ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the cooperation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the fields collectively known as Renwen. It describes the major components of the SCO's humanities cooperation. The primary objective of the SCO is to secure regional stability in Central Asia. Cultural and educational cooperation is an important means of improving mutual understanding between citizens of different countries by intensifying person-to-person exchange. Although the SCO's humanities cooperation covers a range of sectors, culture and education are the two main spheres of cooperation. The SCO's institutional and policy-based humanities cooperation is headed by ministerial meetings in the relevant sectors and supported by a meeting of senior officials. The main themes of the SCO's educational cooperation are the mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas and the SCO University. Analysing the cultural and educational cooperation of the SCO casts light on the interaction between the sources of China's soft power and its multilateral cooperation activities.
