Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardaris’s upcoming trip to India to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may very well signal the beginning of a new era in Pakistan’s relationship with its estranged neighbour. Bhutto’s visit marks the first trip by a Pakistani foreign minister in nearly 15 years-to call this significant is an understatement, especially considering the backdrop of steadily worsening tensions between the two countries, which under Modi’s leadership have grown more alienated than ever before. After India scrapped Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019, Islamabad quickly downgraded its already tense diplomatic relationship with its neighbour. India has even made attempts albeit unsuccessful to bar its arch-rival from attending SCO meetings altogether. Pakistan has already missed one such meeting but now hopes to make a statement, determined to demonstrate its commitment towards SCO even if it means trudging all the way to India. Many have hoped that Bhutto’s attendance will revive bilateral efforts towards reconciliation but there is no evidence for this so far. If anything, Pakistan wishes to prove that the “shadow of bilateral tensions should not fall on multilateral events like India did with SAARC”. Unlike SAARC, neither Pakistan nor India runs the SCO-that place is reserved for its founding members, Russia and China. It is not, therefore, appropriate for either to use SCO as a staging ground to wrestle out their own differences. A high-level SCO meeting such as this one is also important to Pakistan’s biggest trading partner China, who it cannot afford to disappoint or even Russia who has recently begun supplying oil to the country. The mere optics of SCO as a viable multinational grouping are especially significant at a time when both Russia and China are diplomatically isolated by the West-it is an attempt by both to reassert dominance over what has historically been their sphere of influence. Pakistan’s attendance certainly fortifies that visual especially since until recently, it has neglected its relationship with Russia in favour of one with the US. No one should expect India or Pakistan to initiate peacekeeping through an encounter that is clearly bigger than their differences with one another-the SCO is in a league of its own and must be treated as such. *