Iran Welcome In China's New Sphere
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Courtesy Of: The Australian
By Rowan Callick,
China Correspondent
June 13, 2006

Iran's controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is flying to Shanghai tomorrow to take part in a summit that will seal China's plans to lead an Asian rival to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

The Shanghai Co-Operation Organisation--whose meeting has forced the shutdown of much of the city this week--is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and is preparing to expand its membership well beyond the present China, Russia and four strategic Central Asian States: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Li Hui refused at a briefing yesterday to disclose the countries that wished to become observers or full members, beyond saying: "A lot of countries in Asia and other continents have applied, demonstrating the SCO is broadening its influence."

Other leaders who will attend the summit include the Presidents of Pakistan and Mongolia
--formal observer states, like Iran and India--and Afghanistan.

Most of the members share a huge potential--and in China's case, an appetite--for increased energy production. India is sending its Oil and Gas Minister.

In the past, they have also shared a focus on combating Islamist terror, but Iran's participation in this summit and its eagerness to become a full member appear to point the organisation in a different direction: A coral of countries capable of countering Western influence.

...The group's foreign and defence ministers and parliamentary speakers have already held meetings this year, as the pace of enmeshment accelerates. The organisations members have begun holding Joint military exercises, most recently in March in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and next year in Russia.

...Last week SCO Secretary-General Zhang Deguang told Journalists in Beijing, when questioned about the participation of Iran:

"We cannot abide other countries calling our observer nations sponsors of terror. We would not have invited them if we believed they sponsored terror."

The SCO's charter speaks of creating "A new international political and economic order."

David Wall, a researcher associate for Cambridge University's East Asia Institute, wrote recently in the Japan Times that the SCO States'

"...Had become an important multilateral institution of global geopolitical significance."

At last year's summit, Beijing and Moscow initiated discussion about the fate of America's bases in Central Asia. The resulting statement said:

"As the active military phase in the anti-terror operation in Afghanistan is nearing completion, it is time to decide on the deadline for the use of temporary infrastructure and for their military contingents' presence in member countries."

Uzbekistan has since asked the U.S. military to leave but Kyrgyzstan continues to host a base.

Through the SCO, China has developed connections that will ensure at least some of the massive oil and gas reserves in Central Asia flow East and not West.

It has extended loans and made growing investments in the "-stan" economies, as part of its careful cultivation of the region, and is stepping up its purchases of Iranian oil, this year reaching 13 per cent of all its oil imports.

Source:
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19453012-2703,00.html