You should know that China is the main core in SCO, so long as China is opposed to, you can not join.
Unfortunately, China may have the veto...but so does every country including Russia....
Russia may have provided its backing to Pakistan for membership of the SCO, but I would be surprised if they did so without the conditional entry of India in the bloc...
I wouldnt give China more importance than the other nations in the bloc..
Others, as you said, up to now, Russia and Pakistan have zero interest, Russian have a large number of arms orders in India, Russia and India is also a good geopolitical partners. but Russia still accept Pakistan as a member of the SCO Why?
Could be because Pakistan has realized that its impending economic problems will not be mitigated by the west backing it up anymore, especially given their poor stretch of relations with US and the leverage they hold in IMF....Pakistan has also failed to secure a deal with the EU to help recover its economy.
My hunch is that this is China's way of preventing alienation of Pak....just as the US grandfathered the clearance of the Indo-US deal, China may have lobbied for this with Russia based on conditional entry of India...Contrary to the view of people (Chinese and Pakistanis) on this forum, Russians are not doing this out of love for Pakistan...
SCO guarantees energy security for Pak through the energy rich CARs and economic co-operation and trade through the CARs again....
Do remember that Russian influence is essential for Pak to be able to maintain unhindered trade relations with CARs countries...
it is simple, the Russian investment in Pakistan's interest "wil" more than India. Do not overestimate the strength of India, do not underestimate the potential of Pakistan, not to have illusions in the so-called friendship between India and Russia.
You cant just throw out random statements without proof....either its your assumption or that you know of Russian "interests" in Pak that we dont know of...either way, it would be great if you could share some of those with us...
Also...I am extremely confident of the Indo-Russian relationship and can guarantee that India on any day is a more important strategic and economic partner than Pakistan can ever be (given that we have 60 years over them)....
If Pakistan has the potential to overturn Indo Russian relationship in their favor, then hats off to them.....I personally dont see it and in my opinion the overestimation of potential comes from you wrt. Pakistan