The project was initially announced in September 2023 but was later delayed due to the outbreak of the war on Gaza.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing Indian diplomat Sunjay Sudhir, that India and the UAE have begun to work on the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), an initiative that aims to establish an alternative trade route from India to Europe.
“India and UAE being the first two countries in the corridor, it is very important for us to take the lead,” Indian Ambassador to the UAE, Sunjay Sudhir, told Bloomberg.
A significant portion of India’s trade with Europe passes through the Red Sea, he said, noting that the creation of alternative routes is essential given the present geopolitical context.
During Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE from February 13-15, India and the UAE signed a framework agreement to initiate work on the IMEC, Sudhir said.
He added that India’s government ministries responsible for ports and shipping commenced discussions with the port authorities in Abu Dhabi regarding this initiative.
This comes against the backdrop of heightened tensions between China and India. Observers have argued that the construction of the corridor is explicitly aimed at containing China in global trade.
A report by Politico in December 2023 detailed that the purpose of the project is to create an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, from which India, as well as the US, will benefit.
“American interest in exploring and developing Indian supply chains has intensified under Biden,” a senior Indian diplomat based told Politico. “The US is committed to making this a success; it’s a big part of their design,” he said.
The genocide has sparked several resistance movements across the region to initiate operations targeting “Israel” or Israeli-linked elements.
Among them are the Ansar Allah resistance movement in Yemen. Since the start of the Gaza genocide, they have been actively targeting Israeli-linked vessels.
Besides Israeli-linked vessels, transit through the Red Sea is normally safe for all commercial ships and vessels.
However, due to aggressions perpetrated by US-UK naval forces on Yemeni positions, the Red Sea route has become difficult to access.
The construction of the IMEC corridor will thus bypass the Red Sea route by building a trade route stretching from India to Europe and will involve both sea routes and rail routes.
Starting from India, the corridor will first transit through the UAE, followed by Saudi Arabia, the occupied territories, to finally reach Europe.
By Palestine Chronicle Staff After many days of siege, and sniping of many civilians in its vicinity, Israel bombed the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis before turning it into a military barracks, the […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The military media of Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, released a video on Wednesday. Unlike previous videos, the five-minute reel contained commentary by one […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff Irish airline Ryanair has canceled all its flights to and from Israel for the months of March and April amid the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, Aviation News Israel reported […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff This is not the first time an Israeli delegation has been prevented from participating in an African Union Summit. The African Union prevented an Israeli delegation from entering its headquarters […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff “Netanyahu did not allow the negotiating team to return to Egypt on Thursday to continue talks on a hostage deal”, Israeli Channel 12 reported. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has […]
By Ramzy Baroud It is interesting how the colonizers and the colonized continue to build relations and solidarity around the same old principles. On February 8, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was in Washington on […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The attacks on civilian homes came after the Lebanese Resistance Movement Hezbollah carried out a major operation earlier on Wednesday. The Israeli army launched a series of airstrikes across several […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The US is reportedly assessing Israel’s ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 28,500 civilians. The US State Department has said that under a new initiative, […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza has been under siege by Israeli forces for several days, with reports of civilian casualties, obstructed access, and denied humanitarian missions. The World Health […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid has slammed the Israeli government, saying it sent a delegation to the Cairo negotiations to discuss a truce in the Gaza Strip as a “listener.” […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The 17 defendants convicted of espionage, pleaded for acquittal, while government prosecutors sought punishment for providing information to the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. A local court in Türkiye has sentenced […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff An Israeli was killed and at least seven others were injured as a result of a missile that was launched from southern Lebanon on Wednesday and targeted the city of […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff Israeli media reported that one Israeli was killed and several others were wounded in Safed following a bombing of the city from Lebanon. Hezbollah reportedly used precise missiles and the […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas, announced the targeting of 22 Israeli soldiers in three separate ambushes in less than 24 hours. For its […]
Several displaced Palestinians were killed and injured on Tuesday in an Israeli shelling targeting a hospital in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Strip said. The casualties occurred as displaced […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas was not informed of a four-way meeting taking place in the Egyptian capital of Cairo to discuss a truce in Gaza, Al-Mayadeen reported on Tuesday. […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff An Indian company has dispatched Hermes 900 killer drones to Israel to be employed in its genocidal war on the Gaza strip, a report says. The report, published in early […]
By Palestine Chronicle Staff The UN General Assembly Chief adds his voice to increasing concerns about the catastrophic consequences of an Israeli ground incursion into Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are seeking […]
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By Palestine Chronicle Staff An UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip has once again come under Israeli fire, resulting in one staff member being killed and another injured. The Israeli army has opened fire […]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that there are no prospects for a quick stabilization of the situation in the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s “uncompromising attitude”. Speaking at a meeting of the […]
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US President Joe Biden said that Israel’s response in Gaza has been “over the top” and said he is seeking a “sustained pause in the fighting” to help the civilian population in the Strip.
Israeli occupation forces continue to pound Gaza by air, land and sea, killing scores of Palestinians, while Israeli media confirm the seizure of hundreds of bodies, which were transferred to Israel.
UNICEF warns against the escalation of fighting in the southern city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people are seeking shelter.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 27,947 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,459 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
LATEST UPDATES
Friday, February 9, 5:00 pm (GMT+2)
PRCS: We lost contact with our staff at Al Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis after the occupation stormed the hospital.
AL-JAZEERA: Jordanian security prevents demonstrators from reaching the crossing between Jordan and Israel
INDIA: News reports said that India had delivered more than 20 locally manufactured drones to Israel.
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Netanyahu instructed the army to prepare a dual plan to evacuate the Palestinians and crush the Hamas brigades in Rafah.
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Netanyahu instructed the army to prepare a dual plan to evacuate the Palestinians and crush the Hamas brigades in Rafah.
WFP: The people of Gaza are living in a humanitarian catastrophe. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Violent clashes between are taking place between the Resistance and the occupation forces, and that he heard explosions and gunfire in the vicinity of Al Awda Schools in Abasan Al Kabira, east of Khan Yunis.
PENTAGON: Austin discussed with Gallant the post-war period in Gaza HEZBOLLAH: Our fighters destroyed an Israeli Merkava tank that was targeted at the Al-Baghdadi site.
Friday, February 9, 2:40 pm (GMT+2)
ISRAEL HAYOM: An Israeli delegation arrived to Cairo to discuss the deal. PRCS: Israeli occupation forces stormed the association’s Al-Amal Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. YEDIOTH AHRONOTH: Netanyahu has criticized the army for its slow progress in Gaza.
AL-JAZEERA: Two missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards an Israeli position in the Galilee finger in northern Israel. UNICEF: Gaza is witnessing the worst levels of child malnutrition in the world. SYRIAN NEWS AGENCY: Our air defense confronted enemy targets in the vicinity of Damascus.
Friday, February 9, 1:40 pm (GMT+2)
GAZA GOVERNMENT MEDIA OFFICE: Famine is worsening in the north of the Strip. FINANCIAL TIMES: The disagreement between Netanyahu and Blinken includes issues of the next phase of the war and ways to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: An Israeli drone bombed a house in the town of Markaba and the vicinity of the town of Yahmar in southern Lebanon.
GAZA GOVERNMENT MEDIA OFFICE: Famine is worsening in the north of the Strip.
AL-QUDS BRIGADES: We are engaged in fierce clashes west of Khan Yunis. PENTAGON: We are still evaluating retaliatory strikes for the killing of our soldiers. MAYOR OF KIRYAT SHMONA: “More than 21,000 have been displaced from their homes and will not return until security is restored.”
Friday, February 9, 12:30 pm (GMT+2) HEZBOLLAH: We targeted “espionage equipment in the Duviv Barracks with appropriate weapons and achieved a direct hit.” IRAN: We attach great importance to the security of navigation in the Red Sea. Stopping the Israeli attack on Gaza will create conditions for restoring stability in the Red Sea. AL-JAZEERA: Israeli aircraft launched a raid near Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.
AL-JAZEERA: Israeli aircraft launched a raid near Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: A Palestinian was killed by occupation sniper bullets outside the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, bringing the number of martyrs in the city to 8 since this morning.
Friday, February 9, 11:00 am (GMT+2) GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY: 27,947 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,459 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY: 27,947 Palestinians have been killed, and 67,459 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
ISRAELI MEDIA: 3 soldiers were transferred to Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, Negev, after sustaining serious injuries in battles in the Gaza Strip. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: 7 displaced people who were forced by the Israeli occupation forces to leave two schools in Khan Yunis camp were killed. UNICEF: An escalation of fighting in Rafah would represent another devastating turn in the war, and could claim the lives of thousands. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in the Israeli bombing of homes in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip since Thursday evening.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: 15 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in the Israeli bombing of homes in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip since Thursday evening.
Friday, February 9, 09:00 am (GMT+2) HAARETZ: Blinken’s visit revealed the depth of the dispute with Netanyahu. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: An elderly man and a young man were killed by Israeli occupation snipers in the vicinity of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. Friday, February 9, 08:00 am (GMT+2) PALESTINIAN MEDIA: The occupation forces displaced people to leave two schools in Khan Yunis. ISRAELI MEDIA: The army transported about 350 bodies of Palestinians from Gaza as part of its search for the bodies of detained Israelis. Friday, February 9, 07:00 am (GMT+2) PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Israeli bombing targets a house in Jabaliya al-Balad. Friday, February 9, 06:00 am (GMT+2) US SENATOR WARREN: Biden’s memorandum sets conditions on aid to Israel and countries that receive US military aid. NORTHERN IRELAND PM: Hamas will ultimately be a partner in peace in the Middle East. Dialogue is the only way to end the conflict in the Middle East.
NORTHERN IRELAND PM: Hamas will ultimately be a partner in peace in the Middle East. Dialogue is the only way to end the conflict in the Middle East.
US MEDIA: US President Joe Biden issued a memorandum requiring governments that receive US weapons to provide written guarantees of compliance with international and US law. Friday, February 9, 05:00 am (GMT+2) BIDEN: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi did not initially want to open the Rafah crossing gate for aid to enter Gaza, but he spoke to him and convinced him to open it. US ARMY: Our forces launched 7 strikes on Thursday against Houthi targets. Friday, February 9, 04:00 am (GMT+2) BIDEN: I am of the opinion that the Israeli response in Gaza has been “over the top”. Friday, February 9, 03:00 am (GMT+2) AL-JAZEERA: The death toll resulting from the Israeli bombing of Rafah has risen to 8 including 3 children.
AL-JAZEERA: The death toll resulting from the Israeli bombing of Rafah has risen to 8 including 3 children.
Friday, February 9, 02:00 am (GMT+2) AL-JAZEERA: 6 people, including 3 children, were killed in an Israeli bombing of two houses in Rafah, south of Gaza. 5 people, including 3 children, were killed in an Israeli bombing that targeted two homes in the city of Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Four Palestinians were killed and injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a kindergarten housing displaced people in the town of Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip. US STATE DEPARTMENT: Blinken and his Saudi counterpart pledged to continue close coordination to increase aid to Gaza. Friday, February 9, 01:00 am (GMT+2) AL-JAZEERA: There were casualties in an Israeli bombing that targeted a kindergarten in the Al-Zawaida area in the central Gaza Strip. HEZBOLLAH: We targeted the headquarters of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at the Ain Zeitim base with dozens of Katyusha rockets. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Violent explosions resulted from the Resistance’s response to the occupation’s attempts to advance under heavy fire cover in the center of Gaza City.
PALESTINIAN MEDIA: A Palestinian woman was killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, and rescue teams are searching for missing persons.
YEDIOTH AHRONOTH: Blinken felt that Netanyahu was seeking confrontation with Washington over the Palestinian issue. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: A Palestinian woman was killed and others were injured in an Israeli bombing that targeted a house in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, and rescue teams are searching for missing persons. AL-JAZEERA: 30 missiles were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israeli positions in Upper Galilee. Friday, February 9, 12:00 am (GMT+2) GLOBES: Moody’s is likely to lower Israel’s credit rating on Friday. PALESTINIAN MEDIA: Violent clashes and intense bombing in the southwestern areas of Gaza City. Violent Israeli bombardment shook the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Thursday, February 8, 9:30 pm (GMT+2) BERNIE SANDERS: The US Senate is considering granting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu $14 billion to continue the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. (The Palestine Chronicle) Donate NOWLearn MoreWatch Video
Al Mayadeen’s sources specify that the one of the ships was targeted off the coast of Maldives and the second was targeted off the coast of Veraval India.
Informed sources revealed to Al Mayadeen today that the Iranian Islamic Revolution’s Guard Corp was behind the targeting of the two Israeli ships in the Indian Ocean earlier this month on January 4th.
The sources emphasized that “the IRGC attack against two Israeli ships came as a retaliation to the assassination of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri [in Beirut], and the Iranian commander in Syria, Brigadier General Razi Mousavi.”
The sources explained that “one of the ships was targeted northwest of the Maldives, while the second was targeted 200 miles off the coast of Viraaval, India.”
The sources confirmed that “the Iranian strike against Israel [which blindsided the Israelis] came in response to the assassination of leaders in the axis of resistance.”
Back on January 9th, Al Mayadeen’s sources revealed that two Israeli ships loaded with a massive amount of oil were targeted in the Indian Ocean on January 4, 2024.
According to the sources, the first ship, CHEM SILICON, belonging to the ACE company and flying the flag of Liberia, was targeted northwest of the Maldives.
As for the second ship, PACIFIC GOLD, belonging to the Eastern company, it was targeted near the port of Kochi in India.
The operation came approximately 48 hours after the assassination of Hamas’ deputy chief Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri on January 2, in an Israeli strike that targeted the Southern Suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut.
The operation also came 10 days after the the assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) military advisor, Brigadier General Seyyed Razi Mousavi in Damascus.
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The India-Middle East-Europe transportation corridor may be the talk of the town, but it will likely go the way of the last three Asia-to-Europe connectivity projects touted by the west – to the dustbin. Here’s why.
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) is a massive public diplomacy op launched at the recent G20 summit in New Delhi, complete with a memorandum of understanding signed on 9 September.
Players include the US, India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the EU, with a special role for the latter’s top three powers Germany, France, and Italy. It’s a multimodal railway project, coupled with trans-shipments and with ancillary digital and electricity roads extending to Jordan and Israel.
If this walks and talks like the collective west’s very late response to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched 10 years ago and celebrating a Belt and Road Forum in Beijing next month, that’s because it is. And yes, it is, above all, yet another American project to bypass China, to be claimed for crude electoral purposes as a meager foreign policy “success.”
No one among the Global Majority remembers that the Americans came up with their own Silk Road plan way back in 2010. The concept came from the State Department’s Kurt Campbell and was sold by then-Secretary Hillary Clinton as her idea. History is implacable, it came down to nought.
And no one among the Global Majority remembers the New Silk Road plan peddled by Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the early 2010s, complete with four troublesome trans-shipments in the Black Sea and the Caspian. History is implacable, this too came down to nought.
In fact, very few among the Global Majority remember the $40 trillion US-sponsored Build Back Better World (BBBW, or B3W) global plan rolled out with great fanfare just two summers ago, focusing on “climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.”
A year later, at a G7 meeting, B3W had already shrunk to a $600 billion infrastructure-and-investment project. Of course, nothing was built. History really is implacable, it came down to nought.
The same fate awaits IMEC, for a number of very specific reasons.
Map of The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)
Pivoting to a black void
The whole IMEC rationale rests on what writer and former Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar deliciously described as “conjuring up the Abraham Accords by the incantation of a Saudi-Israeli tango.”
This tango is Dead On Arrival; even the ghost of Piazzolla can’t revive it. For starters, one of the principals – Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman – has made it clear that Riyadh’s priorities are a new, energized Chinese-brokered relationship with Iran, with Turkiye, and with Syria after its return to the Arab League.
Moreover, both Riyadh and its Emirati IMEC partner share immense trade, commerce, and energy interests with China, so they’re not going to do anything to upset Beijing.
At face value, IMEC proposes a joint drive by G7 and BRICS 11 nations. That’s the western method of seducing eternally-hedging India under Modi and US-allied Saudi Arabia and the UAE to its agenda.
Its real intention, however, is not only to undermine BRI, but also the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC), in which India is a major player alongside Russia and Iran.
The game is quite crude and really quite obvious: a transportation corridor conceived to bypass the top three vectors of real Eurasia integration – and BRICS members China, Russia, and Iran – by dangling an enticing Divide and Rule carrot that promises Things That Cannot Be Delivered.
The American neoliberal obsession at this stage of the New Great Game is, as always, all about Israel. Their goal is to make Haifa port viable and turn it into a key transportation hub between West Asia and Europe. Everything else is subordinated to this Israeli imperative.
IMEC, in principle, will transit across West Asia to link India to Eastern and Western Europe – selling the fiction that India is a Global Pivot state and a Convergence of Civilizations.
Nonsense. While India’s great dream is to become a pivot state, its best shot would be via the already up-and-running INTSC, which could open markets to New Delhi from Central Asia to the Caucasus. Otherwise, as a Global Pivot state, Russia is way ahead of India diplomatically, and China is way ahead in trade and connectivity.
Comparisons between IMEC and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are futile. IMEC is a joke compared to this BRI flagship project: the $57.7 billion plan to build a railway over 3,000 km long linking Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar in the Arabian Sea, which will connect to other overland BRI corridors heading toward Iran and Turkiye.
This is a matter of national security for China. So bets can be made that the leadership in Beijing will have some discreet and serious conversations with the current fifth-columnists in power in Islamabad, before or during the Belt and Road Forum, to remind them of the relevant geostrategic, geoeconomic, and investment Facts.
So, what’s left for Indian trade in all of this? Not much. They already use the Suez Canal, a direct, tested route. There’s no incentive to even start contemplating being stuck in black voids across the vast desert expanses surrounding the Persian Gulf.
One glaring problem, for example, is that almost 1,100 km of tracks are “missing” from the railway from Fujairah in the UAE to Haifa, 745 km “missing” from Jebel Ali in Dubai to Haifa, and 630 km “missing” from the railway from Abu Dhabi to Haifa.
When all the missing links are added up, there’s over 3,000 km of railway still to be built. The Chinese, of course, can do this for breakfast and on a dime, but they are not part of this game. And there’s no evidence the IMEC gang plans to invite them.
All eyes on Syunik
In the War of Transportation Corridors charted in detail for The Cradle in June 2022, it becomes clear that intentions rarely meet reality. These grand projects are all about logistics, logistics, logistics – of course, intertwined with the three other key pillars: energy and energy resources, labor and manufacturing, and market/trade rules.
Let’s examine a Central Asian example. Russia and three Central Asian “stans” – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – are launching a multimodal Southern Transportation Corridor which will bypass Kazakhstan.
Why? After all, Kazakhstan, alongside Russia, is a key member of both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The reason is because this new corridor solves two key problems for Russia that arose with the west’s sanctions hysteria. It bypasses the Kazakh border, where everything going to Russia is scrutinized in excruciating detail. And a significant part of the cargo may now be transferred to the Russian port of Astrakhan in the Caspian.
So Astana, which under western pressure has played a risky hedging game on Russia, may end up losing the status of a full-fledged transport hub in Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region. Kazakhstan is also part of BRI; the Chinese are already very much interested in the potential of this new corridor.
In the Caucasus, the story is even more complex, and once again, it’s all about Divide and Rule.
Two months ago, Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan committed to building a single railway from Iran and its ports in the Persian Gulf through Azerbaijan, to be linked to the Russian-Eastern Europe railway system.
This is a railway project on the scale of the Trans-Siberian – to connect Eastern Europe with Eastern Africa and South Asia, bypassing the Suez Canal and European ports. The INSTC on steroids, in fact.
Guess what happened next? A provocation in Nagorno-Karabakh, with the deadly potential of involving not only Armenia and Azerbaijan but also Iran and Turkiye.
Tehran has been crystal clear on its red lines: it will never allow a defeat of Armenia, with direct participation from Turkiye, which fully supports Azerbaijan.
Add to the incendiary mix are joint military exercises with the US in Armenia – which happens to be a member of the Russian-led CSTO – cast, for public consumption, as one of those seemingly innocent “partnership” NATO programs.
This all spells out an IMEC subplot bound to undermine INTSC. Both Russia and Iran are fully aware of the former’s endemic weaknesses: political trouble between several participants, those “missing links” of track, and all important infrastructure still to be built.
Turkish Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, will never give up the Zangezur corridor across Syunik, the south Armenian province, which was envisaged by the 2020 armistice, linking Azerbaijan to Turkiye via the Azeri enclave of Nakhitchevan – that will run through Armenian territory.
Baku did threaten to attack southern Armenia if the Zangezur corridor was not facilitated by Yerevan. So Syunik is the next big unresolved deal in this riddle. Tehran, it must be noted, will go no holds barred to prevent a Turkish-Israeli-NATO corridor cutting Iran off from Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, and Russia. That would be the reality if this NATO-tinted coalition grabs Syunik.
Today, Erdogan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev meet in the Nakhchivan enclave between Turkiye, Armenia, and Iran to start a gas pipeline and open a military production complex.
The Sultan knows that Zangezur may finally allow Turkiye to be linked to China via a corridor that will transit the Turkic world, in Azerbaijan and the Caspian. This would also allow the collective west to go even bolder on Divide and Rule against Russia and Iran.
Is the IMEC another far-fetched western fantasy? The place to watch is Syunik.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
One of the biggest announcements to come out of the G20 summit in New Delhi was the launch of an ambitious plan to build an economic corridor linking Europe with the Middle East and India via rail and sea.
A 325-word Memorandum of Understanding inked by India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France, Italy, the European Union and the United States, outlines how this newly envisaged network would help boost trade, deliver energy resources and improve digital connectivity.
The so-called India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC, comprises two separate routes – an east corridor linking India to the Gulf monarchies and a northern corridor connecting the Arab states to Europe.
“Israel” is not a signatory but is mentioned in the MoU as one of the transit points for goods and services moving through the ship-to-rail network.
For “Israeli” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been desperately trying to normalize ties with Saudi Arabia, it didn’t matter whether Tel Aviv is a signatory or not. He jumped on the news coming out of New Delhi and declared that “Israel” was “a central junction in this economic corridor”, which would “change the face of the Middle East.”
Netanyahu isn’t the only one hyping up the project. Some in the mainstream media have already dubbed it a “game-changer”, and the White House claims the corridor is ushering in a “new era of connectivity.” But is the planned trade route any of those things?
There is no alternative to the alternative
The unveiling of IMEC was almost immediately characterized as a challenge to China’s Belt and Road Initiative [BRI].
The latter is the world’s largest infrastructure project that seeks to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks with the aim of advancing integration, increasing trade and stimulating economic growth.
Naturally, this massive Chinese foreign policy undertaking is perceived as a major threat to US hegemony. Washington responded by peddling the narrative that the BRI is a debt trap as it leaned on ‘allies’ to abandon the Chinese program while trying to improve its own competitiveness on the global stage.
IMEC is supposed to be part of the Biden administration’s alternative to the BRI. It’s true that both initiatives share many of the same objectives and methods of implementation. In theory, at least, both are designed to connect manufacturers in Asia with consumers in the West, while implementing infrastructure projects along the corridors.
But the BRI has already lived up to the hype and will make for tough competition. The Chinese have invested around $1 trillion into the scheme that now extends across 150 countries, including IMEC signatories, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. And unlike “Israel”, these two countries are the actual “central junction” in the new economic corridor.
Here, it’s important to note that China is already Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner and the biggest investor in the Kingdom’s economy.
Speculation about the Americans trying to rip India out of BRICS, while working to help New Delhi replace the Chinese as Riyadh’s key trading partner may very well be accurate. But these are unrealistic objectives.
The Chinese are investing billions into the Saudi economy while New Delhi is looking for cash injections from Riyadh. According to modest projections, the Saudis will cough up around $100 billion for India’s economy in the coming years while the current turnover of more than $50 billion is also the result of Riyadh’s investments in this partnership.
Furthermore, the West’s failure to ‘Ukrainize’ the G20 summit in New Delhi is just another reminder that India has no interest in abandoning its role in the expanding BRICS bloc. Instead, both India and Saudi Arabia, along with the rest of the Global South, have embraced multipolarity and are exploring numerous multilateral frameworks for advancing their national interests.
As such, China’s BRI and the billions it pumps into the Saudi economy will undoubtedly remain a priority for Riyadh. As the Saudis and Emiratis forge ahead with the diversification of their economic relations, including the expansion of ties with Iran, they are likely to seek the integration of the BRI and IMEC into a single global artery of logistics. This integration with existing networks is perhaps the only logical step for realizing IMEC’s true potential.
The main speedbump is the US, which wants to use the initiative as a political tool against China and Russia and grow its influence in the countries along the corridor rather than focus on mutual economic development.
Still No Framework for Normalization
With numerous transportation and logistics projects springing up across the Eurasia region, Gulf states haven’t failed to realize their infrastructure potential. The member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council are mapping out their own sea and land freight routes, which led to the revival of the massive Gulf Railway project.
The railway system, which is expected to be completed by 2025 and cost around $250 billion, will link all six GCC members. Presumably, this is the same railway system that “Israel” wants to plug in to guarantee its place in IMEC and normalize ties with Saudi Arabia.
In July, Netanyahu announced plans for the construction of a $27 billion rail expansion that could provide overland links to Saudi Arabia in the future. But the Saudis still haven’t responded to that announcement.
That same month, Biden himself said that “Israel” and Saudi Arabia were a long way from a normalization agreement. Meanwhile, his national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, admitted on the way to the G20 summit in India that there is still no actual framework for normalization.
When asked whether IMEC was part of normalization efforts between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, the State Department’s Matthew Miller said, “No, it is separate.”
It probably doesn’t help that the Biden administration has a tumultuous relationship with both the Netanyahu government and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
Some of the elements for normalization are undoubtedly on the table. However, nothing has been finalized.
Of course, it makes far more sense for the Gulf Railway project to be directed towards Syria and Lebanon, which are perfectly positioned for the role of a bridge in any future India-Europe economic corridor.
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Episode 38 of 60 Minutes – September 10, 2023 – A maneuver against China after the failure of Russia’s siege in New Delhi…and what is Qatar doing?
Former Suez Canal Authority Head asserts that there is no substitute for the Suez Canal in maritime transport, in response to the announcement of the Economic Corridor project by the United States, India, and Saudi Arabia.
General Mohab Mamish, former adviser to the President and former head of the Suez Canal Authority, emphasized that there is no alternative to the Suez Canal, which stands as the fastest route for maritime transport.
These statements come in response to the announcement made by the United States, India, and Saudi Arabia on the sides of the G20 summit on Saturday, regarding the launch of the Economic Corridor project which connects India to the Middle East and Europe through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and the Israeli occupation.
In televised remarks, Mamish stressed that there can be “no comparison between a multimodal project and the Suez Canal, which is the fastest maritime route in the world.”
He also denied any potential impacts or repercussions on the canal in the future, stating that “the transportation process through it [the Economic Corridor] would be costly, time-consuming, and against the economics of maritime transport.”
Mamish explained that the project involves “transporting goods by sea, then by rail, followed by land transport vehicles before finally unloading on land.” He added that this is a “highly costly process with no comparison to the Suez Canal.”
In contrast, he explained that the Suez Canal is “capable and prepared to compete since it is the fastest, deepest, and most secure canal in the world. In just 11 hours, we reach the Red Sea and connect to Asia, Europe, and all the world’s ports.”
It is worth noting that the Suez Canal is an artificial waterway at sea level in Egypt, running from north to south through the Suez Isthmus to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. It serves as the shortest maritime route between Europe and countries surrounding the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean, making it one of the busiest shipping lanes globally.
During the G20 summit in New Delhi, US President Joe Biden announced a plan to build a railway and shipping corridor connecting India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the European Union, aiming to boost trade and political cooperation.
Biden stated that this deal is “truly significant,” noting that the corridor “will help enhance trade, secure energy resources, and improve digital connectivity.”
The announcement was also attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and other leaders from around the world.
According to information released, “Israel will participate in extending the railway tracks, infrastructure, and shipping lines, along with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan.”
The White House did not however specify when the project would be completed, its cost, or how it would be financed.
The Pakistani Army’s persecution of Imran Khan is not only one of the worst ever scandals in Pakistan’s scandal-ridden political history but one of the most shameful in global politics and global sport as well.
Khan was Pakistan’s Prime Minister when the Army, working on the explicit instructions of the CIA, overthrew him in a coup, jailed him on trumped up corruption charges, barred him from any political activity in the near future and replaced him with a group of London-based gangsters, all of whom came from the Shariff wing of the Army-controlled Bhutto/Shariff political divide.
Prior to his rise to political prominence, Khan captained Pakistan to their 1992 World Cricket Cup victory triumph, a feat that helped cement his role as one of cricket’s all time greats, on a par with even Australia’s great Sir Don Bradman, widely acknowledged as history’s greatest ever cricketer.
But whereas Bradman finished his career in 1948 when cricket was dominated largely by the English upper crust and harder-boiled Ossies, Khan came through in the modern era when the Indian sub continent had cricket gods rather than mere stars and few of those gods were bigger or worshipped more reverently than Khan, who quickly became a household name in the English-speaking world.
And quite a playboy as well, as his good looks, Midas-like bank balance and sporting prowess put him on a par with the biggest of Hollywood’s mega- stars. And on top of all that, there was his incredible philanthropy where he paid for two entire hospitals in Pakistan out of his own pocket.
Helped along by of all that, Khan’s party eventually shot to power in August 2018, whereupon Khan began navigating the very dangerous waters of Pakistan’s Army-controlled politics. Khan’s independence was a turn up for the books as Pakistan has traditionally been a playground for British and American deep state shenanigans working through their Bhutto/Shariff puppets, which the Pakistani Army control on their behalf. None of its prime ministers came to power without MI6’s backing (except for Zia who was a Yankee puppet). Whatever about Zia, Khan was nobody’s poodle. He was a Pakistani patriot and a thoroughly good guy through and through.
Which is probably what quickly landed him in the soup after Russia’s intervention in the Ukrainian civil war when Khan declared that Pakistan would not only stay neutral but would buy oil from Russia and also strive to maintain friendly relations with Russia, but with India and China as well.
To put this eminently sensible stance in perspective, Pakistan has been tottering on the brink of defaulting on its debt for years now and it simply does not have the money to buy oil, fertiliser, tea and other essentials. In such a scenario, it made eminent sense to cut a deal with Russia and everyone and anyone else who would help keep Pakistan afloat.
Pakistan has less than $4 billion of foreign exchange reserves, but has to pay back $25 billion to the IMF and other Western loan sharks over the next year. Pakistan’s total external debt is a whopping $120 billion. Although China has offered a comparatively modest $2 billion in help, China cannot be Pakistan’s permanent crutch. And Pakistan needs far more than a Chinese crutch to escape the economic abyss devouring it.
Pakistan owes China $27 billion, the IMF, World Bank and ADB consortium a further $45 billion, with tens of billions more owed to Wall Street, London bond holders and NATO’s other extortionists. Given that interest rates and rice prices are all going north, and that Pakistan is another NATO-induced basket case, Pakistan needs smart and patriotic leaders with the moral grit of their former cricket captain, who will bite the bullet and default on these unconscionable NATO loans so that Pakistan might start anew with a clean slate.
The Yanks and their British sidekicks, who are deeply embedded in the Pakistani military, its fearsome secret service in particular, will have none of that or anything remotely resembling it. Despite unprecedented crowds coming out in his support, Khan and thousands of his supporters were jailed and their families were given the kinds of threats that would lead elsewhere to very long custodial sentences.
Not in Pakistan where the thugs of the Pakistani High Command call the shots. This is the same British-trained military, remember, that raped the girls and women of East Pakistan, Bangladesh, from one end of the country to the other, when Bangladesh declared independence in 1971 and that has had a very sinister working relationship with Afghanistan’s Taliban for decades now. Because Pakistan’s top brass are dangerous thugs, their threats, many of which were carried out, have to be taken very seriously indeed.
Although the Pakistani military have repeatedly claimed that they are the upholders of the Pakistani constitution and sovereignty, the truth is that they and their CIA and MI6 playmates have been a cancer at the heart of Pakistani society for decades now.
Khan’s way, to maintain friendly relations with all players and to pull Pakistan out of the mire, was the obvious way to go. But not for the CIA, MI6 or their buddies in Pakistani military intelligence, who are as determined to freeze Khan out as are their American masters to freeze Trump out of their own excuses for elections.
This is at a time, remember, when Sri Lankan test cricketers have been bombed in Pakistan as part of the ISIS/CIA plans to destabilise Pakistan, contain China and, with the help of the sewer rats of the BBC, libel Imran Khan, Taliban Khan, as those toffee nosed dogs call Khan, whose boots those BBC rats are not fit to lick.
Khan, as it happens, is an ethnic Pashtun, the same tribal confederation that fought the BBC’s British rapists in Afghanistan and who do all the heavy work in Pakistan in all kinds of weather. In sniggering that Khan was “bowled out” the BBC, after dutifully repeating all the CIA tropes about both him and Pakistan, snigger that Khan referred to former CIA agent Osama Bin Laden as a “martyr”. But, if one travels to the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, one sees that that is the precise word the Syrians use to describe martyred Turkish soldiers who formerly occupied Sham and whose guts the Syrians traditionally hated for very good reasons. Not only has the word, in other words, a different connotation east of Vienna than the one that fits the BBC/MI6 agenda but the BBC would know that to be the case as they have been interfering in other people’s affairs for well over a century now.
Scoff all they will or be as silently complicit on Pakistan’s tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience as the BBC, Amnesty International, the Nobel Institute and all of the other NATO bought and bribed mouthpieces are but, because of their criminal complicity in Pakistan’s agony, Pakistan, which has seen none worthier than Imran Khan before, will never now see his likes again unless the BBC and all lickspittles like them are booted aside. Fast bowler, effective batter, philanthropist, Prime Minister, a top candidate for the best-looking cricketer of all-time and perhaps the greatest and bravest Pakistani patriot of them all. The hope has to be that, just as his bowling and batting inspired millions of his young compatriots, so also will his living martyrdom inspire tens of millions to rise and put Pakistan’s corrupt military, Pakistan’s corrupt politicians and Pakistan’s corrupt judiciary as well as their British, Australian and American enablers in their place and pull Pakistan’s hundreds of millions out of the NATO inspired penury the great Imran Khan tried to save them from.
Discussions at the recent SCO Summit in New Delhi now point to the inevitable: The merging of new multipolar organizations and their collective reorganization of global finance.
The 23rd summit of the heads of state of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held virtually in New Delhi, represented History in the making: three BRICS (Russia, India, China), plus Pakistan and four Central Asian “stans” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan), finally and formally, welcomed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a permanent member.
And next year will be Belarus’ turn, as confirmed by India’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Vinay Kvatra. Belarus and Mongolia took part in the 2023 summit as observers, and fiercely independent Turkmenistan, as a guest.
After years of US “maximum pressure,” Tehran may now finally get rid of the sanctions dementia and solidify its leading role in the ongoing process of Eurasia integration.
Arguably, the star of the show in New Delhi was Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has led his country since 1994.
Old Man Luka, unbeatable in the headline-stealing department, especially after his mediator role in the Prighozin saga, may have coined the definitive slogan of multipolarity. Forget the western-termed “golden billion” which in fact barely reaches 100 million; embrace now the “Global Globe” – with a firm focus on the Global South.
As the clincher, Lukashenko proposed total integration of the SCO and BRICS – which in their upcoming summit in South Africa will be heading the BRICS+ way. And it goes without saying, this integration also applies to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
The next step for the “Global Globe” – what the collective west dismissively qualifies as “the rest” – is to work on the complex coordination of several development banks and then the process to issue bonds linked to a new trading currency.
The main ideas and the basic template already exist. The new bonds will be a real safe heaven compared to the US dollar and US Treasuries, and will imply accelerated de-dollarization. Capital used to purchase those bonds should be used to finance trade and sustainable development, in what will be a certified, Chinese-style “win-win.”
A converging geoeconomic focus
The SCO declaration made it clear that the expanding multilateral body is “not directed against other states and international organizations.” On the contrary, it is “open to broad cooperation with them in accordance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, the SCO Charter and international law, based on consideration of mutual interests.”
The heart of the matter is of course the drive towards a fair multipolar world order – the polar opposite of the Hegemon-imposed “rules-based international order.” And the three key nodes are mutual security; trade in local currencies, and eventually, de-dollarization.
It’s quite enlightening to outline the converging focus, expressed by most leaders, during the New Delhi summit.
India’s Prime Minister Modi stated in his keynote address that the SCO will be as important as the UN. Translation: a toothless UN controlled by the Hegemon may end up being sidelined by a real “Global Globe” organization.
In parallel to Modi praising the key role of Iran in the development of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi firmly supported SCO trade in national currencies to decisively break the US dollar’s hegemony.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, for his part, was adamant: China is all in favor to sideline the US dollar, stand firm against all forms of color revolutions, and fight against unilateral economic sanctions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin once again stressed how “external forces have put Russia’s security at threat by unleashing hybrid war against Russia and Russians in Ukraine.”
Pragmatically, Putin expects trade within the SCO, using national currencies, to grow – 80 percent of Russia’s trade is now in rubles and yuan – plus a renewed cooperation drive in banking, digitalization, high-tech, and agriculture.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov also stressed mutual settlements in national currencies, plus a crucial move: the setting up of a SCO development bank and development fund, quite similar to the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB).
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan, which will exercise the SCO presidency in 2024, also supported a common investment fund, plus the configuration of a network of partners of major strategic ports connected to China’s BRI as well as the Astana-based Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, linking Southeast Asia, China, Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Europe.
Of course all SCO members agreed that no Eurasia integration is possible without stabilizing Afghanistan – in fact linking Kabul geoeconomically with both BRI and the INSTC. But that’s another long, twisting story entirely.
Strategic connectivity rules
Now compare all that action in New Delhi with what happened in Tianjin a few days before, in late June: the World Economic Forum (WEF) event known as the “summer Davos”, held for the first time after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s critique of the new US/EU “de-risking” slogan may have been predictably sharp. What was way more intriguing was a BRI panel discussion titled “The Future of the Belt and Road Initiative.”
In a nutshell, that was some sort of “green” apotheosis. Liang Linchong, from the National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) Department of Regional Opening-Up, which is essential to promote BRI, detailed several clean energy projects, for instance, in key BRI nodes Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
Africa was also prominently featured. Sekai Nzenza, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Industry and Commerce, is very much in favor of BRI projects increasing trade “and bringing the latest technology” within Africa and globally.
Beijing will revive the Belt and Road Forum later this year. There are huge expectations across the “Global Globe.”
Liang Linchong did go for a breakdown of what lies ahead: “Hard connectivity” (that means infrastructure building), “soft connectivity” (emphasis on skills, technologies and standards), and “connection of hearts,” which translates into the notorious Chinese concept of “people to people exchanges.”
So what the “Global Globe” should expect, according to Liang, is a surge of “small is beautiful” projects, very pragmatic. That ties up with the new focus by both Chinese banks and companies: Very large infrastructure projects around the world may be problematic for the time being, as China concentrates on the internal market and regimenting every front to fight the Hegemon’s multiple Hybrid Wars.
Here is a prime example. Two crucial China industrial nodes – the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster – launched their first China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) international multimodal freight trains on the same day of the SCO summit in New Delhi.
This is classic BRI: Top connectivity, using the containerized “railway-road” multimodal system. The INSTC will be using the same system for trade between Russia, the Caspian, Iran and then by sea to India.
On the CKU, cargo reaches Xinjiang by railway, then goes on the road via the Irkeshtam border, passes through Kyrgyzstan and arrives in Uzbekistan. The whole journey saves nearly five days in transit time. The next step is to build the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: construction starts in late 2023.
BRI is making proverbial inroads in Africa. For instance, last month the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) handed over a prototype satellite co-developed with Egypt to Cairo’s Space City. Egypt is now the first African nation capable of satellite assembling, integration, and testing. Cairo hails it as a prime example of sustainable development.
That’s also the first time Beijing assembles and tests a satellite overseas. Once again, classic BRI: “Consultation, Cooperation and Shared Benefits,” as defined by CASC.
And don’t forget the new Egyptian capital: An ultra-modern satellite of Cairo built literally from scratch in the desert for $50 billion, financed by bonds and – what else – Chinese capital.
The long and winding de-dollarization road
All this frantic activity correlates with the key dossier to be treated by BRICS+: De-dollarization.
India’s External Affairs Minister Jaishankar has confirmed there will be no new BRICS currency – for now. The emphasis is on increasing trade in national currencies.
When it comes to BRICS heavyweight Russia, the emphasis for now is to drive commodity prices higher for the benefit of the Russian ruble.
Diplomatic sources confirm that the unspoken agreement among BRICS sherpas – who this week are preparing the guidelines for BRICS+ to be discussed at the South Africa summit next month – is to hasten the fiat dollar’s meltdown: The Financing of US trade and budget deficits would become impossible at current interest rates.
The question is how to hasten it imperceptibly.
Putin’s trademark strategy is to always let the collective west embark in all sorts of strategic mistakes without direct Russian intervention. So what happens next in the battlefield in Donbass – NATO’s larger than life humiliation – will be a crucial factor in the de-dollarization front. The Chinese, for their part, worry about a collapsed dollar rebound on China’s manufacturing base.
The road map ahead suggests a new trade settlement currency first designed at the EAEU, supervised by the Eurasia Economic Commission’s head of macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev. That would lead to a wider BRICS and SCO deployment. But first the EAEU needs to get China on board. That was one of the key issues recently discussed by Glazyev, in person, in Beijing.
So the Holy Grail is a new supranational trade currency for BRICS, SCO, and EAEU. And it’s essential that its reserve status does not allow overriding power to one nation, as it happens with the US dollar.
The only practical means of tying the new trade currency to a basket of multiple commodities – not to mention a basket of national interests – would be through gold.
Imagine all that being discussed in depth by that interminable queue for BRICS membership. As it stands, at least 31 nations have entered formal applications or expressed interest in joining an upgraded BRICS+.
The interconnections are fascinating. Apart from Iran and Pakistan, the only full SCO members that are not BRICS members are four Central Asian “stans,” which already happen to be EAEU members. Iran is bound to become a member of BRICS+. No less than nine nations among SCO’s observers or dialogue partners are among BRICS applicants.
Lukashenko called it: The merging of BRICS and SCO seems virtually inevitable.
For the top twin drivers of both organizations – the Russia-China strategic partnership – this merger will represent the ultimate multilateral institution, based on real free and fair trade, capable of dwarfing both the US and the EU and extending well beyond Eurasia to the “Global Globe.”
German industry/business circles already seem to have seen the writing on the wall, as well as some of their French counterparts, which notably include France’s President Emmanuel Macron. The trend is towards an EU schism – and even more Eurasian power.
A BRICS-SCO trade bloc will make western sanctions absolutely meaningless. It will affirm total independence from the US dollar, offer an array of financial alternatives to SWIFT, and encourage close military and intel cooperation against serial black ops by the Five Eyes, part of the ongoing Hybrid Wars.
In terms of peaceful development, West Asia has shown the way. The minute Saudi Arabia sided with China and Russia – and is now a candidate to both BRICS and SCO membership – there was a new game in town.
Golden Ruble 3.0?
As it stands, there’s huge potential for a gold-backed ruble. If and when it hits the road, that will be a revival of the gold-backing in the USSR between 1944 and 1961.
Glazyev has crucially observed that Russia’s trade surplus with SCO members has allowed Russian companies to pay off external debts and replace them with borrowing in rubles.
In parallel, Russia is increasingly using the yuan for international settlements. Further on down the road, key “Global Globe” players – China, Iran, Turkey, UAE – will be interested in payment in non-sanctioned gold instead of local currencies. That will pave the way for a BRICS-SCO trade settlement currency tied to gold.
After all, nothing beats gold when it comes to fighting collective western sanctions, pricing oil, gas, food, fertilizers, metals, minerals. Glazyev already laid down the law: Russia’s got to go for Golden Ruble 3.0.
The time is fast approaching for Russia to create the perfect storm to deliver a massive blow to the US dollar. This is what’s being discussed behind the scenes at the SCO, EAEU, and some BRICS sessions, and this is what’s driving the Atlanticist elites livid.
The “imperceptible” way for Russia to make it happen is to let markets drive up the prices of nearly all Russian commodity exports. Neutrals all across the “Global Globe” will interpret it as a natural “market response” to the collective west’s cognitive dissonant geopolitical imperatives. Soaring energy and commodity prices will end up provoking a steep decline in the purchasing power of the US dollar.
So it’s no wonder that several leaders at the SCO summit were in favor to what amounts, in practice, to an expanded BRICS-SCO Central Bank. When the new BRICS-SCO-EAEU currency is finally adopted – of course it’s a long way away, perhaps in the early 2030s – it will be traded for physical gold by participating banks from SCO, BRICS, and EAU member-nations.
All of the above should be interpreted as the sketch of a possible, realistic path to real multipolarity. It has nothing to do with the yuan as reserve currency, reproducing the existing rent-extracting racket to the profit of a minuscule plutocracy – complete with a massive military apparatus specialized in bullying the “Global Globe.”
A BRICS-SCO-EAEU union will be focused on building – and expanding – the physical, non-speculative economy based on infrastructure development, industrial capability, and tech sharing. Another world-system, now more than ever, is possible.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
If you’re counting on Asia’s many new power centers to compete and clash – don’t. The Greater Eurasia Partnership is set to integrate them all – from the SCO, EAEU, and BRICS, to emerging new currencies – in order to replace the ‘rules-based order.’
On July 4, at a New Delhi summit, Iran will finally become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
That will be one of the key decisions of the summit, held via video-conference, along with the signing of a memorandum on the path by Belarus to also become a member state.
In parallel, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk has confirmed that Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) should sign a free trade agreement (FTA) by the end of 2023.
The FTA will expand an interim deal that already lowers customs duties on hundreds of categories of goods.
Russia and Iran – two key poles of Eurasia integration – have been getting closer and closer geoeconomically since the west’s sanctions tsunami that followed Russia’s February 2022 Special Military Operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
The EAEU – as much as the SCO and BRICS – is on a roll: FTAs are expected to be clinched, from middle to long term, with Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the UAE.
Overchuck admits negotiations may be “very difficult” and “take years,” considering “the interests of all five EAEU member states, their businesses, and their consumers.” Yet despite the obvious complexities, this high-speed rail geoeconomic train has already left the station.
This way for a SWIFT exit
In a parallel track, the members of the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), during a recent summit in Iran, decided to launch a new cross-border financial messaging system this month as a rival to the western-centric SWIFT.
The ACU comprises the Central Banks of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Iran: a healthy mix of West Asia, Southeast Asia, and South Asia.
It was the Central Bank of Iran – still under harsh sanctions – that developed the new bank messaging system, so new it’s not yet known by its own acronym.
Crucially, the Governor of Russia’s Central Bank took part in the ACU summit as an observer, along with officials from Belarus, which applied for ACU membership two weeks ago.
Iranian Central Bank Governor Mohammad Reza Farzin confirmed not only the interest of potential members to join the ACU, but also the drive to set up a basket of currencies for payment of bilateral trade deals. Call it a de-dollarization fast track.
As Iran’s first Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber summed it up: “De-dollarization is not a voluntary choice by countries anymore; it is an inevitable response to the weaponization of the dollar.”
Iran is now at the heart of all things multipolar. The recent discovery of a massive lithium field holding roughly 10 percent of the world’s reserves, coupled with the quite possible admission of Iran into the expanded BRICS – or BRICS+ – as early as this year, has bolstered scenarios of an upcoming BRICS currency backed by commodities: gold, oil, gas and – inevitably – lithium.
All this frantic Global South-led activity stands in sharp contrast to the sputtering deceleration of the Empire of Sanctions.
The Global South has had enough of the US sanctioning and banning whoever, whatever, and whenever they like, in defense of a hazy, arbitrary “rules-based international order.”
Yet exceptions are always made when the US itself badly needs to buy, for instance, Chinese rare earth and EV batteries. And while China continues to be harassed and threatened non-stop, Washington quietly urges it to continue to buy American corn and low-end chips from Micron.
This is what’s called “free and fair” trade in the US today.
The BRICS have other ideas to escape this vicious circle. Much will rely on an enhanced role for its New Development Bank (NDB), which comprises the five BRICS members as well as Bangladesh, the UAE, and Egypt. Uruguay will be joining soon, and the membership requests of Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe have also been approved.
According to Brazil’s former head of state and current NDB President Dilma Rousseff, decisions on new members will officially be announced at the upcoming August BRICS summit in South Africa.
Meanwhile, in Astana, Kazakhstan, the 20th round of the interminable Syrian peace process took place, congregating the foreign vice-ministers of Russia, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.
That should be the defining step in a “normalization road map” proposed by Moscow last month to finally regulate the role of the Turkish Army operating inside Syrian territory. Russian Foreign Vice-Minister Mikhail Bogdanov once again confirmed that the US is going all out to prevent a normalization between Damascus and Ankara – by supporting oil-stealing Kurdish militias in northern Syria.
A “broad integrative configuration”
All interlinked developments concerning SCO, BRICS, EAEU, and other multilateral mechanisms – now happening at breakneck speed – are converging in practice into a concept formulated in Russia back in 2018: the Greater Eurasia Partnership.
And who better to define it than Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: “Our flagship foreign political project is to [build] support for the concept of the Greater Eurasian Partnership. What we’re talking about is facilitating the objective process of forming a broad integrative configuration that is open for all countries and associations across our vast continent.”
As Lavrov routinely explains now in all of his important meetings, this includes “interlinking the complementary development plans” of the EAEU and China’s BRI; expanding interaction “within the framework of the SCO with the involvement of SCO observer states and dialogue partners;” “strengthening the strategic partnership” between Russia and ASEAN; and “establishing working contacts” among the executive bodies of the EAEU, SCO, and ASEAN.
Add to it the crucial interaction between the upcoming BRICS+ and all of the above; literally, everybody and their neighbor all across the Global South is queuing up to enter Club BRICS.
Lavrov envisions a “mutually beneficial, interlinking infrastructure” and a “continent-wide architecture of peace, development, and cooperation throughout Greater Eurasia.” And that ought to be expanded to the whole Global South.
It will help to have other brand new institutions jumping in. That’s the case of a new Russian think tank, the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues (GORKI), to be led by Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, and set as a division of St. Petersburg State University focusing on West Asia studies and energy issues.
One of the key themes in that spectacularly successful Global South-oriented forum was, of course, the reindustrialization and reorientation of Russia’s export-import channels away from Europe and toward Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The UAE had a strong presence in St. Petersburg, pointing to a West Asia emphasis, where Russia’s geoeconomic future is increasingly developing. The scope and breadth of Global South-led discussions only underlined how the self-marginalized collective west has alienated the Global Majority, perhaps irretrievably.
On Vladimir Solovyov’s immensely popular political talk show, Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov may have found the best way to succinctly formulate such a complex process as the Greater Eurasia Partnership.
He said that Russia is now reassuming the role of global champion of a new world order that the Soviet Union held at the start of the 1920s. In such context, the rage and uncontrolled Russophobia by the collective west is just plain impotence: howling the frustration of having “lost” Russia, when it would have been a no-brainer to keep it on its side.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia took part in a ministerial meeting of the BRICS economic bloc in Cape Town, South Africa, on 1 June, for discussions that included the possible expansion of the group – which is currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan met with his Russian and Indian counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, to discuss bilateral relations and the kingdom’s interest in joining the bloc.
More than 20 countries have “formally or informally” requested to join the BRICS bloc, according to South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, Anil Sooklal. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the UAE each have made official requests.
“Amid the west’s actions, our countries should actively seek universal joint responses to challenges,” Lavrov said during the summit, adding that this is about such challenges as “attempts to undermine the foundations of collective, equal and indivisible security, regional conflicts, international terrorism, and transnational crime.”
“I am confident that under current conditions, the role of BRICS in facilitating the resolution of global issues should only grow, especially since our alliance remains an example of genuine multilateralism,” Lavrov said.
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor, who hosted Thursday’s talks, confirmed that an invitation had been extended to Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend a larger BRICS summit scheduled for August.
Putin’s participation will come despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued against him for “war crimes” committed in Ukraine. However, Pretoria has already granted diplomatic immunity to Russian officials attending, which its foreign affairs department described as standard procedure.
“BRICS has acquired a very important stature in the world, with many countries across various continents of our world seeking to be part of it,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told lawmakers in Cape Town on Wednesday.
The expansion of BRICS and their reported development of a new currency to counter the US dollar are being heralded by many in the Global South as a tectonic shift in international relations.
“We are following the trend of [developing] a multipolar world and democratizing international relations, adhering to genuine multilateralism, seeking to strengthen the voice and influence of the developing countries in world affairs, and promoting the reform and building a system of global governance,” Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ma Zhaoxu, said on Thursday.
The question is inevitable: what’s the point of this phone call? Very simple: just business.
The Beijing leadership is fully aware the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Until recently, and since 2019, Beijing was the top trade partner for Kiev (14.4% of imports, 15.3% of exports). China essentially exported machinery, equipment, cars and chemical products, importing food products, metals and also some machinery.
Very few in the West know that Ukraine joined BRI way back in 2014, and a BRI trade and investment center was operating in Kiev since 2018. BRI projects include a 2017 drive to build the fourth line of the Kiev metro system as well as 4G installed by Huawei. Everything is stalled since 2022.
Noble Agri, a subsidiary of COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation), invested in a sunflower seed processing complex in Mariupol and the recently built Mykolaiv grain port terminal. The next step will necessarily feature cooperation between Donbass authorities and the Chinese when it comes to rebuilding their assets that may have been damaged during the war.
Beijing also tried to become heavily involved in the Ukraine defense sector and even buy Motor Sich; that was blocked by Kiev.
Watch that neon
So what we have in Ukraine, from the Chinese point of view, is a trade/investment cocktail of BRI, railways, military supplies, 4G and construction jobs. And then, the key vector: neon.
Roughly half of neon used in the production of semiconductors was supplied, until recently, by two Ukrainian companies; Ingas in Mariupol, and Cryoin, in Odessa. There’s no business going on since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO). That directly affects the Chinese production of semiconductors. Bets can be made that the Hegemon is not exactly losing sleep over this predicament.
Ukraine does represent value for China as a BRI crossroads. The war is interrupting not only business but, in the bigger picture, one of the trade and connectivity corridors linking Western China to Eastern Europe. BRI conditions all key decisions in Beijing – as it is the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy way into mid-century.
And that explains Xi’s phone call, debunking any NATOstan nonsense on China finally paying attention to the warmongering actor.
As relevant as BRI is the overarching bilateral relationship dictating Beijing’s geopolitics: the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.
So let’s transition to the meeting of Defense Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) earlier this week in Delhi.
The key meeting in India was between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Chinese colleague Li Shangfu. Li was recently in Moscow, and was received by Putin in person for a special conversation. This time he invited Shoigu to visit Beijing, and that was promptly accepted.
Needless to add that every single player in the SCO and beyond, including nations that are for the moment just observers or dialogue partners as well as others itching to become full members, such as Saudi Arabia, paid very close attention to the Shoigu-Shangfu camaraderie.
When it comes to the profoundly strategic Central Asian “stans”, that represents the six feet under treatment for the Hegemon wishful thinking of using them in a Divide and Rule scheme pitting Russia against China.
Shoigu-Shangfu also sent a subtle message to SCO members India and Pakistan – stop bickering and in the case of Delhi, hedging your bets – and to full member (in 2023) Iran and near future member Saudi Arabia: here’s where’s it at, this the table that matters.
All of the above also points to the increasing interconnection between BRI and SCO, both under Russia-China leadership.
BRICS is essentially an economic club – complete with its own bank, the NDB – and focused on trade. It’s mostly about soft power. The SCO is focused on security. It’s about hard power. Together, these are the two key organizations that will be paving the multilateral way.
As for what will be left of Ukraine, it is already being bought by Western mega-players such as BlackRock, Cargill and Monsanto. Yet Beijing certainly does not count on being left high and dry. Stranger things have happened than a future rump Ukraine positioned as a functioning trade and connectivity BRI partner.
The new foreign strategy says Russia is responsible for defending cultural and spiritual values against “pseudo-humanistic” and other “neoliberal ideologies”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia in February 2022. (Reuters)
Russia adopted a new foreign policy doctrine on Friday that prioritizes reforming world politics away from the hegemony of the United States and its Western allies and supporting countries that choose to fight neocolonialists and foreign interference.
The new foreign strategy went into effect after being signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Russian Federation intends to give priority to the elimination of vestiges of the dominance of the United States and other unfriendly countries in world politics,” the document said.
Russia would aim to “create the conditions for any state to reject neo-colonialist and hegemonic aims,” the 42-page policy read.
“Radical changes” in the world prompted the new policies, Putin said during a security council meeting, stressing that Russia’s engagement in the international arena must reflect its view on these changes.
Defender against neo-liberal ideologies
Russia views China and India as key allies in its new foreign doctrine and stresses the strategic importance of deepening relations and “coordination with friendly sovereign global centers of power and development located on the Eurasian continent.”
The war in Ukraine led to severe sanctions by the US and EU who lobbied countries around the world to join in on the unilateral sanctions, but many countries, including China and India, increased economic and bilateral relations with Moscow, reaching historic levels.
Chinese President Xi Jinping made a three-day official trip to Moscow earlier this month where he met with Putin and held what was described by the media as historic talks. The two presidents signed during Xi’s trip two joint strategic documents aiming to boost the two global powers’ economic and diplomatic partnership.
Russia, as per the document, is a “state civilization” and is responsible for protecting the “Russian world” – in reference to cultures that align with that of the country within Eurasia. Russia will be tasked with protecting “traditional spiritual and moral values” against “pseudo-humanistic and other neo-liberal ideological attitudes.”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that the new foreign policy doctrine identified “the existential nature of threats to the security and development of our country, driven by the actions of unfriendly states.”
“The United States of America is directly named as the main instigator and driver of anti-Russian sentiment,” he added.
“The West’s policy of trying to weaken Russia in every possible way is characterized as a hybrid war of a new type.”
In an exclusive interview with The Cradle, Russia’s top macroeconomics strategist criticizes Moscow’s slow pace of financial reform and warns there will be no new global currency without Beijing.
The headquarters of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) in Moscow, linked to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is arguably one of the most crucial nodes of the emerging multipolar world.
That’s where I was received by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomics Sergey Glazyev – who was previously interviewed in detail by The Cradle – for an exclusive, expanded discussion on the geoeconomics of multipolarity.
Glazyev was joined by his top economic advisor Dmitry Mityaev, who is also the secretary of the Eurasian Economic Commission’s (EEC) science and technology council. The EAEU and EEC are formed by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia. The group is currently engaged in establishing a series of free trade agreements with nations from West Asia to Southeast Asia.
Our conversation was unscripted, free flowing and straight to the point. I had initially proposed some talking points revolving around discussions between the EAEU and China on designing a new gold/commodities-based currency bypassing the US dollar, and how it would be realistically possible to have the EAEU, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and BRICS+ to adopt the same currency design.
Glazyev and Mityaev were completely frank and also asked questions on the Global South. As much as extremely sensitive political issues should remain off the record, what they said about the road towards multipolarity was quite sobering – in fact realpolitik-based.
Glazyev stressed that the EEC cannot ask for member states to adopt specific economic policies. There are indeed serious proposals on the design of a new currency, but the ultimate decision rests on the leaders of the five permanent members. That implies political will – ultimately to be engineered by Russia, which is responsible for over 80 percent of EAEU trade.
It’s quite possible that a renewed impetus may come after the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow on March 21, where he will hold in-depth strategic talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On the war in Ukraine, Glazyev stressed that as it stands, China is profiting handsomely, as its economy has not been sanctioned – at least not yet – by US/EU and Beijing is buying Russian oil and gas at heavily discounted prices. The funds Russians are losing in terms of selling energy to the EU will have to be compensated by the proposed Power of Siberia II pipeline that will run from Russia to China, via Mongolia – but that will take a few more years.
Glazyev sketched the possibility of a similar debate on a new currency taking place inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – yet the obstacles could be even stronger. Once again, that will depend on political will, in this case by Russia-China: a joint decision by Xi and Putin, with crucial input by India – and as Iran becomes a full member, also energy-rich Tehran.
What is realistic so far is increasing bilateral trade in their own currencies, as in the Russia-China, Russia-India, Iran-India, Russia-Iran, and China-Iran cases.
Essentially, Glazyev does not see heavily sanctioned Russia taking a leadership role in setting up a new global financial system. That may fall to China’s Global Security Initiative. The division into two blocs seems inevitable: the dollarized zone – with its inbuilt eurozone – in contrast with the Global South majority with a new financial system and new trading currency for international trade. Domestically, individual nations will keep doing business in their own national currencies.
The road to ‘de-offshorization’
Glazyev has always been a fierce critic of the Russian Central Bank, and he did voice his misgivings – echoing his book The Last World War. He never ceases to stress that the American rationale is to damage the Russian economy on every front, while the motives of the Russian Central Bank usually raise “serious questions.”
He said that quite a few detailed proposals to reorient the Central Bank have been sent to Putin, but there has been no follow-up. He also evoked the extremely delicate theme of corruption involving key oligarchs who, for inscrutable reasons, have not been sidelined by the Kremlin.
Glazyev had warned for years that it was imperative for Moscow to sell out foreign exchange assets placed in the US, Britain, France, Germany, and others which later ended up unleashing sanctions against Russia.
These assets should have been replaced by investments in gold and other precious metals; stocks of highly liquid commodity values; in securities of the EAEU, SCO, and BRICS member states; and in the capital of international organizations with Russian participation, such as the Eurasian Development Bank, the CIS Interstate Bank, and the BRICS Development Bank.
It seems that the Kremlin at least is now fully aware of the importance of expanding infrastructure for supporting Russian exports. That includes creating international exchange trading marketplaces for trade in Russian primary goods within Russian jurisdiction, and in rubles; and creating international sales and service networks for Russian goods with high added value.
For Russia, says Glazyev, the key challenge ahead in monetary policy is to modernize credit. And to prevent negative impact by foreign financial sources, the key is domestic monetization – “including expansion of long and medium-term refinancing of commercial banks against obligations of manufacturing enterprises and authorized government bodies. It is also advisable to consistently replace foreign borrowings of state- controlled banks and corporations with domestic sources of credit.”
So the imperative way to Russia, now in effect, is “de-offshorization.” Which essentially means getting rid of a “super-critical dependence of its reproduction contours on Anglo-Saxon legal and financial institutions,” something that entails “systematic losses of the Russian financial system merely on the difference in profitability between the borrowed and the placed capital.”
What Glazyev repeatedly emphasized is that as long as there’s no reform of the Russian Central Bank, any serious discussion about a new Global South-adopted currency faces insurmountable odds. The Chinese, heavily interlinked with the global financial system, may start having new ideas now that Xi Jinping, on the record, and unprecedentedly, has defined the US-provoked Hybrid War against China for what it is, and has named names: it’s an American operation.
What seems to be crystal clear is that the path toward a new financial system designed essentially by Russia-China, and adopted by vast swathes of the Global South, will remain long, rocky, and extremely challenging. The discussions inside the EAEU and with the Chinese may extrapolate to the SCO and even towards BRICS+. But all will depend on political will and political capital jointly deployed by the Russia-China strategic partnership.
That’s why Xi’s visit to Moscow next week is so crucial. The leadership of both Moscow and Beijing, in sync, now seems to be fully aware of the two-front Hybrid War deployed by Washington.
This means their peer competitor strategic partnership – the ultimate anathema for the US-led Empire – can only prosper if they jointly deploy a complete set of measures: from instances of soft power to deepening trade and commerce in their own currencies, a basket of currencies, and a new reserve currency that is not hostage to the Bretton Woods system legitimizing western finance capitalism.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Posted on February 26, 2023 by uprootedpalestinians
The recent conference on international security policy focused extensively on the significance of the Global South to the west’s security. As power competition with China and Russia intensifies, the west is compelled to reassess its approach to relations with these countries.
Mohamed Sweidan is a strategic studies researcher, a writer for different media platforms, and the author of several studies in the field of international relations. Mohamed’s main focus is on Russian affairs, Turkish politics, and the relationship between energy security and geopolitics.
“I am struck by how much we are losing the trust of the Global South.”
–French President Emmanuel Macron during the Munich Security Conference 2023
The 59th Munich Security Conference (MSC) held from 17 to 19 February, was attended by over 150 senior officials, including more than 40 heads of state and international organizations. The conference focused on three main topics: the war in Ukraine, the need to confront China and Russia, and the importance of the Global South in the struggle between the great powers.
As in the previous year, Russia was not present at the Munich conference. However, this year marked the first time in twenty years that Moscow was not even invited to participate. With both Russia and Iran absent, the conference became a platform for attacking opponents of western policies.
The Great Game for the Global South
The conference took place against a backdrop of international turmoil and competition among great powers for influence in the emerging multipolar order. Several western countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the positions of Global South countries in relation to the conflicts involving China and Russia.
During her speech, US Vice President Kamala Harris stated that:
“We have invited a record number of representatives from the so-called “Global South,” because while we have this unity between us, when you talk to representatives of the Global South – and we had them on the podium this morning – you see that many countries sit on the fence.”
Accordingly, Christoph Heusgen, chairman of the MSC, announced at the opening ceremony that this year’s conference would “put a spotlight on the Global South” and “listen to their concerns.”
France’s Macron pointed out that efforts in reshaping the global order should be more inclusive: “The west has been losing the Global South and hasn’t done enough to respond to the charge of double standards, including by not helping poor countries fast enough with Covid vaccines,” he said. “One way to address the concerns of the Global South is to bring about reforms in the United Nations.”
A wake-up call for the west
While the discussions and outcomes of the conference suggest that western powers have come to recognize the significance of nations in the Global South, this appears to be mainly because of the necessity in rallying their support in major conflicts against Russia and China.
The conflict in Ukraine fully demonstrated that the refusal of many Latin American, African, and Asian countries to support western sanctions was a significant factor in the failure of the west’s attempts to isolate Russia.
The MSC’s final report states: “The wake-up call provided by Russia’s war and the diffidence of many countries in the ‘Global South’ has roused liberal democracies from their complacency, reminding them that the international order, just like democracy itself, is in constant need of renewal.”
The report added that “countries in the Global South can become crucial ‘swing states.’ They can tip the balance between systemic competitors and therefore determine the fate of the international rules-based order.” It also recognized that:
“Influential states such as India, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia are quite actively hedging their bets in the current geopolitical standoff – both when it comes to Ukraine but also on many other policy issues. Rather than being guided by deep feelings about the international order, their responses to the war in Ukraine and their stances in the broader international contest over the international order seem to be guided by much more pragmatic reasoning.”
The report also found that:
“Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have steadily lost faith in the legitimacy and fairness of an international system which has neither granted them an appropriate voice in global affairs, nor sufficiently addressed their core concerns. To many states, these failures are deeply tied to the west. They find that the western-led order has been characterized by post-colonial domination, double standards, and neglect for developing countries’ concerns.”
Legacy of colonialism
It is clear from the statements made at the Munich Security Conference that the west recognizes the need to change its approach to development cooperation with the countries of the Global South, in order to counter the increasing influence of Beijing and Moscow.
However, this will require a fundamental shift in attitudes and policies towards these countries, which have historically been viewed as objects of aid and development rather than equal partners in a mutually beneficial relationship. This too is pointed out in the MSC report:
“The United States and Europe will have to rethink their approaches to development cooperation with countries in the Global South. They need to make their development models more attractive, as China offers an alternative model based on a narrative of solidarity and mutual benefits. To compete with China, the approach must focus on the novelty on short-term emergency relief as well as long-term financing enables sustainable and resilient systems in partner countries.”
The colonialist legacy of the west continues to cast a long shadow over its relations with the Global South, and it will take sustained effort and genuine commitment to overcome this legacy and build a more equitable and productive relationship.
This will require a shift away from the donor-recipient model towards one based on partnership and mutual benefit, and a recognition that the interests and aspirations of the countries of the Global South must be taken seriously and respected.
Looting wealth, interfering in the policies of states, and waging wars are hallmarks of western policies in the developing world. Those states who do not adhere to western diktats are regularly subjected to ominous sanctions or extreme economic pressures.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the support for authoritarian regimes and coups, the economic vise on countries like Lebanon and Venezuela, and the unequal distribution of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic are just a few examples of the ways in which western powers have acted against the interests and well-being of Global South countries.
In 2019, when former US President Donald Trump triumphantly claimed ownership of Syrian oil, it marked a clear example of the problematic and exploitative attitudes that continue to plague western policies toward the Global South. The fact that western leaders did not anticipate the rise of the developing countries to become decisive “swing states” – as noted in the final report of the Munich conference – is a reflection of the west’s ongoing ignorance and neglect of the interests and aspirations of these vital states.
West Asia at the MSC
The MSC also highlighted the increasing importance of West Asia in global energy politics and the west’s alarm about China’s growing influence in this region. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) projection that West Asian countries will meet a large share of China and India’s growing oil needs has raised the region’s strategic value for these influential emerging powers.
Washington’s frustration with Saudi Arabia’s standing in the Ukrainian conflict was also evident at the conference, as the west seeks to prevent a repeat of such behavior in the more important conflict with China. Per the conference report:
“Amid the decline of the American presence in the Middle East [West Asia], liberal democracies are increasingly concerned about China’s growing influence. Deeper relations between China and the Middle East [West Asia] may evolve to include a stronger Chinese military and security footprint, which could undermine the west’s security partnerships with countries in the region.”
In essence, the Munich meeting provided a platform for declining western powers to express their concerns about the growing influence of China in West Asia, as well as their frustration with Saudi Arabia’s perceived lack of loyalty. It highlighted the need for the west to adapt its strategies in dealing with the developing world and to foster new forms of international solidarity and cooperation.
However, it is important to acknowledge that the term “Global South” itself reflects a colonial mindset that continues to shape the west’s perception of developing nations, and that such imperial policies will continue as long as such attitudes persist.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Raisi’s visit to Beijing, the first for an Iranian president in 20 years, represents Tehran’s wholesale ‘Pivot to the East’ and China’s recognition of Iran’s centrality to its BRI plans.
The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one.
Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and the Ministers of Economy, Oil, Foreign Affairs, and Trade.
The fact that Raisi and Xi jointly supervised the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture, trade, tourism and environmental protection to health, disaster relief, culture and sports, is not even the major take away.
This week’s ceremonial sealing of the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership marks a key evolution in the multipolarity sphere: two Sovereigns – both also linked by strategic partnerships with Russia – imprinting to their domestic audiences and also to the Global South their vision of a more equitable, fair and sustainable 21st century which completely bypasses western dictates.
Beijing and Tehran first established their comprehensive strategic partnership when Xi visited Iran in 2016 – only one year after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iranian nuclear deal.
In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year cooperation deal which translated the comprehensive partnership into practical economic and cultural developments in several fields, especially energy, trade and infrastructure. By then, not only Iran (for decades) but also China were being targeted by unilateral US sanctions.
Here is a relatively independent analysis of the challenges and prospects of the 25-year deal. And here is an enlightening perspective from neighboring Pakistan, also a strategic partner of China.
Iran: gotta modernize everything
Beijing and Tehran are already actively cooperating in the construction of selected lines of Tehran’s subway, the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway, and of course joint energy projects. Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to help Tehran to build a framework for a 5G telecom network.
Raisi and Xi, predictably, stressed increased joint coordination at the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is the newest member, as well as a new drive along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
While there was no explicit mention of it, underlying all these initiatives is the de-dollarization of trade – in the framework of the SCO but also the multipolar BRICS group of states. Iran is set to become one of the new members of BRICS+, a giant step to be decided in their upcoming summit in South Africa next August.
There are estimates in Tehran that Iran-China annual trade may reach over $70 billion in the mid-term, which will amount to triple the current figures.
When it comes to infrastructure building, Iran is a key BRI partner. The geostrategy of course is hard to match: a 2,250 km coastline encompassing the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman and the Caspian Sea – and huge land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every think tank in China sees how Iran is irreplaceable, not only in terms of BRI land corridors, but also the Maritime Silk Road.
Chabahar Port may be a prime Iran-India affair, as part of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – thus directly linked to the Indian vision of a Silk Road, extending to Central Asia.
But Chinese port developers do have other ideas, focused on alternative ports along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea. That will boost shipping connections to Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan), Russia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan).
And that makes perfect sense when one combines port terminal development with the modernization of Iran’s railways – all the way to high-speed rail.
An even more revolutionary development would be China coordinating the BRI connection of an Iranian corridor with the already in progress 3,200 km-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in the Indian Ocean.
That seemed perfectly plausible when Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was still in power, before being ousted by a lawfare coup. The key of the whole enterprise is to build badly needed infrastructure in Balochistan, on both sides of the border. On the Pakistani side, that would go a long way to smash CIA-fed “insurgents” of the Balochistan Liberation Army kind, get rid of unemployment, and put trade in charge of economic development.
Afghanistan of course enters the equation – in the form of a China-Afghan-Iran corridor linked to CPEC. Since September 2021, Beijing has explained to the Taliban, in detail, how they may profit from an infrastructure corridor – complete with railway, highway and pipeline – from Xinjiang, across the Wakhan corridor in eastern Afghanistan, through the Hindu Kush, all the way to Iran.
The core of multipolarity
Iran is perfectly positioned for a Chinese-propelled boom in high-speed cargo rail, connecting Iran to most of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan).
That means, in practice, cool connectivity with a major logistics cluster: the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Khorgos, only 330 km from Almaty on the Kazakh-China border, and only four hours from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
If China pulls that off, it would be a sort of BRI Holy Grail, interconnecting China and Iran via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Nothing less than several corridors in one.
All that is about to happen as the Islamic Revolution in Iran celebrates its 44th year.
What is already happening now, geopolitically, and fully recognized by China, might be defined as the full rejection of an absurdity: the collective west treating Iran as a pariah or at best a subjugated neo-colony.
With the diverse strands of the Resistance embedded in the Islamic Revolution finally consolidated, it looks like history is finally propelling Iran as one of the key poles of the most complex process at work in the 21st century: Eurasia integration.
So 44 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strategic partnerships with the three top BRICS: China, Russia and India.
Likely to become one of the first new members of BRICS+, Iran is the first West Asian state to become a full member of the SCO, and is clinching a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Iran is a major strategic partner of both BRI, led by China, and the INSTC, alongside Russia and India.
With the JCPOA all but dead, and all western “promises” lying in the dust, Tehran is consolidating its pivot back to the East at breakneck speed.
What Raisi and Xi sealed in Beijing heralds Chinese pre-eminence all across West Asia – keenly perceived in Beijing as a natural consequence of recognizing and honoring Iran’s regional centrality.
Iran’s “Look East” strategy could not be more compatible with BRI – as an array of BRI projects will accelerate Iran’s economic development and consolidate its inescapable role when it comes to trade corridors and as an energy provider.
During the 1980s Tehran was ruled by a “Neither East nor West” strategy – faithful to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution. That has now evolved, pragmatically, into “Look East.” Tehran did try to “Look West” in good faith, but what the US government did with the JCPOA – from its murder to “maximum pressure” to its aborted resuscitation – was quite a historical lesson.
What Raisi and Xi have just demonstrated in Beijing is the Sovereign way forward. The three leaders of Eurasia integration – China, Russia and Iran – are fast on their way to consolidate the core of multipolarity.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Close to 9 million people in Syria have been affected by the 7.8 magnitude earthquake, 65 seconds in duration on February 6, that Turkish President Erdogan has compared with the power released by atomic bombs. The hardest hit areas are Latakia, Aleppo, and Idlib.
The UN estimates that more than 4.2 million people have been affected in Aleppo province with 400,000 homeless, and 5,000 buildings declared unlivable. Aleppo has more than 1,600 dead and 10,000 injured.
The province of Idlib is a total population estimated at 3 million, but because there is no government or authority there, we can only guess how many have been affected.
UAE Aid plane landing in Aleppo International Airport
The UN says 5.5 million Syrians are without a home after the earthquake, with more than 7,400 buildings having been destroyed completely, or partially in Syria.
In Latakia, there are 820 dead, 142,000 homeless, and over 2,000 injured, with 102 buildings completely collapsed, and others condemned.
A total of 58 trucks have crossed from Turkey to north-west Syria through the Bab al Hawa crossing point over the past five days, carrying aid such as food, tents, and medicines. Those trucks are solely supplying Idlib, under the occupation of the armed group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Eleven trucks have gone through the newly opened border crossing of Bab al Salam today, carrying non-food items such as blankets, and mattresses.
Iraqi AAid plan landing in Damascus international Airport
Location matters in this quake
The map will show that Aleppo, Syria is just south of Gaziantep, Turkey which was the epicenter. Aleppo was heavily damaged in the earthquake, adding more misery to a city that was under the occupation of Al Qaeda terrorists in the eastern section until being liberated in December 2016.
Looking at a map, you see that Latakia is a 2 ½ hour drive west of Aleppo on the M4 highway. It seems like a long distance, but the power of the 7.8 magnitude brought the epicenter and Latakia together because they share the same fault line, which Aleppo does not.
Tunisian Aid plane landing in Aleppo International Airport
UN: no roadblocks to aid, no politics
Rula Amin, UN Refugee Agency Senior Communications Advisor, urged cooperation among nations to help Turkey and Syria. She said there should be no roadblocks to assistance for people in need. Referring to the UN and western aid coming almost exclusively to Idlib, and by-passing those in need in Latakia and Aleppo, she urged all to put politics aside, and focus on getting aid to those in need regardless of whether they are in the US-EU supported area in Idlib, or whether they live in Aleppo and Latakia under the Syrian administration from Damascus. Amin is no stranger to Syria. In March 2011, Amin was one of the very first international journalists in Deraa, covering what she had claimed was a ‘popular uprising’, and even interviewed the cleric who was the key player of the Obama-designed US-NATO attack on Syria for ‘regime change
.’ She did not go as far as to demand the lifting of all US-EU sanctions on Syria to send aid, but her meaning was clear. The sanctions prevent aid from arriving in Damascus. On February 9 the US Department of the Treasury issued General License 23, which allows for a humanitarian waiver of supplies to government-controlled areas in Syria, but must be received by an NGO and not the Syrian government. The 180-day waiver is far too short, as the need is enormous, and will people will need years to grapple with the damages. Rebuilding homes and businesses may take a decade or more. Also, most governments abroad would be sending official aid to Syria through a government-to-government mechanism, and using an NGO is a tedious stipulation designed to discourage aid from being sent.
Jordanian Aid plane landing in Damascus international Airport
Italy sent two planeloads of aid to Beirut, Lebanon to be transported to Syria by land. This demonstrates the extreme fear that western allies of the US have of the sanctions. By sending the aid to Lebanon, which is not sanctioned, Italy feels more comfortable that the US Treasury will not issue massive penalties against them.
Who refused aid to Damascus?
The US, the EU, and all US allies such as Canada have sent nothing to Syria for the earthquake-ravaged zones of Latakia and Aleppo. According to America, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the allies of the US, there is no place called Syria. There is only a small, rural agricultural province called Idlib. Syria is 10,000 years old, and Damascus and Aleppo both tie as the undisputed oldest inhabited cities on earth. But the great minds in Washington, DC. only acknowledge the tiny area called Idlib. The terrorist-controlled Idlib is suffering, and has innocent unarmed civilians in need of help; however, Latakia, and Aleppo are far bigger and have sustained more deaths, injuries, and structural damages than Idlib. The US and the west have used politics to judge who gets helped, and who is forgotten. The Syrian people will never forget this. The US and EU sanctions have made life unbearable in Syria before the earthquake of the century, and now when politics should be set aside for humanitarian needs, the US doggedly holds on to their dogmatic ideology to make sure the Syrian people know the full disdain of the American government. The Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates visited Damascus and met with President Assad after the quake, in an act of defiance of US-dictated policy.
Algerian aid plane in Aleppo International Airport
Where is Government controlled Syria?
The US-NATO attack on Syria beginning in March 2011 has resulted in three separate administrations in Syria. The biggest territory, about 75%, is the central government in Damascus. Aleppo and Latakia are the two hardest hit by the earthquake which is under the Damascus administration.
The second administration is the province of Idlib, which is an olive-growing region between Latakia and Aleppo. There is no government there. The 3 million persons there live under the occupation of an armed terrorist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly called Jibhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. The terrorists embedded themselves there in 2012, and until now are safe from attack because the US, EU, and UN all lobby for their protection, and aid. The US supports the Al Qaeda terrorists because they represent the US interests in Syria to be decided upon in a final political settlement in Syria under the auspices of the UN.
The third administration is the Kurdish self-proclaimed region of the northeast, where the US military is occupying the Syrian oil wells, and allowing the Kurds to sell the stolen oil in Iraq to cover their expenses. This area was not affected by the earthquake. This administration exists separate from Damascus only because of the US military illegal occupation
Where is Idlib?
Many of the residents of Idlib most affected by the earthquake have had to sleep outside among the olive groves, in freezing temperatures. The UN acknowledged the international response to Idlib has been a failure.
Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets, an award-winning video troupe headquartered in Washington, DC. has denounced the UN as incompetent in their response to the needs in Idlib. The White Helmets work solely in Idlib and have international donors. Al-Saleh was angry after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Syrian President Assad had agreed to allow UN aid deliveries to the area through two border crossings from Turkey for three months. The White Helmets and the terrorists do not recognize the Syrian government. Damascus had tried to send aid to Idlib, but the terrorists turned it back saying, “We don’t want help from the enemy.” Previously the UN trucks of aid to Idlib were also stalled after the terrorists demanded a $1,000 fee for each of the 10 trucks.
Why are the borders controlled?
The Syrian government has controlled the border crossings of Syria for security reasons. Serena Shim, an American journalist from Detroit, witnessed and reported seeing a UN food truck carrying Al Qaeda terrorists, and their weapons, from Turkey into Syria near Idlib. She was murdered in Turkey just days after publishing her report.
The terrorists in Idlib are contained in a small area and have weapons including missiles which have frequently been directed at Latakia, and Kessab, a small Christian Armenia village just north of Latakia. The Syrian government wants to keep the weapons from flowing into Idlib while allowing UN, and other humanitarian aid to flow into the 3 million civilians who are held there as human shields.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
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News of Russian banks connecting to Iran’s financial messaging system strengthens the resistance against US-imposed sanctions on both countries and accelerates global de-dollarization.
The agreement between the Central Banks of Russia and Iran formally signed on 29 January connecting their interbank transfer systems is a game-changer in more ways than one.
Technically, from now on 52 Iranian banks already using SEPAM, Iran’s interbank telecom system, are connecting with 106 banks using SPFS, Russia’s equivalent to the western banking messaging system SWIFT.
Less than a week before the deal, State Duma Chairman Vyachslav Volodin was in Tehran overseeing the last-minute details, part of a meeting of the Russia-Iran Inter-Parliamentary Commission on Cooperation: he was adamant both nations should quickly increase trade in their own currencies.
Ruble-rial trade
Confirming that the share of ruble and rial in mutual settlements already exceeds 60 percent, Volodin ratified the success of “joint use of the Mir and Shetab national payment systems.” Not only does this bypass western sanctions, but it is able to “solve issues related to mutually beneficial cooperation, and increasing trade.”
It is quite possible that the ruble will eventually become the main currency in bilateral trade, according to Iran’s ambassador in Moscow, Kazem Jalali: “Now more than 40 percent of trade between our countries is in rubles.”
Jalali also confirmed, crucially, that Tehran is in favor of the ruble as the main currency in all regional integration mechanisms. He was referring particularly to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), with which Iran is clinching a free trade deal.
The SEPAM-SPFS agreement starts with a pilot program supervised by Iran’s Shahr Bank and Russia’s VTB Bank. Other lenders will step in once the pilot program gets rid of any possible bugs.
The key advantage is that SEPAM and SPFS are immune to the US and western sanctions ruthlessly imposed on Tehran and Moscow. Once the full deal is up and running, all Iranian and Russian banks can be interconnected.
It is no wonder the Global South is paying very close attention. This is likely to become a landmark case in bypassing Belgium-based SWIFT – which is essentially controlled by Washington, and on a minor scale, the EU. The success of SEPAM-SPFS will certainly encourage other bilateral or even multilateral deals between states.
It’s all about the INSTC
The Central Banks of Iran and Russia are also working to establish a stable coin for foreign trade, replacing the US dollar, the ruble, and the rial. This would be a digital currency backed by gold, to be used mostly in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Astrakhan, in the Caspian Sea, already very busy moving plenty of Iranian cargo.
Astrakhan happens to be the key Russian hub of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), a vast network of ship, rail, and road routes which will drastically increase trade from Russia – but also parts of Europe – across Iran to West Asia and South Asia, and vice-versa.
And that reflects the full geoconomic dimension of the SEPAM-SPFS deal. The Russian Central Bank moved early to set up SPFS in 2014, when Washington began threatening Moscow with expulsion from SWIFT. Merging it with the Iranian SEPAM opens up a whole new horizon, especially given Iran’s ratification as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and now a leading candidate to join the extended BRICS+ club.
Already three months before the SEPAM-SPFS agreement, the Russian Trade Representative in Iran, Rustam Zhiganshin, was hinting that the decision “to create an analog of the SWIFT system” was a done deal.
Tehran had been preparing the infrastructure to join Russia’s Mir payment system since last summer. But after Moscow was hit with extremely harsh western sanctions and Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT, Tehran and Moscow decided, strategically, to focus on creating their own non-SWIFT for cross-border payments.
All that relates to the immensely strategic geoeconomic role of the INSTC, which is a much cheaper and faster trade corridor than the old Suez Canal route.
Russia is Iran’s largest foreign investor
Moreover, Russia has become Iran’s largest foreign investor, according to Iranian Deputy Finance Minister Ali Fekri: this includes “$2.7 billion worth of investment to two petroleum projects in Iran’s western province of Ilam in the past 15 months.” That’s about 45 percent of the total foreign investment in Iran over the October 2021 – January 2023 period.
Of course the whole process is in its initial stages – as Russia-Iran bilateral trade amounts to only US$3 billion annually. But a boom is inevitable, due to the accumulated effect of SEPAM-SPFS, INSTC, and EAEU interactions, and especially further moves to develop Iran’s energy capacity, logistics, and transport networks, via the INSTC.
Russian projects in Iran are multi-faceted: energy, railways, auto manufacturing, and agriculture. In parallel, Iran supplies Russia with food and automotive products.
Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, is fond of reminding anyone that Russia and Iran “play complementary roles in global energy and cargo transit.” The Iran-EAEU free agreement (FTA) is nearly finalized – including zero tariffs for over 7,500 commodities.
In 2022, the EAEU traded more than $800 billion worth of goods. Iran’s full access to the EAEU will be inestimable in terms of providing a market gateway to large swathes of Eurasia – and bypassing US sanctions as a sweet perk. A realistic projection is that Tehran can expect $15 billion annual trade with the five members of the EAEU in five years, as soon as Iran becomes the sixth member.
The legacy of Samarkand
Everything we are tracking now is in many ways a direct consequence of the SCO summit in Samarkand last September, when Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, in person, placed their bet on strengthening the multipolar world as Iran signed a memorandum to join the SCO.
Putin’s private talks with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Samarkand were all about deep strategy.
The INSTC is absolutely crucial in this overall equation. Both Russia and Iran are investing at least $25 billion to boost its capabilities.
Ships sailing the Don and Volga Rivers have always traded energy and agricultural commodities. Now Iran’s Maritime News Agency has confirmed that Russia will grant their ships the right of passage along the inland waterways on the Don and Volga.
Meanwhile, Iran is already established as the third largest importer of Russian grain. From now on, trade on turbines, polymers, medical supplies, and automotive parts will be on a roll.
Tehran and Moscow have signed a contract to build a large cargo vessel for Iran to be used at the Caspian port of Solyanka. And RZD logistics, a subsidiary of Russian railway RZD, operates container cargo trains regularly from Moscow to Iran. The Russian Journal for Economics predicts that just the freight traffic on INTSC could reach 25 million tons by 2030 – no less than a 20-fold increase compared to 2022.
Inside Iran, new terminals are nearly ready for cargo to be rolled off ships to railroads crisscrossing the country from the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. Sergey Katrin, head of Russia’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is confident that once the FTA with the EAEU is on, bilateral trade can soon reach $40 billion a year.
Tehran’s plans are extremely ambitious, inserted in an “Eastern Axis” framework that privileges regional states Russia, China, India, and Central Asia.
Geostrategically and geoeconomically, that implies a seamless interconnection of INSTC, EAEU, SCO, and BRICS+. And all of this is coordinated by the one Quad that really matters: Russia, China, India, and Iran.
Of course there will be problems. The intractable Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict might be able to derail the INSTC: but note that Russia-Iran connections via the Caspian can easily bypass Baku if the need arises.
BRICS+ will cement the dollar’s descent
Apart from Russia and Iran, Russia and China have also been trying to interface their banking messaging systems for years now. The Chinese CBIBPS (Cross-Border Inter-Bank Payments System) is considered top class. The problem is that Washington has directly threatened to expel Chinese banks from SWIFT if they interconnect with Russian banks.
The success of SEPAM-SPFS may allow Beijing to go for broke – especially now, after the extremely harsh semiconductor war and the appalling balloon farce. In terms of sovereignty, it is clear that China will not accept US restrictions on how to move its own funds.
In parallel, the BRICS in 2023 will delve deeper into developing their mutual financial payments system and their own reserve currency. There are no less than 13 confirmed candidates eager to join BRICS+ – including Asian middle powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
All eyes will be on whether – and how – the $30 trillion-plus indebted US will threaten to expel BRICS+ from SWIFT.
It’s enlightening to remember that Russia’s debt to GDP ratio stands at only 17 percent. China’s is 77 percent. The current BRICS without Russia are at 78 percent. BRICS+ including Russia may average only 55 percent. Strong productivity ahead will come from a BRICS+ supported by a gold and/or commodities-backed currency and a different payment system that bypasses the US dollar. Strong productivity definitely will not come from the collective west whose economies are entering recessionary times.
Amid so many intertwined developments, and so many challenges, one thing is certain. The SEPAM-SPFS deal between Russia and Iran may be just the first sign of the tectonic plates movement in global banking and payment systems.
Welcome to one, two, one thousand payment messaging systems. And welcome to their unification in a global network. Of course that will take time. But this high-speed financial train has already left the station.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 