Teaching Comparative

A multi-national organization without the US?

Perhaps we should add the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to the list of multi-national organizations that our comparative students should know about. After all, it appears as though half of the AP countries are or will soon be members, and only one of the AP 6 is a member of the EU.

Here's a report on the meeting of the SCO from the June 15 Guardian (UK):

China hosts summit to rival US

"China ramped up its role as a global player on Thursday by hosting a summit of states encompassing almost half the world's population and some of Washington's most prominent opponents...

"The growing power of China has prompted a rethink in Washington, where rightwing analysts now speak of the SCO as an embryonic rival to Nato. Their fears have been strengthened in the past two years by the inclusion in the SCO of Iran, Pakistan, India, Mongolia and Afghanistan as either observer or guest nations.

"But it is in the field of energy that the SCO appears to be most powerful. The countries gathered in Shanghai control almost a quarter of the world's oil supplies and are building a series of pipelines across the region. A pipeline is being planned from Iran to China that would cross Pakistan, whose president, Pervez Musharraf, yesterday requested to be admitted as a full member of the SCO...

"The SCO - one of the world's youngest international groupings - began life 10 years ago... [I]ts activities have expanded to cover anti-terrorism exercises, energy cooperation and banking in the five years since it became a formal institution... most western commentators have dismissed the SCO as a dictators' club that is long on style and short on substance.

"On Thursday the leaders signed a joint statement on information security, economic cooperation and cross-border military exercises. 'It remains the top priority of the organisation to combat the threats posed by terrorism, separatism and extremism as well as drug trafficking, which have not diminished but aggravated in scale and degree,' the statement noted. Human Rights Watch say the member countries use this as a pretext to crack down on legitimate and peaceful protests."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 2:10 PM