The 22nd Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit opened Thursday (September 15th) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. It will last two days. The leaders of 14 countries are at the rendezvous. Among them, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. The organization aims to counterbalance Western influence. Created in 2001 with Russia, China and four former Soviet republics of Central Asia, it also includes Pakistan and India. How do these demographic giants position themselves in this geopolitical chessboard?
Pakistan participates in the summit without wanting to turn its back on the West
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was joined in 2016 by Pakistan. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif reiterated his commitment to what he called the spirit of Shanghai. It’s really the idea of cooperation, of regional mutual aid. The topics that are on the discussion table are diverse, they are economic, environmental. Pakistan has just experienced a climatic catastrophe with exceptional and destructive monsoon rains with 1400 human lives lost, ten billion dollars in damage while the economy is already very fragile. For the Pakistani Prime Minister, this summit is an opportunity to consolidate his membership in this eastern bloc formed by powerful friends of Pakistan, China, a major economic partner of Islamabad, and Russia with whom Pakistan maintains relations that consolidated over the past few years.
The country, to use the expression of a Pakistani columnist, is trying to maintain a balance in its relations with the West and with its Asian partners. The balance is not so easy to maintain. Shebaz Sharif also met Thursday, September 15 Vladimir Putin one-on-one on the sidelines of this summit. With the war in Ukraine, relations with Russia, for Pakistan are complicated to manage. Pakistan sells shells to Ukraine. The information was given after videos went viral on social media. It shows Ukrainian soldiers using artillery pieces that bear the inscription of the main arms manufacturer in Pakistan. According to the world, the sale of these shells to Ukraine was apparently one of the conditions for the advance payment of a loan of 1.17 billion dollars from the International Monetary Fund to Pakistan. It was part of a triangular agreement with the United States. Pakistan, which is going through a serious economic crisis, cannot turn its back on the West just as it cannot turn its back on China and by extension on Russia, with whom relations have grown over the years. previous ones. This summit, this Shanghai cooperation organization is an opportunity to indicate its membership of this complex Asian bloc.
India agrees to participate in the summit despite the presence of China
The Indian Prime Minister will therefore be present in Samarkand, which represents a major diplomatic turning point – it is indeed the first time that Narendra Modi agrees to be in the presence of Xi Jinping for two years, and the deadly confrontation of the armies of the two countries along their disputed Himalayan border. As a reminder, this June 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers not only resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers, but China took the opportunity to occupy several disputed territories along their Himalayan border. Since then, it has been a diplomatic freeze: Prime Minister Narendra Modi refuses to meet President Xi Jinping until Chinese troops have withdrawn. During the Brics summit, organized in China in June 2022, the Indian leader did not move, forcing Beijing to hold the meetings online. The same threat hung over this summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which would have embarrassed Xi Jinping, who considers it an important place of influence.
This pressure had effects because last week, a few days before this summit, the Chinese army began a withdrawal from an area conquered from India in June 2020 – this is not the first time that a Such a withdrawal has been carried out for two years, and this does not entail the total liberation of the zones then occupied, but it is a significant diplomatic gesture which could allow the two leaders to resume dialogue on new bases. New Delhi refuses to say whether Narendra Modi will meet Xi Jinping in private, but they will in any case attend the summit meetings tomorrow side by side, which is a first for two years.
The Indian Prime Minister is also expected to meet the Russian President. It was Moscow who announced it, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin will talk in particular about trade. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, India has been buying huge quantities of Russian oil, becoming the second largest buyer after China. New Delhi thus benefits from the reductions offered by Moscow on this Russian oil that the West no longer wants to buy. Transactions are currently made in dollars, but it is possible that the two countries will set up a system of exchanges in local currencies, to avoid the risk of sanctions on the use of dollars.