Leaders of Russia, India and China plot a new New World Order (Picture AP)
The three major Eastern powers, also the major playrs in the BRICS economic bloc met in China this week and vowed to increase collaboration as part of a broader challenge to Western supremacy in the already-emerging multipolar world.
While left leaning mainstream media spun the event as more proof of the Trump administration’s ineptitude, Russian media heralded it as “one of the defining political events of 2025.” The 25th annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit was held in Tianjin, China, this year. The heads of Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Belarus, and other Central Asian and Caucasus states also attended.
The multi-day event began with the Chinese, Russian, and Indian heads of states embracing, a gesture mainstream Western foreign-policy pundits quickly interpreted as more proof that the Trump administration’s foreign policy is a failure.
While the United States hit India with high tariffs for buying Russian energy, it did not add any to Russia’s largest energy client, China. During the summit, Xi took a thinly veiled shot at the United States and its Western allies. He said that SCO members should “oppose the Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation, and bullying practices.” Xi also said that SCO members “should advocate an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, and make the global governance system more just and equitable.” The issue of a multipolar world came up repeatedly. Non-Western leaders have made it clear that they seek a global order in which the West doesn’t hold the most power.
What we see in the output from the Tianjin summit is that althought Obama, Biden and Trump have tried to contain the rise of China their ham fisted efforts have only pushed Russia into the arms of China. And now Trump has managed to push India into the arms of Russia and China.
The absence of strategic thinking in the 'West' is palpable.
The ongoing meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is, like similar meetings of BRICS, just one building stone of the new new world order Xi and Putin are planning. Many more will be needed. A clear outline of the new order has yet to develop: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday proposed the Global Governance Initiative (GGI) at the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus" Meeting in Tianjin."I look forward to working with all countries for a more just and equitable global governance system and advancing toward a community with a shared future for humanity," Xi said when addressing the meeting.
He highlighted five principles for the GGI:
- First, we should adhere to sovereign equality.
- Second, we should abide by international rule of law.
- Third, we should practice multilateralism.
- Fourth, we should advocate the people-centered approach.
- Fifth, we should focus on taking real actions.
Nice concepts and words. I agree with them. But where is the beef? At some point muscles will be needed to back them up.
BRICS is a collection of traditional, nationalist Capitalist governments. They are not revolutionary and their particular economic systems, China included (!) are not "Socialist" at all. The wage slaves in every one of these nations are heavily exploited and kept out of power as a class.
Yet, none of the BRICS is Imperialist. None of them seek to destroy other countries and murder their peoples for economic advantages. Russia acts only to defend it's national interests in Ukraine. None of them want war. Moreover, China has implemented a number of reforms with which it limits the destructive power of Capitalism on its own people and holds it's billionaires firmly in check, so that they do not determine policy.And none haroburs an ambition to gain full spectrum dominance like the USA or a Global Technocratic government (Davosocracy) like The World Economic Forum.
For all of these reasons, the BRICS are the best existing alternative and opposition to the putrid Imperialism of the West. They have my critical support. A world under their system would be a great improvement on a world under the genocidal Imperialist duo of US/Israel.
Nonetheless, nobody should expect them to take action to stop human rights violations and even outright genocide that does not effect their national interests.
They are not trying to save the wage slaves of the world, they are not seeking to end mans exploitation of man, they are not seeking to expropriate the billionaires and use their wealth to improve humanity.
Is it possible that the mature thinkers in the SCO and BRICS are ensuring that they leave the enemy with some means of escape? When one is dealing with those who may believe they are exceptional, separate from nature, and immortal, one has to consider the possibility that such adversaries will resort to nuclear blackmail or manufacture armageddon. The adults in the room have to finesse such ignorance, hubris and spiritual madness to sustain a viable future.
One more thing that seems to be ignored by policymakers and political commentators in the West is that China and India are the heirs of extremely old civilizations that are culturally robust to an extent that those in the West who talk of concepts like international law and globalism deliberately refuse to understand. China has almost always followed Confucian doctrines, again something the West and, in particular, its intellectual class have deliberately refused to even try to understand as they wage war on traditional cultures. While Confucian, or any culture (in the west Greco - Roman culture has been influential although the influence of Celic and Germanic cultures is probably understated,) can go through periods of corruption, its guidelines offer a quicker move to re-balancing than the culture of the West, with its obsession with the future and, more recently, fantasy, can approximate. The West is headed for internal degeneration--all China has to do is wait. There is no need for the SCO or BRICS to "hurry up and do something" the fruit will land in their hands soon enough--this should be obvious to anyone who has a strong background in history, anthropology, or sociology.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
