"So what really happened at the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), last week in Kazakhstan?
Compared to expectations at fever pitch, it was a rather measured affair; more of a road map than a game-changer. Still, China, Russia and four Central Asian "stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - went way beyond a predictable security/economic cooperation menu.
After all, summit host and president of "snow leopard" Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, detailed the SCO will keep fighting terrorism and cyber-narco-criminality, while trying to solve the delicate issue of the distribution of water in Central Asia - a key chapter of the upcoming global water wars.
But he also advanced the SCO is in favor of a new global currency. And it gets juicier; a new memorandum stated the SCO now starts consultations with India, Pakistan and Iran - which have all applied for full membership.
The key Pipelineistan name of this game is the immense Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline - and its offshoot from Russia's Skovorodino to China's Mohe, plus two gas pipelines.
What Pipelineistan obscures is the very sensitive theme of who will be top economic dog in Central Asia. You don't need to be a weatherman to see which way these steppe winds are blowing. How to find a balance between Russia's strategic game in Central Asia and China's economic voracity?
For instance, the SCO wants to create a development bank. Moscow wants to link it to the Eurasian Development Bank - whose major partners are Russia and Kazakhstan. Beijing wants a brand new mechanism.
Yet on a geopolitical level, it's another story altogether.
And it goes without saying that apart from opposing NATO's bombing of Libya, Russia/China is against any possible UN Security Council resolution on Syria.
To say that none of this will go down very well in the White House and the State Department, not to mention the "Full Spectrum Dominance" Pentagon, is of course an understatement. The cherry on the cake was another declaration by Hu and Medvedev; China and Russia will step up military cooperation"..............LINK
To say that none of this will go down very well in the White House and the State Department, not to mention the "Full Spectrum Dominance" Pentagon, is of course an understatement. The cherry on the cake was another declaration by Hu and Medvedev; China and Russia will step up military cooperation"..............LINK
No comments:
Post a Comment