At a time when NATO is proceeding to expand by annexing Finland and Sweden, China and Russia are moving to strengthen a security and economic bloc that includes Iran and Saudi Arabia.
According to an analysis published byNewsweekBeijing and Moscow want to achieve a kind of global “geopolitical equilibrium” by attracting “two influential adversaries in the Middle East.”
The report indicates that these attempts are being made through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization “SCO” and the “BRICS” group, which includes Brazil, Russia, India and China.
The Shanghai Organization was founded in 2001 by Russia, China and four Central Asian countries: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. It was joined by India and Pakistan in 2017.
The OIC countries represent regarding 60 percent of the area of Eurasia, where regarding 50 percent of the world’s population resides, and they constitute more than 20 percent of its economic output.
Matthew Naipaul, an expert on international affairs at the McDonald-Laurier Institute in Canada, told Newsweek that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS countries are organizations that have an important ideological character, and both focus on multipolarity.
He added that they are “working to double the force towards multipolarity, to help find economic alternatives,” noting that in theory it seeks to “facilitate economic ties” and fill the loopholes created by US sanctions, such as those imposed on Russia.
Naipaul noted that there are “big hurdles to overcome,” but that reshaping the SCO and BRICS may play a major role in reshaping the global order.
Currently, Iran had the status of an observer member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and its membership officially began last September, and the Iranian Foreign Ministry announced, last Monday, that it is seeking to join the BRICS group.
Tehran’s rapprochement with Chinese and Russian allies comes in a climate of growing mistrust of Iran towards the West and during a period of tension with the United States, according to an AFP report.
Last May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed that Saudi Arabia was considering obtaining BRICS membership, following which Riyadh joined the BRICS Plus talks, which included the countries of the organization in addition to Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Senegal, Thailand and the UAE, following which it announced China has a consensus to expand the “BRICS”.
The analysis indicates that this vision is not far from the vision of Riyadh and the Saudi Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who seeks to diversify the country’s oil-dependent economy, and present a new image of the Kingdom to the international community.
On June 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for strengthening relations between the BRICS countries “Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa” once morest the backdrop of unprecedented Western sanctions hitting the Russian economy due to the Ukraine conflict.
Russia also wants to develop with its BRICS partners “alternative mechanisms for international transfers” and an “international currency” with the aim of reducing dependence on the dollar and the euro, according to a previous AFP report.
