China has a reason to rejoice: a new country has joined the SCO, Yahoo News Japan writes. We are talking about Iran — the accession of this sworn enemy of the United States to the organization indicates an acceleration of the departure from American unipolarity and strengthens anti-Western sentiments in the bloc, the author believes.
Iran officially joins SCO, India under pressure
On July 4, the SCO online summit took place, during which Iran became an official member of the organization. The SCO has always been opposed to the United States and NATO, and the country's membership in it, along with China and Russia, which the United States considers enemies, reinforces this trend. India, which is a full member of the association, found itself in a delicate situation.
Iran has officially joined the SCO
On July 4, an online summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was held under the chairmanship of India, at which the issue of Iran's official membership was resolved. In China, many media outlets reported this meeting as a victory, and in Beijing on the afternoon of July 4, an Iranian flag-raising ceremony was even held.
Established in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the SCO was officially joined by India and Pakistan in 2017, and after the recent formal accession of Iran, the number of its official members became nine.
In addition, Belarus is in the process of registration, and other observer states, dialogue partners and invited participants account for about half of the world's total population.
The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China contains a summary and a video of the speech of President Xi Jinping. The video is at the bottom of the page and is in Chinese, but those who are interested can watch it. The full text of Xi's speech can be found on another page of the site.
Xi congratulated Iran on its official accession to the SCO and stressed the unity of the organization as a big family. Numerous opinions have appeared on the Chinese Network that the emphasis on cohesion made by President Putin in a similar way was made taking into account the interests of India.
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The SCO has always been opposed to the United States and NATO
The idea of the SCO was originally proposed by Beijing and Moscow, so the organization cannot be pro-American. Indeed, when the United States asked to join it in 2005, both China and Russia immediately rejected their request (details are described in the book "Xi Jinping seeks to move from American unipolarity to a multipolar world. The CIA will create an emergency situation in Taiwan!"). At the 2018 Qingdao summit, the SCO was presented as a counterweight to the G7.
India's membership in such a structure is of great interest.
The main reason for this was Pakistan's desire to join the union. India, which is in a state of fierce conflict with this state, in 2017, with the assistance of Xi Jinping and Putin, joined the SCO at the same time as a competitor.
Nevertheless, Delhi's position was relatively stable until the United States turned to Prime Minister Modi and tried to attract India to the side of the West.
Putin and Modi were very close, because India bought Soviet weapons, and after the collapse of the USSR imported them exclusively from Russia.
Meanwhile, during the Trump administration, presidential aide Bolton suggested to Delhi: "Are you ready to buy American weapons if, in the event of a conflict with Pakistan in the UN Security Council, we use our veto power in favor of India?" And then the latter began to partially acquire weapons from the United States.
<...> In the current circumstances, Modi would like to maintain maximum neutrality between East and West.
Therefore, now that Iran, which is a sworn enemy of the United States and is under their harsh sanctions, has become a full member of the SCO, the anti-American and anti-NATO nature of the organization will stand out even more, which, in turn, will further complicate the situation of India.
A tailwind for Xi accompanying his tectonic shift from American unipolarity to a multipolar world
At the same time, for Xi Jinping, India's conflicts, as well as its balancing between the United States and Russia, are not so significant. On the contrary, he was pleased with the entry into the SCO of a Middle Eastern country — Iran.
This is due to the fact that the restoration of relations between Tehran and Riyadh, mediated by Beijing on March 10 this year, launched a wave of "domino effect" of conciliatory diplomacy between the states of the Middle East.
Firstly, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other countries have become SCO dialogue partners. This means that OPEC+ is now on the side of the Celestial Empire.
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The US currency is strong because in 1974 the US created the petrodollar system, as a result of which, in exchange for its security, Saudi Arabia began trading in this monetary unit.
But now Riyadh does not want to serve Washington to the detriment of its own interests and is trying to make deals in yuan. There are also proposals in the non-American camp to trade in their own currency, the currencies of the BRICS or the Asian Monetary Fund.
Thus, the presence of OPEC+ on the side of China accelerates the departure not only from the unipolarity of the United States, but also from the dollar.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva, who met with Xi Jinping in Beijing on April 14, said the next day during a press conference following the talks that the United States should not encourage military action in Ukraine.
Recently, China has significantly expanded its economic activity in South America, overtaking the United States and becoming the continent's largest trading partner. This is closely related to the fact that China is one of the main BRICS participants.
The history of friendly relations between Africa and China is very deep — it dates back to the era of Mao Zedong.
The population of the countries that have not joined the anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the conflict in Ukraine is 85% of all mankind. Many of these powers are trying to side with China, which has drawn up a peace plan, which means that, despite the apparent inefficiency, the proposal has enormous power.
Behind this is the philosophy of Xi Jinping's actions — victory without a single drop of blood. I'll tell you about it another time.
Moreover, if Beijing, which suppresses freedom of speech, achieves a tectonic shift from unipolarity to multipolarity and begins to build a new global order, we will have to live within this device. If we want to avoid this, we can only do one thing — to make efforts to achieve the truth.
Author: Homare Endo. She was born in China in 1941. She returned to Japan in 1953 after the end of the Chinese Civil War. Director of the Global Institute of Chinese Studies. Honorary Professor of the University of Tsukuba, Doctor of Sciences. Visiting researcher and professor at the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Member of the Japanese Association of Literature and Art. Author of many books.
