Friday, June 17, 2011

SCO steps out of Central Asia

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's 10th anniversary summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, saw confident steps taken towards integrating the entire Eurasian landmass. While the planned induction of India and Pakistan will create a pan-regional reach that supersedes the United States' "Great Central Asia" strategy, SCO efforts to assume responsibility for post-2014 Afghanistan are a direct challenge to US plans to establish permanent military bases there. Read my article in Asia Times on the future directions of SCO's development as a regional organisation.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sir, you make the SCO summit sound as if it was a win-win situation for India. On the contrary, the SCO member countries declared India and Pakistan have to resolve their differences before they can be admitted. This is a tight slap on the face of India. What is the difference then between SCO and the US led coalition?

I have read your posts till now and you are terribly more experienced than me. But as a third person casual reader, I realize that your thoughts and sympathies are left-leaning, anti-america and pro-China, sometime dangerously missing the point that China is hell bent on the destruction of India in the long run. Agreed, America is no-one's friend, but China's temporary friendly advances towards India are also highly opportunistic and selfish moves to further its self-interests.

SCO may be a Asia-wide platform and it is wise to be a part of it. But I would not put too much faith in it. Simple reason being, I do not believe a collection of countries with democracy, authoritarian, communist, Jihadi Islamic extremist type of governments can co-operate over a long term.

You say India should side strongly with Syria and Iran, even at the cost of Israel. Agreed that Syria and Iran are our friends, but they have never helped us over Kashmir! Israel, may be overzealous at times, but it has helped us during our crunch time in kargil, when neither Syria/Iran condemned Pakistan openly.

I respect your research work and it helps us ordinary Indians understand strategic news not generally found in local newspapers. But I just wish you would provide more fair and balanced articles instead of being overtly pro-China, even to the extent of advising unconditional friendship with China and Pakistan and unconditional enmity of America.

Johan said...

Ambassador Bhadrakumar’s profoundly perceptive, informed and inherently balanced analyses (and, indeed, the mainstay of the most interesting Asia Times) provide a welcome chance for serious reflection. That is the antidote to the deafening cacophony of the centrally controlled and well funded global propaganda machine to which many an otherwise intelligent but passive young man may succumb.

As for the specifics concerning the relations between China and India, there is nothing more that the global militaristic regimes - whose entire histories are those of violent plunder and living on the fruits of other peoples’ labour - would like too see between the two than their all out confrontation and mutual conflagration. Hardly a mere wish of the scavengers (see, e.g., “How the Empire will Prevail: Will Washington Foment War Between China and India?” by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts,
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25137 )

Wiki said...

The pendulum swings both ways. If India China rivalry is the brain-child of Western dominated media, so is the overtly over-the-top announcements of benign nature of China-Pakistan partnership vis-a-vis India.

Even I believe Mr. Bhadrakumar's columns are high on facts yet twisted to be highly biased towards the left, meant to instill a deep sense of fear and distrust in the minds of readers about Western countries motives while conveniently neglecting the dangers of China-Pakistan strategic alliance against India. No one doubts the double-dealing nature of western countries, but one must also be wary of Communist-Jihadi alliance against a secular, democratic India. This is sorely lacking in Mr. Bhadrakumar's columns.