Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday praised the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) regional security bloc at a summit that put on a show of unity contrasting with the acrimonious G7 Leaders’ Summit, which ended yesterday in Charlevoix, Canada.
In Qingdao in China’s Shandong Province, Xi gave the Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Indian President Narendra Modi a “special welcome” to their first summit of the SCO since their countries joined the group last year.
Founded in 2001, the SCO also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose country is an observer member, also attended the meeting as he seeks Chinese and Russian support following the US’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Tehran.
“Unilateralism, trade protectionism and a backlash against globalization are taking new forms,” Xi said, advocating the “pursuit of cooperation for mutual benefit.”
While never mentioning the US by name, he added: “We should reject the Cold War mentality and confrontation between blocs, and oppose the practice of seeking absolute security of oneself at the expense of others, so as to obtain security of all.”
Xi, whose government is locked in tough negotiations with the US to avoid a trade war, said that WTO rules and the multilateral trading system should be upheld to build an open world economy.
“We should reject self-centered, shortsighted and closed-door policies,” said Xi — whose country has been accused of restricting broad access for foreign firms to its huge market.
Addressing the SCO leaders seated, Putin said that the addition of Pakistan and India to the organization means it “has become even stronger.”
While Xi feted his peers with fireworks, SCO members have their own disagreements, with India worried about China’s trade infrastructure projects in disputed territory in Pakistan, and China and India having their own heated border dispute in the Himalayas last year.
However, no disharmony was evident during the two-day summit in Qingdao.
The show of unity was in stark contrast to the calamitous end to G7 meeting after US President Donald Trump disowned a joint summit statement and said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was “dishonest” and “weak.”
Xi touted security cooperation — the original raison d’etre of the SCO — and announced that China would open a 30 billion yuan (US$4.67 billion) special lending facility within the bloc’s interbank consortium.
Putin said trade and investment among SCO countries was growing, and Russia and China would propose a Eurasian economic partnership for all member states.
With the president of aspiring full member Iran looking on, Putin said that Moscow still supports the Iran nuclear deal that Trump recently abandoned.
The US withdrawal “can further destabilize the situation,” but Russia is in favor of the “unconditional implementation” of the pact, he said..
However, Putin voiced his support for Trump’s summit tomorrow with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore.
The “US’ effort to impose its policies on others is an expanding danger,” Rouhani said.
He said the US was monitoring the global reaction to its withdrawal from the nuclear deal and a weak response would encourage it to carry on acting unilaterally.
“This will have many harmful consequences for the global community,” Rouhani added.
Iran is ready to cooperate with the SCO against terrorism, extremism and separatism, Rouhani said.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of