MOSCOW, MAY 29 (from Dmitri Kosyrev, RIA Novosti political analyst) - The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation held summit in Moscow. Alma Ata, former Kazakh capital, was initially appointed to gather the Russian, Chinese, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz heads of state. The venue was wisely shifted to Moscow to place the event in one of the world's foremost diplomatic centres.

The St. Petersburg tricentennials gathered forty national leaders in Russia-US, Indian, and of the EU and CIS countries among them. A CIS summit is scheduled for tomorrow, and a Russia-EU the next day.

A Shanghai Organisation summit in Alma Ata would emphasise the six countries' preoccupation in domestic and other Central Asian affairs. A Moscow summit, on the contrary, brings out Central Asia as part and parcel of global politics.

As it appears at first sight, symbolism underlying the summitry did not do much for its officially recorded achievements, with an informal closed-door conference of yesterday and today's, even more important, open official event. In fact, the summiteers gathered for technical work to approve all documents necessary to implement security and economic programmes starting next autumn. The Shanghai Partnership Organisation was established with such programmes in view as a practice-oriented league to replace an annual leaders' debating forum of five countries-China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan has joined them now.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation emerged with a related decision at a maiden summit in Shanghai, June 15, 2001. St. Petersburg summitry of June 7, 2002, brought a Charter, the Organisation's basic statutory document. Now, formal and practical preparations are over, and the Organisation is ready to start full-scale work.

A regional anti-terror agency is active even now, with headquarters in Bishkek, Kyrgyz capital. It will quite soon engage in combat against drug manufacturers and traffickers, and launch practical teamwork of the six Defence Ministries. Draft economic projects are under debate. A few initial ones will probably be offered to a prime-ministerial conference, early next autumn. All Organisation agencies will become active next year, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said to a news conference to sum up the Moscow event.

Globalist trends were evident in summit documents and, even more so, at the closed-door presidential conference. No one of the summiteers attempted to bar the Organisation off from outsiders. The post-Soviet area accounts for a considerable part of Central Asia. It was a zone of the USSR's exclusive influence in the not-so-distant past, so one can expect the Shanghai Partnership Organisation to spread exclusive influence of two superpowers-Russia and China-to the entire area. Globalisation, however, renders ventures of that kind pointless, so the Organisation pursues quite a different goal-to incorporate post-Soviet Central Asia into the global economy and politics.

Importantly, the emergence of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation promotes Russian-Chinese ties. Declarations may reassure that a change of Chinese presidency has not changed anything in bilateral relations. As things really are, a new broom sweeps well, and a new leader seeks to do something of his own while preserving his predecessor's achievements. Presidents Vladimir Putin and Hu Jintao met at the negotiation table on the eve of the Shanghai Organisation summit to discuss the entire range of bilateral contacts. If the Organisation is a success with its main tasks-Central Asian security and progress, it will spectacularly enhance President Hu's prestige and influence.

Moscow summitry brought out the purport of Russia's Eastern policies. As the globalist-minded conference has shown, foreign politics do not fall in two mutually contrasting parts-Eastern and Western. There is only one close-knit policy by a vast and mighty country stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific.

CDI Russia Weekly #259 ~ Contents  •  Next