its battle to fend off pressure from the US, Europe and other countries that suspect it is secretly trying to develop atomic weapons in the guise of a peaceful nuclear programme.

Iran is already an observer member of the SCO and its hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to attend the August 16 summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as a distinguished guest, intensifying speculation Tehran may join the group as a full member.

When the US asked several years ago to send observers to SCO summits, its request was refused. Then Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia, were admitted as observer members.

At their 2005 summit, the SCO leaders called on the US and its Nato partners, which had been given military facilities in Central Asia after al Qaeda's attacks on America in September 2001, to set a timetable for withdrawal.

Around the same time, Uzbekistan expelled US forces stationed in its territory.

It seemed that a co-ordinated attempt was under way to exclude the US and its Western partners from Central Asia. But since then, there have been other developments suggesting that the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation should not be seen as an anti-Western alliance.

For a start, if it does expand to include new full members, they could include - in addition to Iran - Mongolia, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. All of which have close ties with the US.

The US-led invasion of Iraq has exposed the limits of American power while providing a rallying point for Muslim extremists. The security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating sharply.

Taleban guerrillas and their al Qaeda allies are making a comeback in the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border zone, using revenue from opium poppy cultivation and the drug trade to buy weapons, explosives and influence.

This threatens stability not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan but in the Central Asian republics that belong to the SCO.