BIGGER THAN THE US; BIGGER THAN THE EU
The emerging Eurasian bloc headed by China and Russia will be the world's major economic grouping - and soon! The SCO already includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan as full members, and observer states India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan may be promoted to full membership at the next meeting in Russia. In terms of population, resources and manufacturing capacity, the SCO is now the world's largest economic entity.
The implications of the emergence of the SCO have scarcely been discussed in the European; US or Australian media. Nations near the new group have shown more interest. ASEAN will attend the next meeting as guests, as will the US, who will doubtless be lobbying the Russians to block the admission of Iran. Australia has expressed no desire to attend, despite the fact that founding member China is our largest trading partner.
So far, the main agreement of the present SCO is to allow trade between member states in their own currencies. This move is intended to avoid the necessity of holding national reserves of $US, the long-standing international reserve currency. The Chinese hold vast $US reserves, and they have expressed concerns about its future stability and value. An extension of the agreement to trade in national currencies would be an exchange rate fixing mechanism, which would be equivalent to having an internal basket-of-currencies as a trade medium - a de facto SCO common currency, an Asian euro.
Concerns about the future of the US$ are rife. If the collapse anticipated by many occurs, the world will need the size, wealth and dynamism of the SCO to help rebuild the world economy.
Comments and updates:
Foreign Minister Yang: The first ten years of the 21st century is a decade of crisis and transformation. It is also a decade of cooperation and development. There have been a series of major developments in the past 10 years, such as the "9.11" incident, the war in Iraq, the international financial crisis and the rise of the overall strength of developing countries. All these have brought about major changes in international relations and the international landscape. The world is moving towards multi-polarity, multilateralism and greater democracy in international relations. At the same time, a series of global challenges including climate change, energy and resources security and public health security have become more acute. More and more countries have come to recognize that the Cold-War mentality and zero-sum game theory have become anachronistic. And the right way to survive and thrive is to stick together in tough times like passengers in the same boat and pursue mutual benefit and win-win progress.
... representatives of many countries at the conferences were of the view that military means does not offer a fundamental solution to the Afghanistan issue. Many countries and China shared the view that the international community should give full support to efforts made by the Afghan government and people.
The Chinese Foreign Minister said that we believe that eventually Afghanistan will be a peaceful, stable and independent country enjoying development and progress and living in harmony with its neighbors.
Premier Wen Jiabao said in his government work report Friday that China would stick to the path of peaceful development and pursue an open strategy of mutual benefit.
China would promote the building of a harmonious world with lasting peace and common prosperity, Wen said at the annual session of the National People's Congress, the top legislature.
In 2010, China would continue to actively participate in the process of change in the international system and safeguard the interests of developing countries, Wen said.
He said China played a unique and constructive role in a series of major multilateral meetings in the past year and actively took part in international cooperation on dealing with the global financial crisis and climate change.
Wen stressed that China would push for regional cooperation by taking advantage of opportunities offered by the completion of the ASEAN-China free trade zone and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
BEIJING, FEB 23 (APP): Foreign Minister of Pakistan Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi has reiterated Pakistan’s strong interest in becoming a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is assessing Iran and Pakistan's applications for membership and reviewing its criteria for membership, the new SCO Secretary-General Muratbek Sansyzbayevich Imanaliev told a press conference yesterday in Beijing.
In addition, procedures for Sri Lanka and Belarus to enter a dialogue partnership with the SCO are currently under review by SCO member countries for final approval, hopefully to be finalized at the Tashkent Summit this year, according to Imanaliev.
As China has systematically moved into Central Asia, Europe’s Nabucco pipeline, touted as a way to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, has floundered as a paper-tiger: a paper pipeline that lacks even paper-bound (contracted) gas supply.
... Russia, the world’s largest producer of hydrocarbons, reorients its oil and gas flows from Europe to Asia. On the eve of New Year, Russia launched a major oil pipeline from Eastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean (ESPO). For the first time, it is able to ship oil not only westward to its traditional customers in Europe, but also to the ever-growing energy markets in Asia, which already account for a third of the global oil consumption.
2009 proved to be a momentous year for the "energy war". The Chinese pipeline inaugurated by President Hu Jintao on December 14; the oil terminal near the port city of Nakhodka in Russia's far east inaugurated by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on December 27 (which will be served by the mammoth $22-billion oil pipeline from the new fields in eastern Siberia leading to China and the Asia-Pacific markets); and the Iranian pipeline inaugurated by Ahmadinejad on January 6 - the energy map of Eurasia and the Caspian has been virtually redrawn.
Last month, the West officially lost the new "Great Game." The 20-year competition for natural resources and influence in Central Asia between the United States (supported by the European Union), Russia and China has, for now, come to an end, with the outcome in favor of the latter two. Western defeat was already becoming clear with the slow progress of the Nabucco pipeline and the strategic reorientation of some Central Asian republics toward Russia and China. Two recent events, however, confirmed it.
On Dec. 14, Chinese President Hu Jintao and the heads of state of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan personally opened the valve of a new gas pipeline transporting Turkmen natural gas from the state-of-the-art processing facility of Samandepe to the city of Khorgoz, in China's western province of Xinjiang. The pipeline, developed by the Chinese state-owned energy giant, CNPC, has a capacity of 40 billion cubic meters and traverses almost 1,250 miles through four countries.
MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched Russia's long-awaited Siberian oil export route Monday, giving energy-hungry Asia a new supply source from the world's largest crude exporter seeking to diversify its client base away from Europe.
