SCO Summit: De-dollarization and General Resistance to Threats

The annual summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was held on July 4 in India in virtual format. According to rumors leaked from New Delhi, the possibility of “in attendance” summit was canceled at the last moment by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, allowing India to exclude strategic rivals (China and Pakistan) and politicians whose presence on Indian soil could threaten further aggravation of relations between India and the United States.

The SCO established in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, followed by the accession of Uzbekistan, now consists of nine member countries, after the admission of India and Pakistan in 2017 and Iran that was accepted just yesterday as a full member of the Eurasian organization.

At the focus of the summit’s agenda were speeches by Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin; they spoke for the first time at a major international event since the Wagner group’s coup attempt. Putin thanked the partners of the Shanghai Organization for “supporting the actions of the Russian leadership to protect the constitutional order, the life and security of citizens.” In this context, Putin proposed to strengthen the role of the SCO antiterrorist center “to counter not only terrorism, but also all regional threats.”

The Russian leader recalled that “more than 80% of the trade between China and Russia is carried out in rubles and yuan” and encouraged other countries to follow suit and abandon the dollar. The President of Russia once again condemned the Western policy of “sanctions, pressure, and provocations,” which will never be able to bring Russia to its knees and which, in spite of everything, “continues to develop like never before.”

Moscow’s criticism of Western sanctions is widely shared by China that has just canceled the visit to Beijing by Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union.

In his speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized China’s opposition to “protectionism and unilateral sanctions” with an implicit call to the United States.

“All of us together must resist the construction of walls and barriers, the dissociation (disengagement, separation – ed.) of economies. We must break these bonds and strive to benefit the whole world,” President Xi said in his speech, once again targeting the practices used by the West led by the United States. According to the Chinese leader, “the SCO countries should follow the right course of solidarity and mutual trust.”

Finally, Xi Jinping promoted the initiative “One Belt, One Road” – a maxi-plan for the development of the Eurasian infrastructure relaunched in 2013, also known as the Silk Road, joined by several countries of Greater Eurasia.