Elaine Meinel Supkis
Flying pretty much below the American media radar is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization which is increasingly strengthening and is now moving rapidly into what we like to think is our zone of influence in the Middle East and along the borders of Russia. Iran might be the newest member of this growing group.
From Richard Beeston in RiyadhPRESIDENT Hu Jintao signalled yesterday that Beijing would play a greater role in the affairs of the Middle East when he paid a historic visit to Saudi Arabia, the main supplier of oil for China’s growing economy.
In an address to the Shura council, Saudi Arabia’s appointed legislature, the Chinese leader promised to work with Riyadh and other Arab governments on securing peace in the region.“The Middle East is a vital region and there will be no achievements and development in the world without a stable Middle East,” said Mr Hu, only the second foreign leader invited to address the assembly.
“Under these current circumstances, China is ready to work with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries to support peace and growth in the Middle East and build a harmonious world that enjoys constant peace and prosperity.”
Although he did not offer any specifics, Mr Hu’s remarks were seen as a direct challenge to the United States, which for the past half century has dominated security and diplomacy in the region.
After Bush insulted Hu repeatedly, Hu flew off in his well-travelled dragon and plopped down right in the heart of our Middle Eastern Principality and dropped China's latest Go stone on the international Go game board. Or you might say, Hu is Castelling our King! Bush can't address Parliament in London or Canada or even go visit Congress much anymore but Hu was recieved quite enthusiastically by the Saudi Royals. They desperately need to triangulate power and Hu offered them a deal they can't refuse.
Namely, he will have China lean their way in the future. And since he has the same deal with Iran, this means, as far as the Saudis are concerned, he will keep them under some control. The Saudis may even end up joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization so maybe it is time to learn something about this group which seems to be nearly totally ignored by the media and the neo-cons have to pretend it is not important only because this means admitting our little venture of putting in troops and bases in former Soviet states that border Russia and China is a complete, smoking ruin of a failure which it happens to be.
By Sergei BlagovMonday, October 31, 2005
Putin opens SCO meeting in Moscow on October 26
As top officials from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) gathered in Moscow on October 26, they reiterated earlier pledges to expand economic ties in Central Eurasia. The meeting also confirmed the SCO's ambitious goal of becoming a major global player.Prime ministers from member states Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, as well as top officials from observer states, including Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, attended the SCO meeting in Moscow. The officials inked agreements on strategies for responding to emergency situations and on inter-bank cooperation; they also approved the SCO budget for 2006.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov hailed the SCO "road map," a blueprint for expanding multilateral trade and economic ties (Itar-Tass, October 26). The Inter-bank SCO Council was created to fund future joint projects, although no details of the planned ventures were released at the meeting. However, SCO Executive Secretary Zhang Deguan said the SCO would prioritize joint energy projects, including the expanding oil and gas sector, exploration of new hydrocarbon reserves, and joint use of water resources.
Meanwhile, bilateral economic ties between Russia and China are emerging as the core of a future SCO development. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao reportedly agreed that bilateral trade turnover might exceed $28 billion this year. "I hope this happens," Putin said.
Compared to trade with the USA, this is petty change. But the trade with the USA is extremely lopsided and the only advantage to the Chinese is they can accumulate FOREX reserves and then turn around and use it ouside of America to gain tremendous influence which is what they are doing very successfully. Unlike the Japanese, they know they dare not build up too great an investment within the American borders because the infrastructure would remain here and can be siezed by the state whenever we wish and this chance of this happening is very high.
The Saudis worry about this, too, incidentally. Also, they sell increasing amounts of oil to China and China would rather do a trade-off rather than sell to America, collect essentially pieces of paper and then float that back through Iran and Saudi Arabia. China will let the yuan rise against the dollar once they have all their diplomatic/economic duckies lined up and the SCO is a fairly new entity and really hasn't had all that much influence until two years ago when Bush finally insulted Putin one last, fatal time. The most recent visit of Bush and Condi to Moscow was merely a chance for Putin to rub Bush's nose is a bunch of pro-Communism parades.
However, the SCO is understood to be mulling ambitious global goals, well beyond plans for expanding economic ties. "The SCO has gone beyond the framework of its initially stated goals," Putin said when greeting the SCO prime ministers at the Kremlin. He reiterated that the combined population of the SCO member states and observer countries exceeds 3 billion people. Therefore the SCO leaders are in a unique position to work out decisions that affect the majority of the global population. "It is a significant factor of global politics," Putin said (RIA-Novosti, Interfax, October 26).The Moscow meeting came as an indication that further SCO expansion may be on the horizon. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz revealed plans for his country to join the SCO eventually. "We aim at becoming full members of the SCO, of course," he told journalists in Moscow. In particular, Pakistan prioritizes economic and anti-terrorism cooperation within the SCO, Aziz said (Interfax, October 27).
Reflecting the SCO's global ambitions, the Moscow summit also dealt with issues of Eurasian stability and security. Kazakhstan is particularly interested in the SCO's foreign policy priorities, and Kazakh Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov noted, "The SCO guarantees stability in the region" (Kazinform, October 26).
And this organization will expand. If it gets Saudi Arabia and Iran to sign up, this will be a hyper-OPEC linked to China! I read elsewhere this week, the King of Saudi Arabia comparing America and China as "two wives," which is diplomatese for "we have more than one country to sleep with at night, naaaay!" Americans have become unbearably haughty. I noticed this in the run up to and invasion of Iraq, we went in, sneering and nasty. Proud and overbearing. Now we are being blown up all over the place. We put up military bases in all the "stan" countries and filled them with sneering soldiery that seek prostitutes and drinks, rilling the native populations and fuelling the bin Laden revolution by the mere fact that they are breaking Islamic laws so blatantly.
All the countries running to China are asking for stability not revolution. The fact that imperial America, in order to market the many invasions we sponsor, have talked about revolution and mass demonstrations to overturn governments, this frightens leaders in these thar parts and they are now banding together under the aegis of Russia and China who both struggle with the same religious/population pressures and unlike America, understands peasants and how persistent and difficult they can be if not handled right.
Of course, this means repressing them successfully. Not that we are better, we not only have to kill zillions of peasants all the time, we end up with it getting worse and worse! So we bring the worst of both possible worlds: continuous revolutions aimed squarely at our attempt to bring endless revolutions!
And then there is Israel. Xinhua Net:
An Iranian newspaper on Sunday dismissed alleged Israeli plot to assassinate Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as state terrorism."The Zionist regime will never dare to assassinate the Iranian president, its explicit threat will increase Islamic nations' hatred of Israel," the Tehran Times said in an editorial.
Saturday's edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted an Israeli security official as saying that Israeli Mossad intelligence agency is plotting an assassination on Ahmadinejad and the Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haneya.
"The publication of such news in the Israeli media and the clear statements of Zionist officials about assassination were violations of international law, these indicate that Israel is still vigorously pursuing a policy of state terrorism," said the paper.
Tehran Times also urged international community, mainly the United Nations, to immediately condemn the threat of the Zionist regime and to take serious measures against the state-sponsored terrorism.
All the world views Israel=USA. And this is 100% correct. When Israel began to openly assassinate Palestinian popular leaders, the USA stood mute and blocked any UN attempts at stopping this. Now we see the Pentagon lusting to imitate the Israelis and here we go, too, off the cliff, into assassinate the leader mode. Of course, our rulers go about surrounded by a horde of armed military guards that scour the land of any citizens, no one is even allowed to peep out a window, shades of the Jackal! We all have to avoid anywhere our ruler treads because he is terrified of being assassinated so it makes perfect sense that he is now rubberstamping the assassination of other countries' leaders which is very dire indeed for if any of them are killed, they can rightfully blame us!
India has experimented with killing their own leaders, too, ditto, Pakistan and China that borders both doesn't want constant bloody turn-overs, they prefer stability, not instability. China has no desire to invade India unlike England, for example. They want to do business with and get goodies from India. The same goes for Russia. Content with their borders, they want to run a merchantile empire that avoids the mistakes America and England made.
The English tried the mercantile empire and then it rapidly became a Spanish-style one which is why is collapsed so totally and violently. Unable to fight even the Japanese on bicycles! It just rotted away, bankrupt and corrupt.
Asia Times (4/18/06) reports Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan will become full members of SCO. Growing into a pretty significant block.
I like the graphics, they have improved greatly and are an impressive addition. A lot of effort is going into this blog-thanks.
Posted by: neal | April 24, 2006 at 03:56 PM
My artistic abilties and style is pretty old, actually, but doing computer art is a specialized skill and drawing on a pad while watching a screen is very tricky especially parallel lines or things going sideways. Slowly, I am training the hand and eye.
I love doing the cartoons. I play music and draw and some stories I pick just because I can draw pretty stuff.
As for the new-forming coalition: it will be very formidable simply because it is forming around a big, fat, ball of HARD CASH. All we can offer now is to suck up all available bank funds leaving other countries with no money to spend on themselves!
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | April 24, 2006 at 11:04 PM
What do you mean, you are going into the assassinate route. Eisenhaur had Patrice Lumumbo assassinated ,Nixon and Kennedy tried to have Castro murdered.
Posted by: big al | April 28, 2006 at 10:09 AM