Text Fwd: Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Prospects For A Multipolar World

StopNATO
Shanghai Cooperation Organization: Prospects For A Multipolar World
Rick Rozoff, Stop NATO, May 21, 2008

On June 15th and 16th the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will hold its
ninth annual heads of state summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

It will be attended by the presidents of its six full members - China, Russia,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - and by representatives of
various ranks from its four observer states - India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan
- and from several aspiring partner nations yet to be announced.

The SCO as an institution and as a concept represents the world's greatest
potential and in ways is its major paradox as its capacities and their
realization to date are so far apart.

Its six full members account for 60% of the land mass of Eurasia and its
population is a third of the world's. With observer states included, its
affiliates account for half of the human race.

At its fifth and watershed summit in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, in June
of 2005, when representatives of India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan attended an
SCO summit for the first time, the president of the country hosting the summit,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, greeted the guests in words that had never before been
used in any context: "The leaders of the states sitting at this negotiation
table are representatives of half of humanity.” [1]

Former Joint Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and political analyst
Leonid Ivashov later described the significance and unique nature of the SCO in
asserting that, "Contrary to Samuel Huntington's concept of the allegedly
inevitable clash of civilizations, the conclusion drawn in the SCO framework was
that harmonized interactions between civilizations and their mutual assistance
were possible.

"The contours of an alliance of five non-Western civilizations – Russian,
Chinese, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist – began to materialize." [2]

To emphasize the world-historical prospects of the organization, he added: "The
SCO is supposed to be a special world without a clearly defined boundary, a
world spanning the entire global space.

"The quadrangle of the new global entity – Brazil, Russia, China, and India
– is already taking shape....The above and certain other formations are
related to the SCO." [3]

The quartet Ivashov mentions above - Brazil, Russia, China, and India - has
since 2001 been known by the acronym formed by the first letters of the nations'
names, BRIC, the world's fastest and most consistently growing economies with
the largest foreign currency and gold reserves.

* For more reading
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/39592