 The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries met in the city of Samarkand on September 15th and 16th. Now, this meeting took place at a very vital juncture. We know that there's a conflict going on in Ukraine. We know that the US has been ratcheting up tensions in the Taiwan States. At this point, the meeting was some of the biggest countries in the region, received a lot of attention justifiably. Of course, in India, a lot of focus was on whether Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping would meet. But beyond that, there's been a lot of interesting discussions. We'll be talking about all this on this episode of Mapping Fault Lines. We have with us Prabir Purkastar. Prabir, we have India, China, Russia, of course, huge countries which bring a lot of people, a lot of the world's economy centered around some of these countries. But also these are countries which have also had various kinds of dynamics and equations in the past. So that all of these countries are in the same forum Pakistan, of course, is very interesting development just in itself. But then we also have a kind of engagement which is taking place at a time when so many other conflicts are also ongoing. So, how do you see the significance of this meeting, the fact that the leaders attended and what came out of it? If we get out of the immediate context of the Shanghai Cooperation Meeting in Samarkand and look at the larger picture, really a little bit of a bird's-eye view of the world and the geo-strategic picture of the world, then we will see there are two kinds of dynamics that are in play at the moment. One is what I have always called is the ocean-based dynamics. That means when you talk of NATO, it's not Atlantic that you're really focusing on. And therefore the not Atlantic Treaty Organization are both sides of the Atlantic and you are using the sea, the ocean to bridge the two sides. Similarly, when you talk of Indo-Pacific, again, it's an attempt to focus on the Pacific. Therefore, Australia becomes important, Japan becomes important, South Korea becomes important. And of course, India is also being dragged in because the idea is, of course, to try and contain China. But again, the bridge is the Pacific. Now, when you talk about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, this is really an Eurasian bridge. So, you're really talking of the people of Eurasia and it's a natural link because if you take India out of this equation, Pakistan out of the equation, this is the old really the trade route that linked both the European part as well as the what would be called today the East Asian part together. So, that was the long-term integration of the Eurasian land mass. And of course, as we know, the Silk Route also extended to South Asia. So, this is the other dynamic in play and it is really the, say, the 16th, 17th, 18th century onwards that you see the oceans emerge as spheres of political power and also extending the political power onto the land. You can essentially what would be called really maritime powers emerging who develop colonies and this is really the 16th to 20th century that you see maritime powers becoming major colonial forces. So, in that sense, it also reflects the colonial and ex-colonial powers, what they are doing or settler colonial powers, what they want to do in the world. So, Shanghai Cooperation Organization in that sense is an extension, if you please, of the dynamic which was there, which has been the dynamic throughout history. How does the Eurasian land mass come together and which is what Mackinder, because he included Africa in it, because Africa and Eurasia are linked in land terms, that this as the world island and then the other island in the Atlantic, which was the Americas. Of course, he never counted Australia as anything in this, which is not unjustified, shall we say. Also in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as you mentioned, this is Indian channel, who have a fraught relations on the northern borders. But we also see some disengagement taking place just prior to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. It may not be any relationship to the meeting itself, but it does show that both India and China realize that they have a stake in Eurasia and they cannot jeopardize that completely on the basis of their relationship on the northern borders. We are not going to get into this today. The other part of it is that India has a position on Ukraine, by which it has actually not welcomed Ukraine's invasion. It has made noises about Ukraine. But at the same time, it has not sided with the NATO powers on the question of sanctions on Russia. And it has in fact bought a lot of oil, as we know, from Russia and also needs fertilizers from Russia, other things as well. So this is an economic dynamic, which is at play at the moment. And even though China has the problem that they can be sanctioned by the United States, if it is seen to be helping Russia in various things at the same time, it's also clear, whatever the US may and its media may give the spin that Xi Jinping has somehow been critical of Russia. The reality is that Russia and China have a common geostrategic interest looking at the larger dynamic that we have already discussed. So the real issue seems to be that we have two sets of countervailing forces at work, militarily, militarily it's NATO as well as in some sense, the Japan and trying to get India into it, but really the Australia as the AUK-US as it was being called the UK, I don't know how it figures into this part of the world, but it's really the colonial remnant of that. So it's really the Australia, Japan and the United States coming together to contest China. And of course, the NATO powers, which is Western Europe. So this is the dynamic that India is not willing to be any longer, seem to be willing to play a part in which it goes with the United States against China. It seems to be disengaging somewhat from that after AUK-US agreement. India really hasn't had major military involvement with the United States as well. I think it's been cautious because it realizes Australia is the favorite partner and what is at play is really Southeast Asia. So that is why India doesn't really figure so strongly in it. And it also looks at its own business interest at the moment Russia without Russian oil. Indian economy will take a much bigger hit. So given all of this, there are cautious steps on Ukraine both have taken. India has made some noises again, but it's not willing to sanction Russia on the issue of oil as of now. They're expecting the G-70 impose its price cap. We'll see how that plays out, what happens between with China and India. Really the success of that price cap will depend on what India and China will do because these are the biggest markets at the moment. So I think we have to see how it plays out by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization looking at the size of the economies in nominal terms. It's not as large as G7, but you take purchasing power parity, then it's equivalent to the G7. If we take that into account and now Iran has been added to it, you're really seeing this land dynamic and the trade that possibilities that may take place. This is a really a political long-term trend, long-term direction that Eurasian land mass may take. Of course, there'll be conflicts. All neighbors have conflicts in the world. It's not something specific to India and Pakistan, India and China. Yes, Vietnam and China, for example. But the point is neighbors also live with each other. So how does this dynamic plays out in the long run? Will we see a larger market integration takes place or not is an open question. And it does seem that increasingly what we're going to see is Central Asia become a new area or arena of conflict possibly. Already there are some portents of that with Azerbaijan, Armenia, you have also other possibilities in Central Asia. So all of this is in the mix, but I do think that given the new emergence of SEO, which was lying a little low key for some time, and the fact that India has also openly the Prime Minister has gone to SEO, I think this means that at least this SEO is no longer a minor player internationally. It is also going to play this role of counterweight to G7. And as I said, G7 has to also understand that the street is no longer going to run in the world. Absolutely. Ruby, it's interesting you mentioned that because you have SEO on one hand, you have BRICS for instance, another grouping of very big countries contributing a lot of the world's GDP. And you have the way some of these groups function, which of course is not that the countries don't exactly agree with each other. But there is an understanding of how issues should be resolved. On the other hand, you have the G7, its price caps, its military arm in some sense is being the NATO. So with groups like the SEO, are we also seeing a different way of handling international issues, disputes for instance, where there is far more focus on the region. In fact, the SEO has intervened in some senses in Afghanistan. The statement does talk about Afghanistan as well. You know, that's an interesting issue in itself that the way land-based entities deal with each other is different from the way those who are being maritime powers engage with each other. Maritime powers are far more willing to be competitive because the open trade, which is what the central focus of maritime powers was, all the original focus of the Silk route itself, that is the maritime powers are competitive because ocean is supposedly open. But the land powers, whenever there is trade, it has to be cooperative because any small country can block the trade. So you go around it, but still it is a blockage. So therefore, the cooperative dynamic of a Eurasian market is much greater than what is possible as maritime powers. And therefore, I think the competitive nature of the G7, that it likes to dominate over everybody rather than see how cooperation can be built, is built into the nature of their emergence. And that's where I keep on talking about the sector colonial, colonial states because all the emergence of this maritime powers and the ability to impose their will by controlling the coasts, controlling the trade and so on. Now you are talking about the sanctions regime that the US and its allies would like to impose. Now, as you know, it really follows the economy. The US today is no longer the dominant economic power it was in terms of trade. China today is a bigger trade partner in the world of most countries and the US has lost that position. It's also true. The European Union is manufacturing power still but doesn't have the kind of say it had in the world market say about 30 years back and increasingly the question that comes up energy and if we take talk about energy only country which is in that sense has reserves in G7 is really the United States, others don't. When you come and talk about BRICS, now BRICS is a different really group of countries. It came into existence really when WTO is important and it was there that Brazil, India to some extent South Africa and of course China played a role in how the WTO trade rules would develop. But WTO itself has been made virtually a moribund by the United States who has not allowed the dispute settlement process to go ahead. They have not nominated judges and so on. So WTO is no longer the force it was and that is visible in the way the economic war is being fought that you have today the United States and other G7 countries, European Union using monetary financial sanctions completely outside WTO. So WTO is no longer the primary battleground for economic affairs and that's why the importance of BRICS is also relatively less because earlier that was a battleground. So today the battleground shift has really shifted to Ukraine where the battle between NATO and Russia has been fought. For Russia it's an existential battle because if they don't stop NATO they believe where it is at the moment. It comes five minutes or seven minutes away from Moscow and that's something they will not tolerate the way the United States did not tolerate putting off missiles in Cuba. So taking all of that out that battle between Russia and NATO at the moment is being fought in Ukraine it's not an economic battle except that the way Russia has reacted by saying okay if that's what you want and if you want to sanction me then I can also do certain things which is what you see as the gas flows and so on. But economic war is on that Russia is on much stronger wicked for one thing. One is that it is relatively less dependent on others unlike European Union which needs Russian gas if not Russian gas somebody else's gas there doesn't seem to be any readymade gas producers who can give them the kind of gas they need and if they don't have gases the fuel then their whole bunch of industries are also at risk apart from the way their prices are rising but I'll part that at the at the moment aside and say you know if you look at essentially the nature of economic war that is taking place the first battle is over energy and let's not forget the world civilization rests on energy. So energy is the most fundamental of traded goods you know that includes food and fertilizers because you won't have fertilizers unless you have energy you won't have food unless you can actually pump water and provide water to the fields. So all of this energy is a fundamental basic requirement of the economy and unfortunately European Union is deficit in that only Norway has some surplus and the United States is no longer able to provide that additional LNG they have said very clearly we the LNG producers in the United States those who are involved in fracking on a large scale have said sorry we don't have enough that's it whatever we are giving that's a max we can give we can't we can't do much more than that and I don't see others being ready to do that you see OPEC has cut its fuel output so given all of that European Union seems to be bent on committing harakini I don't know why but unless something changes drastically over there they seem to they in fact along with Ukraine seem to be falling victim to the geostrategic competition between what is at the moment Russia to some extent backed by China let's be honest about it that's China is implicitly backing Russia in this and at the same time it also is facing a threat on Taiwan and it's other on the other side the US seems to be wanting to fight a two front battle but at the moment Ukraine is a battleground between NATO and Russia and the future of it is not going to be decided militarily at the moment I think the economic war in which the the energy war seems to be the key element that is taking precedence and if we look at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization I think it also shows that there are possibilities in Eurasia which will then move away from Europe and if that happens the net loser is really apart from Ukraine is going to be the European Union thank you so much Praveer so there you have it this is more than more than just a meeting of leaders more than just a photo op in fact it's part of a process the sco that is which will determine the fate of the world in the coming decades we'll be talking about more such issues in future episodes of mapping fault lines until then keep watching news click