AFRO-EURASIA: A GIANT IS TAKING SHAPE

 

For China, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is one way to make its weight felt across the world, a tool to reshape Afro-Eurasia according to its needs and interests, a vessel to share its thinking, a mean to reach its goals. Of course, by essence, the whole scheme is at odd with the wishes of the western world.

The list of countries that are already part of this grouping, that wish to join it as observers or members, is very interesting and indicative of the inroads made by Chinese influence in the world so far. The list of members is impressive: China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and four of the five countries that make Central Asia. Among those who wish to be a part of the grouping, in one form or another, many are heavyweight in their own right: Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.

The aim of the SCO is mainly economic and strategic. While a strictly military alliance like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is more cohesive and binding, this relatively new grouping may provide a platform to countries seeking a different world order, a world order less dominated by the West. It can thus become an alternative to the G7 club of super-rich western countries, that is often seen as behaving like a monopolistic bloc, one that is used of having its own way, one that often leaves the impression that it 'own' mankind and can tell it what to do, which of course it doesn't.

Mankind is changing, entering a new era, where the West will slowly cease to be calling the shots at every turn, as it's used to. Even if the war in Ukraine goes against the interests of Russia, it won't prevent the continuation of that kind of fundamental, tectonic shift. It will go on and deepen.

The role of the countries of Central Asia in that process will not be minor. From a Soviet backwater (before the break-up of the USSR) to a Russian protectorate (after said break-up), Central Asia is slowly moving under the umbrella of China. It will probably become a kind of interface between the Middle Kingdom and the rest of the continent.

Other countries will likely retain some influence over Central Asia, though, like Iran, Turkey and India. Geographically, that part of the world, far from being isolated, is at the crossroads of the Sinic, Slavic, Iranic, Turkic, and Indic cultural universes.

Central Asia is the linchpin of Afro-Eurasia. It is also the future point of convergence of all the new silk roads that, on land, one day, will crisscross the super-continent of Afro-Eurasia and will unite Western Europe, Black Africa and the Far East into one gigantic economic complex.

(The preceding article is based on a series of twits that were posted on Twitter today (September 19th, 2022), as a reaction to a text published by Nikkey: https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/China-led-SCO-pushes-multipolar-world-as-Xi-warns-of-color-revolts)