All of China’s anti-US aims with the yuan
The salient news emerged from the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summit according to analysts from the Global Times
The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the regional body created by China twenty-one years ago to strengthen the partnership with Central Asian countries, ended yesterday in Samarkand.
The high profile of the summit can be deduced from the level of the participants: fifteen heads of state and government representing the eight member countries of the SCO, those with observer status and those present as guests.
But to highlight the event was above all the participation of Xi Jinping, who chooses Samarkand for his first trip abroad since the beginning of the pandemic.
It is legitimate to ask, in consideration of the fact that he is his creation, what is Beijing's vision on the role of the SCO. How does cooperation between its members take shape from China's point of view? And what are the agenda, priorities and objectives to be pursued for a bloc that wants to oppose the institutions led by the West and in particular oppose the political and economic supremacy of the US and its allies?
These questions are answered by an interesting article in the Global Times, the English-language edition of the People's Daily that routinely conveys the line of the CCP leadership.
Economic and commercial cooperation
As usual, the Global Times rattles off its arguments relying on the statements of anonymous analysts called upon to play the role of expert opinion providers.
The analysts in question underline first of all that one of the priorities of the summit was to discuss "economic cooperation between Member States and other partners in a wide range of areas, from energy to food and infrastructure".
The Chinese footprint clearly emerges when it is underlined that there is "a growing urgency" for economic and trade cooperation between SCO members in light of the "multiple challenges" posed by the current global economic framework, one of which is represented by the "growing sanctions economic taxes imposed by the USA ".
The analysts called into question by the Global Times then note the numerous steps forward made by the SCO to promote mutual cooperation. As a tangible result, the China Development Bank has implemented 63 cooperation projects under the SCO that involved lending to member banks worth $ 14.6 billion.
Further developments are expected in the fields of advanced manufacturing, new technologies, logistics, medicine and health.
The role of the yuan
The interests of China and those of the SCO are also indicated as coinciding in matters of finance.
In this context, it is emphasized that it is now convenient to adopt the yuan for reciprocal commercial transactions, in particular in the field of exchanges relating to energy and food security.
Here it is clear the reference to the need to counter the hegemony of the dollar as a reference currency for international payments, but also to evade the prohibition systems put in place by the high sanctions by the US. It is necessary to do so, is the suggestion of the analysts, to free from the American grip three large energy producers who are also SCO members such as Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and to make the exports of food products of a large producer such as Russia .
Energy cooperation
To discuss the fundamental aspects of energy, the Global Times consulted another source, Xu Qinhua, director of the Center for International Energy and Environment Strategy Studies at Renmin University of China.
This expert also advocates adopting the yuan as a "natural choice" for energy payments. This is in consideration of the "deep integration" that is registered in the sector among SCO members, "from upstream production to transport and refining".
The centrality of the Belt and Road
A "precondition" for the cooperation pointed out by Chinese analysts could only be the development of "infrastructural connectivity", to be translated into the terms of the construction of highways, railways and oil pipelines.
And here the experts have a good game in underlining how this priority is "in line with the development objectives" proposed by China through its project of the new Silk Roads.
The numerous milestones already achieved by the project in the SCO area are highlighted, citing as examples the tunnel on the Angen-Pap railway line, which represents the longest tunnel in Central Asia, the extension of the highway that connects China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and the progress made on the preliminary work for the construction of a railway that will connect those three countries.
In their own image and likeness
From the statements of the analysts, it is clear that Beijing is willing to make the interests of the SCO coincide with its own.
In particular, the pressures for the adoption of the yuan and for the expansion of the objectives to be pursued with the Belt and Road make clear the idea that China feeds on the SCO: a creature generated in its own image and likeness to favor a strategy that places the Dragon at the center of a system that wants to finally be freed from the tyranny of the West.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/primo-piano/tutte-le-mire-anti-usa-della-cina-con-lo-yuan-sco-global-times/ on Sat, 17 Sep 2022 06:47:05 +0000.