Ufa SCO-BRICS summits’ results herald new world order in the making

July 23, 2015 - PRLog -- The leaders of Asian, African and Latin American countries took part in the 14th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the 7th BRICS summit that took place in the Russian city of Ufa on July 8-10, 2015.

The BRICS summit, most importantly, resulted in the decision to launch its two new financial institutions, the New Development Bank (NDB) and the reserve currency pool, with a capital of $200 billion combined; and the signing of the joint Economic Cooperation Strategy that will be carried out until 2020 and includes plans to expand mutual business ties in energy, mining, agriculture and infrastructure.

At the same time, the leaders of the SCO agreed to begin the process of making India and Pakistan new full members of the organization, granted Belarus the status of observer-state, and named Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kambodia and Nepal new dialogue partners.

Moreover, the participants of the SCO summit expressed their support of the Chinese “Silk Road” economic belt project and agreed on a joint development strategy up until 2025. This document includes such points as the motion for a reform of the UN Security Council, as well as the plans to develop a Convention on Fighting Extremism and create new transportation corridors.

The summits held in Russia were also marked by the talks of the Indian PM Narendra Modi and his colleague from Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, where the parties expressed their intentions to cooperate in battle against terrorism in South Asia and establish cooperation in many areas.

Moreover, Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, attended the events and gave a speech to the guests of the event, in which he expressed his belief that the success of the Iranian Nuclear Program talks will soon open new potential for multilateral partnership in Asia.

The international leaders and high-ranking officials praised the results of their three-day work session in Ufa. In particular, the Nawaz Sharif stated that the full SCO membership of Pakistan will contribute to finding peace for Afghanistan, while Zhang Jun, director general of International Economic Cooperation Department for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry, pointed out that the meetings resulted in several important investment, trade and industry agreements.

The July summits also attracted genuine interest of journalists both in Asia and Europe, who placed particular emphasis on their unique character and importance. One of them, correspondent Frank Sieren for Deutsche Welle, suggested that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa may surpass G8 in their economic capacity by the end of the 21st century.

“Never has a global summit taken place in this region. In the West, we are going to have to get used to the fact that other regions are important for BRICS than those which are important to us,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Pepe Escobar, Brazilian roving correspondent for several news agencies, pointed out in an interview to “PenzaNews” agency that the American media sources predictably ignored the Ufa summits without any actual reason to do so, despite their importance for both Asian and international policy and economy scene.

“At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized the process of becoming de facto members [of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization]. The SCO is now a G8, and with Iran being admitted after the end of sanctions in early 2016, it will be a G9,” the speaker said.

In his opinion, the list of the more important statements made on July 8-10 also includes the agreement between Narendra Modi and the Chinese leader Xi Jingping to resolve their current border disputes (http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/58231-2015), as well as a plethora more arrangements aimed at better mutual cooperation in such areas as energy and infrastructure.

“The New Great Game in Eurasia, on the ground level, is all about trade and commerce integration via a complex network of superhighways, high-speed rail, ports, airports, pipelines and fiber optics,” the correspondent explained.

However, he stressed that the Ufa summits were held in the midst of the growing geopolitical tensions coming from the US. The journalist also recalled that the recently published 2015 National Military Strategy of the United States lists Russia, China and Iran as the countries that pose the biggest threat to American security.

“[They] are depicted as ‘revisionist states’ – as in openly defying what the Pentagon qualifies as ‘international security and stability,’ that is, the un-level playing field for globalized, exclusionary, unproductive, turbo-charged casino capitalism,” Pepe Escobar said.

From his point of view, this background allows one to see the SCO and BRICS summits held in Russia as a strong blow against the US planning that shows the strategic depth of steps undertaken by Moscow and Beijing.

“At Ufa, [the Russian President Vladimir] Putin told [the Chinese President] Xi Jinping, on the record: ‘Combining efforts, no doubt we (Russia and China) will overcome all the problems before us.’ Read ‘efforts’ as new Silk Roads, Eurasian Economic Union, BRICS, SCO, AIIB, NDB, currency swaps, bypassing the US dollar, and beyond. No Mackinder disciple can reverse that,” Pepe Escobar concluded.

He also suggested that the Asian states will soon begin active negotiations with Iran on various projects that involve access to sea shipping lanes and construction of economically important infrastructure.

“So this perfectly ties in with Iran as an SCO member – which in itself is the logical extension of various geopolitical and geoeconomic factors,” the journalist explained, adding that the Tehran officials see the potential for peace and security in the region only through cooperation with Moscow and Beijing.

In his turn, Quinn Martin, managing partner of Frontier financial communications agency, noted that the Ufa summit participants will have many objectives ahead of them before their proclamations lead to success.

“The New Development Bank has huge potential because it’s backed by states that generate 20% of global GDP. But the devil will be in the details – how is power shared among the founding members, what additional countries will join and, most importantly, what projects will it fund. These are tough questions, and it may be a couple more years before the bank is fully up and running,” the expert explained.

At the same time, he highly praised the timing chosen by the Kremlin for the joint summits in Ufa (http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/58769-2015).

“The timing is perfect to strengthen ties with the BRICS and SCO countries. Russia’s leadership is perturbed by the US and European sanctions and is keen to demonstrate to the West that it has friends elsewhere,” said the managing partner of Frontier.

Full text news agency "PenzaNews":http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/59054-2015