The Debts of the Lenders: American Creditors Convene For Shanghai Cooperation Organization

The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) nations are convening in Yakaterinburg, Russia for the next few days to decide what to do about the dollar trap at the latest SCO meeting. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a regional multi-lateral organization that is nearly unknown to Western media.

I won't blame readers for being unaware. The group is deliberately low key and has traditionally focused on regional security talks and other boring stuff that only catches the attention of policy wonks in Washington DC. The SCO was originally founded as a security initiative in the mid- 1990s to resolve border disputes in Central Asia.

Basically, the SCO is a group of all the nations that were spurned at the G8 meeting (w/the exception of Russia) and who feel that they need a bigger voice in world trade independent of Euro-centric and American interests.*

Since I am not privy to the exact events at the meeting, all I can tell readers is what information has been made publicly available. India, Brazil, and other emerging market nations are calling for stricter financial and trade reforms. Naturally, Chinese and Russian representatives are on hand to remind attendees that they are available to push for reforms in Western dominated multi-lateral institutions (such as the UN) . . . for a price.


Source:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009sco/index.html

*For those interested, the SCO originally made waves in Western media starting in late 2006 when China inked a series of border deals w/Central Asian nations for oil and gas pipelines. The SCO also made some noise when China and Russia objected to US military bases bordering Afghanistan in Uzbekistan. Their representatives were able to successfully press local govts to close these bases.