With the increasing complexity and multiple changes in the international and Midasian security，the SCO will face with more security challenges，and its own capacity to improve its cooperation is the biggest core challenge，which will not do without raising its insittutioinal level. The SCO，however，lacks the conditions to reach high institutional levels in a short period of time and so the core content this paper discusses is how the SCO should develop its capability for cooperation at its present low insititutional level. Through a comparative analysis of its advantages and disadvantages，the author thinks that at its low institutional level，the improvement of the SCO’s competence for cooperation is up to the development of the following elements：benign development of relations between China and Russia，the consolidation of the sense of cooperative consensus，a good balance with the managemnt of other regional and international organizations，and appropriate treatment of its US relations and institutional flexibility.