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28.07.2005

A vision of a new world order

   

Gagik Ter-Harutyunyan 

On the 1st of July in 2005 the presidents of Russia and China V. Putin and Hu Jintao at their meeting in Moscow signed “the 21st century joint declaration of Russian Federation (RF) and People’s Republic of China (PRC), concerning to international world order” which consisted of 12 items. After the Cold war this is the first document by which these two great powers together and directly declare their disagreement with the US political ideology. In the past China and especially Russia adopted comparatively cautious and milder way to express their dissatisfaction with the superpower. The appearance of such a document can be of great importance for the further global political developments and prove that:

  • The relationships between RF and PRC have shifted into a new level based on mutual trust and military cooperation. These developments are particularly obvious not only in growing cooperation in economic and military-technical fields of these countries but also in the foreseen Russian-Chinese joint military trainings in the near future.
  • The USA policy in RF and PRC has qualitatively developed. The present American strategy is a real challenge to these two states. This makes Russia and China unite their potentials.
  • The leaders of both countries think that they have enough military-political and economic potential to confront the US hegemony.

At the same time the content of the declaration reveal the logical principals with which the parties will try to reach their aims:

  1. The parties think that the present processes of globalization will lead to economic and informational integration, but these developments shouldn’t hinder the formation of multypolar world order. So their principal disagreement towards American unipolar world order is affirmed.
  2. The parties act as supporters of international law. They affirm the rights of peoples to choose their own way of development. That’s to say they are against the American principle that all the countries must adopt universal and identical way of development.
  3. The parties stress up the importance and irreplaceability of the UN in international affairs and so act against American strategy to devalue the role of the UN.
  4. There is a special attitude in the declaration against the American theory of “civilization clashes”.
  5. The parties touch upon the necessity to prevent the usage and proliferation of WMD. It is directed against the reality that up till now the USA didn’t sign the conventions prohibiting chemical and biological weapons and develops a plan for a “local” usage of nuclear weapons.
  6. In this document a special attention is paid to the problems of regional integration, particularly horizontal ties between “the regional blocs”. Here the parties clearly refuse the USA famous policy directed to prevent allied processes among the other states.
  7. In the context of respecting the authority of the states, the parties turn to the problems of human rights protection. This thesis is also obviously directed against the USA. It’s worth mentioning that every year PRC (as it does the US department) publishes a special bulletin where are elucidated the human rights violations cases in the USA.

As we can see all the principles of the declaration are directed against American approaches. It’s characteristic that the document is summarized with a conclusion that the signed declaration displays new principles of a new world order. Confirming their determination of a joint implementation of the declaration’s items Russia and China, as member-founders of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), decide to enlarge and reinforce this organization claiming to become a new pole of the power.

The enlargement of Shanghai cooperation organization

At the last summit of SOC held in Astana Mongolia was granted the status of observer. This year it has been announced that Iran, India and Pakistan also were granted the status of observers. It’s worth mentioning that since 2004 in Iranian Mass Media has been much discussed the question of Iran’s membership to SCO, yet the information came to prove that China isn’t interested in Iran’s membership thus emphasizing the organization’s anti-American orientation. However, it seems that in China’s political accounts has sharply increased oil factor on which directly depends the developing economy of PRC. As we know PRC has become trade and economic partner number one of Iran at the expense of oil. However, these economic circumstances, together with US aggressive policy in Central Asia, made China review its attitude towards Iran and that country was granted the status of observer in SCO.

In the past the participation of India and Pakistan in SCO’s operations was also quite problematic (taking into consideration their strained, almost prewar relationships). But during the last years the relationships between these two countries as well as China and India have distinctly improved.

It’s known that Pakistan is in good relations with the USA, but that country is also in active cooperation with PRC (particularly it is considered that the nuclear technologies were delivered to Pakistan by China). That’s to say SCO pretends to “gain the support” of that country.

It is necessary to stress up that PRC has established active political-economic relationships with all the members-state of SCO. Its relationships with Kazakhstan require special attention: this country has a real chance to become the regional power. At the threshold of SCO summit Nazarbayev and Hu Jintao concluded a strategic treaty on building a 3.000 km long railroad costing $2.5 billion which will join Kazakhstan to China.

So, as a matter of fact, today there are five nuclear states in SCO with this or that status (the existence of the nuclear weapon in Iran is already an incontestable fact). The expansion of SCO proves that today most of the Eurasian great states are somehow disappointed in the USA, at the same time they became so powerful that try to give joint solution to the regional problems, without an intermediary. In this context, it is logical that according to an item of resolution, confirmed at Astana’s summit, the territories of the SCO member states till 2020 must become a zone of free transportation of goods and services.

In that way today we can already say that SCO is a steady organization. The only obstacle preventing its more efficiency is the rivalry between Russia and China. However, the American policy in Central Asia effectively furthers the cooperation between these countries to prevail over the competition. It is particularly obvious in these states attitudes towards well known events in Uzbekistan.

The competition in Uzbekistan

Speed activation of the USA in Central Asia (as well as in Southern Caucuses) is also somehow conditioned by SCO tendency to strengthen. In this context it isn’t excluded that in the near future the core states of Eurasia can begin the process of forcing the USA out of the continent. That such a development of the scenario is not excluded becomes evident from the latter processes in Uzbekistan.

As we know in the territory of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) the USA had serious obstacles to organize “revolutions” in Uzbekistan. After the insurgences in Andijian the developments didn’t correspond to the standard scenario. Immediately after the suppression of insurgency Islam Karimov left for Beijing where he was suggested comprehensive support and $600 million. The guarantees gained from this visit let Karimov change his position towards Americans. For example his reaction to the USA threatening to represent the investigations of Andijian events to the UN was more them strict, and considerably confined the scopes of American air base in Karshi Khanabad where was particularly prohibited flights at night and the deployment of heavy bombers (the USA had to shift them into Afghanistan). At present there are spread some news that the Americans may completely leave Karshi Khanabad.

It is obvious that such a reaction of Karimov is conditioned by the firm position of China and Russia and both of them adequately perceive the American expansion in Central Asia.

In this way we can affirm that PRC is in affective competition with the USA to take the predominant position in Central Asia: for the first tame in the post soviet territory is recorded a confrontation between the United States and China, which, by the way, didn’t finish in favor of the USA.

Besides it should be pointed out that the position of Uzbekistan is in keeping with SCO policy. In the resolution of Astana’s summit was particularly pointed out that the state-members of SCO must make more precise the terms of US military forces deployment aiming to launch anti-terroristic campaign against Afghanistan.


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