- Editorials
- Posted
Kassioun Editorial 1242: The Shanghai Summit, The East Also Has Teeth
In Tianjin, China, representatives from half the world gathered, and the leaders of the Eurasian countries, who today constitute the true center of the world and contribute at least a third of the global gross domestic product, stood on one platform. This summit could have been like its predecessors, but through the military parade that followed the summit, China presented itself as a military umbrella for the summit and its outcomes. It revealed a sophisticated military structure funded with a budget equivalent to a quarter of the US military budget, and made the US army appear as if it belonged to a previous era. This parade was further enhanced by the presence of both the Russian and North Korean presidents alongside the Chinese president in a rare and unprecedented moment, resembling the announcement of a tripartite alliance.
The profound dimensions of “Shanghai” cannot be interpreted from a single event. Rather, it is, in fact, a qualitatively new point in a global shift in the balance of power, something we anticipated in our documents (Arabic) two decades ago. In 2006, we concluded that: “The balance of power has begun to change to America’s disadvantage on the global level, despite all the weapons of aggression that the US possesses”. We also said in the same year that: “The expected approach of the American threat to the borders of Russia and China in the foreseeable future will force them to adopt more radical positions against American imperialist ambitions”. Because the tangible evidence for these proposals was still in its embryonic form, it did not seem credible to many. Therefore, we were convinced that “one serious military defeat for American imperialism is sufficient to bring to light all the signs of the expected collapse”. This is what is about to happen in Ukraine, which explains the timing of the Shanghai summit.
While US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the scenes coming out of the Tianjin summit as “a show and a celebration of image without substance”, others acknowledged that it was a “omen” of the end of American hegemony. This was echoed by the British magazine “The Week”, which titled its cover: “Xi’s new world order: A challenge to the West”. The US and its Western allies had worked for years to delay this event, but under the influence of their deepening deep crisis, they were driven to adopt a hostile behavior toward everyone, which caused them to lose out in the face of other deeper understandings taking place in the East. Thus, we saw the Indian Prime Minister, for the first time in eight years, stand in China alongside President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in clear defiance of US warnings, unconcerned with the consequences of this open disobedience.
The countries that gathered in China know that their salvation from American plundering and bullying will only come through building a solid mutual consensus capable of curbing the US, even by force. Therefore, the outcomes of this summit were clear. On the one hand, there was the announcement of a new bank for development, grants, financing, and economic and financial cooperation among the banks of the Organization’s countries, with a renewed emphasis on ending the role of the dollar and using local currencies and the Chinese e-currency to carry out commercial transactions. On the other hand, the “Shanghai” countries committed to a single strategic action plan for the next ten years, and renewed their commitment to the principles of the “Shanghai Spirit”, which they see as a sufficient basis for building a new world, far from US bullying, one in which mutual understanding and cooperation prevail, and in which political borders are transformed into arteries for the exchange of the necessities of life, instead of bullets and shells.
Understanding the reality in which we live and the nature of the balances in the world today should be the starting point for Syria’s recovery and its transition to safety. Even if the US and the Zionist entity, relying on the figures of corruption and tyranny in Syria, have burdened the Syrians with all this suffering, we are today before a real and decisive opportunity to be where we truly belong: in the East, the center of the new world.
