China, Russia Cementing Rising Eastern Bloc as Trump Rattles G-7

[NOWorNEVER]

Bloomberg News
10 June 2018, 14:06 BST Updated on 11 June 2018, 03:57 BST

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  Scenes of unity in Qingdao contrast with discord in Canada
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  Rivalries lurk below surface of regional group’s summit

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Trump Advisers Kudlow, Navarro Slam Trudeau


Trump Disavows Previously Agreed G-7 Statement
Trump, Kim Arrive in Singapore for Summit

A Walkthrough of What Happened at G-7
As U.S. President Donald Trump left the Group of Seven nations in turmoil this weekend, China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin were putting on a very different show on the other side of the world.



On Sunday, Xi and Putin toasted the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an eight-member bloc designed to coordinate security policies across Asia. The group, which welcomed new members India and Pakistan, as well as the presidents of Iran and Mongolia, pledged to increase cooperation on energy and agriculture and create more favorable conditions on trade and investment.

Xi Jinping with Vladimir Putin in Qingdao on June 10.

Photographer: Wang Zhao/AFP via Getty Images
The carefully choreographed affair contrasted with the discord in Canada, as Trump disavowed the G-7’s joint statement and criticized his host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Even as the scope of the breakdown over U.S. tariffs became clear, Xi was taking the podium to criticize what he said were new forms of “unilateralism” and “protectionism.”



“We oppose the practice of sacrificing other countries’ security for their own absolute security,” Xi told a gathering of the SCO’s heads of state in the Chinese port of Qingdao. “We need to reject selfish, short-sighted and closed policies, uphold the rules of the World Trade Organization, support the multilateral trading system and build an open world economy.”



China’s state-run media had fun with the contrasting images of the feuding democratic states and the orderly proceedings of the China- and Russian-led bloc. The English-language Twitter of account of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper posted photos of a tense scene in La Malbaie, Quebec, and another of Xi and Putin smiling, with the caption, “G7 vs SCO: two meetings on the same day.”

China’s official Xinhua News Agency published a report titled "The Seven Split Nations, The Lone U.S" on Sunday, saying that the power of the G-7 was already diminished and the internal divisions will further reduce its influence.

Regional Rivalries
The comparison only goes so far. While the 17-year-old SCO has increasingly extended into trade and economic cooperation -- the G-7’s central focus -- it was founded as a security group. The bloc, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, has rallied around opposition of the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

The SCO accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s populationversus about 10 percent for the G-7.

Read More: The Other Major Summit Went Well and Will Help Asia Sentiment

The bloc has its own tensions lurking below the surface, as China seeks to use the group as a vehicle to promote its Belt and Road Initiative, a vast infrastructure-building program that runs through Russia’s strategic backyard. The addition of South Asian rivals India and Pakistan have also raised questions about the group’s long-term cohesiveness.

Pang Zhongying, a senior fellow at Pangoal, a Beijing-based research institution, said the SCO faced the same underlying tensions as the G-7 as governments favor unilateral actions over collective ones.

“The golden era of multilateralism is over, facing a crisis not only in the G-7, but also in the SCO,” Pang said. “Even though China’s state-owned media touted the so-called rich fruits of the SCO, only a few tangible achievements were in fact generated from this summit.”

The group demonstrated solidarity in pledging to uphold the Iran nuclear deal, a major source of G-7 contention after Trump’s withdrawal last month. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose country has observer status at the SCO, attended the summit, making his first foreign trip since the U.S.’s decision.

— With assistance by Dandan Li, Stepan Kravchenko, and Xiaoqing Pi

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ify-growing-eastern-bloc-as-trump-rattles-g-7

 

[TaiShang]

That's a telling picture, summing up the present state of international affairs. "The old is dying, but the new cannot be born," as Gramsci says, because the old is just too stubborn. This is probably the reason of the sense of crisis that the world is going through.

 

[NOWorNEVER]

That's a telling picture, summing up the present state of international affairs. "The old is dying, but the new cannot be born," as Gramsci says, because the old is just too stubborn. This is probably the reason of the sense of crisis that the world is going through.

ha ha ha.. Brilliant

v/s United We Stand

 

[rambro]

Next round SCO, lets put pakistan n india together.

What do u think :3

 

[NOWorNEVER]

Next round SCO, lets put pakistan n india together.

What do u think :3

wishful thinking.... but its all depend on India who is very hostile to Pakistan. There are lot of hurdles...
We both Lack of co-dependency. None of the issues that divide India and Pakistan are irreconcilable as comparisons with other similar situations show. Germany and France in the past and now South and North Korea in current affairs, I think, appropriate examples: many previous conflicts and significant enmity ; disputes over border regions and SPECIALLY issues of Kashmir. there are problems with the leaders of India's benefiting somewhat from conflict, since the status quo give each party someone else to blame and a topic for demagoguery that distracts and deflects attention away from their inept governance of internal issues.

Its all depend on the seriousness of both sides specially from India, who does not want to be flexible on Kashmir issue.

 

[TaiShang]

Next round SCO, lets put pakistan n india together.

What do u think :3

No need to put together. Standing and functioning in the same institution together should be enough as a start. With the SCO, their differences will not be going away. But, an institutional setting may provide the ground for negotiations and better management of disputes.

Just as India, Pakistan, too, will not be formulating all its strategies based on a more cooperative India. Pakistan, too, will have contingency plans.

Besides, dispute on one issues should not preclude cooperation on another.