Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Global South strategic cooperation

CMP

Senior Member
Registered Member
Russia sets the bar for Turkey to join SCO: quit NATO.

Putin's special envoy to SCO explained it as that candidate countries cannot be in conflict with any current SCO member, cannot have ongoing external conflicts either, not sanctioned by UN, and not a member of international groups that are hostile to any current SCO member. He specifically named NATO as such international group which has declared Russia as its number one enemy.

But by these conditions, how were India and Pakistan allowed to join then?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

俄外交部:土耳其必须符合加入上合组织标准,不能是北约成员国​


据俄罗斯卫星通讯社9月20日消息,俄罗斯总统上合组织事务特别代表、俄罗斯外交部无任所大使巴赫季耶尔∙哈基莫夫表示,土耳其应符合加入上海合作组织的一系列标准,不能是北约等集团的成员国。


哈基莫夫说:“我们有接纳新成员的条例,其中规定了一些标准,包括属于欧亚地区国家,积极保持与上海合作组织成员国的外交、经贸和文化联系,既与上海合作组织成员国没有冲突,也没有卷入外部冲突,不受联合国安理会制裁,同时也不参与敌对或针对上海合作组织成员国的活动和集团。”


哈基莫夫称,土耳其是北约成员国,北约“宣布俄罗斯不仅仅是敌人,而且是头号敌人”。

My guess is that the SCO rules are and always have been in flux. Lots of exceptions can be made when the strategic calculus is overwhelmingly in favor. Turkey's case is not one of those. India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers with huge populations. Pakistan has close ties to China and India has close ties to Russia. I imagine that is the reason.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Russia sets the bar for Turkey to join SCO: quit NATO.

Putin's special envoy to SCO explained it as that candidate countries cannot be in conflict with any current SCO member, cannot have ongoing external conflicts either, not sanctioned by UN, and not a member of international groups that are hostile to any current SCO member. He specifically named NATO as such international group which has declared Russia as its number one enemy.

But by these conditions, how were India and Pakistan allowed to join then?

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

俄外交部:土耳其必须符合加入上合组织标准,不能是北约成员国​


据俄罗斯卫星通讯社9月20日消息,俄罗斯总统上合组织事务特别代表、俄罗斯外交部无任所大使巴赫季耶尔∙哈基莫夫表示,土耳其应符合加入上海合作组织的一系列标准,不能是北约等集团的成员国。


哈基莫夫说:“我们有接纳新成员的条例,其中规定了一些标准,包括属于欧亚地区国家,积极保持与上海合作组织成员国的外交、经贸和文化联系,既与上海合作组织成员国没有冲突,也没有卷入外部冲突,不受联合国安理会制裁,同时也不参与敌对或针对上海合作组织成员国的活动和集团。”


哈基莫夫称,土耳其是北约成员国,北约“宣布俄罗斯不仅仅是敌人,而且是头号敌人”。
If we stick to the texts of the chatter neither India nor Pakistan should have joined. But both of them want to join SCO and China prefers India in SCO than fully fall in US orbit, choose the bad over the worst. Texts are just an argument or excuse, essence matters the most.

Also take a look at NATO, Greece and Turkey, UK and Spain have territorial disputes, that does not stop them being in NATO defending each other against each other's possible aggressions. What an irony? :D

I think Turkey is in the progress of bargaining with US using its overture to SCO. IF (a big if) Turkey is serious of joining SCO, it has to make a choice, SCO or NATO, not both.

It also worth to watch India. India is part of QUAD, a dialogue in name. If QUAD overtly becoming a NATO like organization, India should and will be expelled by SCO. Even if Russia object, China will bring out the chatter. But I think it won't go that far because India is always fence-sitting therefor won't ruin its benefit.
 
Last edited:

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Digital BRI

A large part of China's BRI initiative also rests upon its ability to build out digital infrastructure around the world. The Chinese effort to expand its digital infrastructure is most apparent in Southeast Asia and now Russia.

As I discussed in the science/technology thread #12,741 and #12,866, one of the more obvious recent trend is Chinese tech firm's ability to expand in cloud space. Both Alibaba and Huawei has made real in road in the cloud space and servers and such. With Western companies pull out, the next obvious place of in road for Chinese tech companies is Russia (assuming they are not fearful of sanctions).

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
As described here, Alibaba and Tencent have invested a lot. Lazada is a huge success in the region and is expanding. Alibaba itself has made significant in road in Malaysia and KL was the location of Alibaba's first Innovation center as part of the Project AsiaForward. It makes a lot of sense that Chinese tech companies would be able to first gain influence in places where its culturally familiar.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
As described here. Digital silk road allows China to push its fintech product to Southeast Asia. It has used its price advantage to "lock up" ASEAN market. And Alibaba has found the solid strategy of using its enormous capital to buy out local firms and expand that way.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Interesting parts here. Traffic from Asia is stay in Asia. So Asians are finding enough local content to not look in EU/US.
Due to the pandemic, there was a huge search in Internet traffic in Asia. There is still relatively low internet penetration in Asia, so Chinese firms move to build itself up in the infancy stage should yield benefits as the internet population continue to grow in Asia.

DSR presence in Indonesia
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Chinese smartphones dominate in Indonesia. Chinese cell phone towers dominate there and so do the cloud infrastructure. Huawei is the biggest trainer of local ICT industry. Alibaba has invested large amount of money to build its presence in Indonesia ahead of a possible amazon incursion. There is growing penetration of Alipay and WeChat pay in Indonesia.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
On the Yuan usage front, it's quite clear that Russia is pushing Yuan adoption faster than China is doing. At this point, Yuan utility is still not that great, so China will need to push forward the usage of Yuan in energy and commodity trading a lot more. I was disappointed they didn't announce more on that front during SCO meeting. It seems to me the next step is to push PetroYuan with Saudi and other Middle Eastern countries as well as other global south partners like Angola, Malaysia and Central Asian countries

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Having other countries issue Yuan denominated bonds is a great thing, but China itself needs a more developed local bond market.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
On the Yuan usage front, it's quite clear that Russia is pushing Yuan adoption faster than China is doing. At this point, Yuan utility is still not that great, so China will need to push forward the usage of Yuan in energy and commodity trading a lot more. I was disappointed they didn't announce more on that front during SCO meeting. It seems to me the next step is to push PetroYuan with Saudi and other Middle Eastern countries as well as other global south partners like Angola, Malaysia and Central Asian countries

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Having other countries issue Yuan denominated bonds is a great thing, but China itself needs a more developed local bond market.
PetroYuan with Saudi and other gulf countries is a very sensitive and delicate move. The gulf countries need security guarantees from China and Russia so the US won't play another "Arab spring or revolution". Saudi joining SCO is such guarantee.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Other thing to consider in terms of Digital/Financial Silk Road is the influence of digital currencies. I've looked at it for a while and it seems to me most of the promises reside in mobile payment app. This allows people to get around government control.

For example, in this alarmist article, certain experts sound alarm at the idea that it's harder to investigate trails through Chinese mobile payment system than crypto.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

And it's alarming to certain people because Alipay is the most popular mobile payment system in the world for 10 years in a row.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
WeChat pay is next. Notice their advantage over apple/google pay. This is one area where Chinese tech firms got a head start over American tech firms and can set the industry trend.

and with examples like this, they continue to expand abroad to more countries
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

but they did find working with incumbents to be easier than building market by themselves. Which is how Alipay+ started. This is quite interesting.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
In the past 2 years, they really put effort in taking this Alipay+ idea into more places. Again, it seems to me that their main competitor here is Apple/Google pay. The winners here will control future of e-commerce.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
like in this one, notice how adding more JV partners to Alipay+ platform encourages other countries to accept Alipay+. It benefits all the JV partners, but really benefits Alibaba here.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
It's kind of interesting to read about this. Alipay is very much bringing technology, merchants and scale here while the Indonesia player Akulaku is bringing customer base.

There are many similar articles about Alipay+ adding partners. In general, being first mover helps. Having scale helps. Having large customer base helps. It's kind of like with Amazon, the larger it got, the easier it was to dominate/corner the market.

If we give Alibaba another 5 years, they could dominate the e-commerce infrastructure around the world with AliExpress/Lazada and the mobile payment infrastructure around the world with Alipay+.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
good article about China's covert effort to push forward Yuan. I mean, Russia has been pushing usage of Yuan very locally. We also know from above that CIPS and Yuan settlement is happening with over half of the trading between China and ASEAN countries. But there are more here.

They signed RMB liquidity agreement with 5 central banks. The one that stands out is Chile. Maybe that's their way of bringing south America into fold of using RMB like what they are doing with Mauritius in Africa.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I also did not realize they already have currency swap agreement with Turkey and Armenia. These are all important countries in the silk road to Europe. The missing one here is Turkmenistan.
This part is important. Slowly trying to incorporate more countries into this to pay in Yuan.
Bahrain, the Maldives, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Myanmar have officially become new
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
of the SCO, and Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have already
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
as dialogue partners. This expansive list suggests that the SCO is embracing major natural resource exporters that either face U.S. sanctions or have been unhappy about the U.S. hegemonic power and the dollar’s dominance. Broader use of nondollar currencies within the SCO bloc for the trade of energy and other major commodities is set in motion.

I'm still waiting for this to happen. First step is to start trading with SCO countries in Yuan like they are already doing with ASEAN countries.
 
Top