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As the Western elite gathered in picturesque St Moritz to grapple with pressing world crises, the outsiders met in the bleak steppes of Central Asia.
Last week’s 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kazakh capital Astana highlighted how the major rivals to empire, led by Russia and China -- themselves rivals, are trying to fashion an alternative to US hegemony.
The SCO is the only major international organisation that has neither the US nor any close US ally among its members, and its influence is growing across Eurasia. Leaders of member states Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan were joined by leaders from observers Iran, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Belarus and Sri Lanka have been admitted as dialogue partners, and prior to his arrival in Astana to attend the summit, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Ukraine.
With a Chinese rhetorical flourish, the Astana Declaration stressed the goal of combatting the "three forces" of "terrorism, extremism, and separatism". The summit called for a "neutral" Afghanistan (read: no permanent US bases), supported by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, even as the US is actively discussing a post-2014 strategic partnership agreement with him. The prospect of permanent US military bases in Afghanistan lies at the core of current US-Pakistan tensions. India has indicated its aversion to "new cold war" tensions appearing in the region.
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