Why Couldn’t The SCO Defense Ministers Agree On A Joint Statement?
India refused to sign the document since it didn’t condemn late April’s Pahalgam terrorist attack.
India found itself at odds with the SCO once again less than two weeks since it clarified that it didn’t participate in the group’s joint statement on the Iranian-Israeli War. This time its Defense Minister refused to sign the joint statement that was supposed to conclude last week’s meeting with his peers in Qingdao ahead of the leaders’ summit in Tianjin this autumn. The reason was that the document didn’t condemn late April’s Pahalgam terrorist attack even though it condemned terrorism in Balochistan.
As this year’s chair, China has extra influence over the SCO’s workings during the events that it hosts, so it therefore follows that this might have been a deliberate provocation meant to signal support for Pakistan while snubbing India. To add insult to injury, Pakistan blames India for terrorism in Balochistan, which is why it was even more unacceptable from Delhi’s perspective for that issue to be mentioned while no mention was made of the Pahalgam terrorist attack to balance everything out.
India’s conventional retaliation against Pakistan in the aftermath sparked the latest Indo-Pak Conflict between these two SCO members, however, so China or at least its supporters in the media might claim that omitting any mention of Pahalgam was meant to avoid further dividing the group. Be that as it may, it would have been predictable that this would result in India refusing to sign the SCO Defense Ministers’ joint statement, but that might have actually been what China was aiming for all along.
To explain, a perception has taken root among some members of the Alt-Media Community and even some experts that India is the so-called “weak link” in the SCO, with the reason allegedly being its close economic and military ties with the US. Adherents ignore China’s much closer economic ties to the US, the Central Asian Republics’ growing military ones with the West in general (especially NATO member Turkiye), and the US’ attempt to subordinate India, however. It’s therefore an agenda-driven narrative.
Nevertheless, this analysis here from early June argued that it was precisely this perception that accounts for why Russia lent credence to Trump’s claim that he personally stopped the latest Indo-Pak Conflict despite Delhi’s repeated denials, which hyperlinks to related pieces over the preceding month. The gist is that a pro-BRI policymaking faction comprised of anti-Western “hardliners” is rising in the Kremlin at the expense of the establishment’s balancing/pragmatist faction that currently calls the shots.
Although the pro-BRI faction hasn’t been able to effect any tangible shift in policy towards (or rather, away from) India due to Putin being part of the balancing/pragmatist faction, that scenario would be of grand strategic importance for China. Russia and India would no longer jointly accelerate tri-multipolarity processes, thus making it more likely that a form of Sino-US bi-multipolarity could one day be restored. Russia would therefore become China’s “junior partner” while India would become the US’ in that event.
Thus, China might have sought to provoke India into refusing to sign the SCO Defense Ministers’ joint statement so as to craft optics that could lend more credence to the claim of it being the SCO’s “weak link”, hoping that this can strengthen the influence of Russia’s pro-BRI faction. Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov effusively praised India during the summit though so no changes are expected under Putin, but if a member of the pro-BRI faction succeeds him, then this can’t be ruled out in the future.
I'm probably dreaming...
I read:
"...at the expense of the establishment’s balancing/pragmatist faction that currently calls the shots."
And I'm dreaming deeper when I learn Poutine is in this bunch.
Hey boys!!! Wake up, there's a war out!!!
A war against Russia.
Poutine says that every week, Lavrov says it several time a week, Medvedev says that every day.
There a war of West against Russia.
And I read that the faction which rules Russia by now is gently pragmatic and balancing.
Are they morons or crazy? When will they realise that for westerners , Russians are no more than "snow niggers"?
I remember in the late 80's, I knew young sovietic students. I was amazed by their naivety. They believed in giving up communism , Russians will be welcome by West with open arms.
I told them that no, West will only treat them like colony, destroy their state, loot, rob, destroy their economy.
They were horrified and didn't believe me...
West will perhaps, probably, surely collapse. But even dead, white westerners will always believe that others peoples are inferior, can be looted, exploited, used and abused.
Don't believe they consider Poles, Romanians, Greeks, Slovaks, south Spanish or south Italians and Portuguese as equal.
No. Not at all.
And it's worse for Russians, Russia CAN'T be better than West
For that reason we, westerner, manipulated History, and it's not the russian heroism that stopped Napoleon. No. It's winter.
It's not russian heroism that stopped Hitler in front of Moscow . No. It's winter.
It's not the russian genius of russian engineers, generals, strateges, that Brooke Nazis, no, it's winter, stubborn sacrifice of million russian soldiers.
Russia CAN'T be better than West.
Exactly like the white trash redneck from Alabama or Mississippi thought it was impossible than a "nigger" was better .
Racism.
It's only racism behind this war.
It's thank to this racism that western people eat every stupid lie, crap and fraud against Russia.
Two or three days ago, Lavrov and Poutine said that it's the same same racism behind West than behind Nazis 84 years ago.
Then they know.
And I learn that "pragmatic/balancing " faction is ruling Russia .
Hey folks, there's a war in. There is no more time of pragmatism and balancing.
Now, it's only time of allied ou ennemy....or neutral.
But there is nothing to balance against a deadly enemy.
This is a really interesting moment. India skipping the SCO statement over the Pahalgam attack shows the real tensions inside the group, especially with China’s influence as chair. It feels like China might be stirring the pot to paint India as the “weak link” because of its US ties.