FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit and the New Silk Road Spirit
June 13, 2018 (EIRNS)—The confluence of the recently concluded SCO Summit in Qingdao, China and the perspective of the New Silk Road project was emphasized in a pair of significant op-eds in China Daily. Xu Tao, who is at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, wrote an article headlined “China Wisdom Enriches Shanghai Spirit,” which begins by recalling Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the welcoming banquet of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit: “Xi said that as an integral part of Chinese civilization, Confucianism believes ‘a just cause should be pursued for the common good.’ ” Xu said further that “this reflects the integration of traditional Chinese culture into the Shanghai Spirit, which has made the SCO a new type of player on the global stage.”
China Daily also published a lengthy article by Laurence Brahm, founding director of Himalayan Consensus and an international research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, which emphasizes that the SCO Summit in Qingdao
“crystalized a multilateral organization that can effectively coordinate policy to implement the Belt and Road Initiative.... We could see the SCO emerging as the coordinating body for regional policy to make BRI a reality.”
Brahm continued that
“the fact that India and Pakistan joined the SCO together in 2017 and took their place at the table in Qingdao is a huge breakthrough for regional stability, development and peace.”
Brahm then focused on the financing mechanisms that are being made available:
“New financial mechanisms and institutions will be key to the success of the BRI and SCO cooperation. The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, (BRICS) New Development Bank, and the Silk Road Fund are financing institutions that will help build the financial architecture of the BRI. It was tabled that a new organization, the SCO Development Bank, will join these institutions. President Xi announced that China will set up a 30 billion yuan special lending facility to operate within the framework of the SCO Interbank Consortium.”
The SCO, Brahm concluded
“could very well emerge as the alternative to old ‘new world order’ systems such as the G7, which ironically became the ‘G6 against 1’ just days before the SCO summit.... The Silk Road is back. Now with the SCO, it is time for a Silk Road Consensus.”
