● Vertice in Russia della Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in cui sarà discussa anche la questione afghana,
● Russia e Cina utilizzano SCO (che raccoglie China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan e Uzbekistan; partecipano come osservatori Iran, Pakistan, India e Mongolia) per controbilanciare l’influenza occidentale nella regione ricca di fonti energetiche.
● Il vertice sottolinea la volontà di Mosca di mantenere la propria influenza sul suo giardino di casa e di avere maggior voce sulle questioni economiche internazionali.
● Seguirà un vertice dei BRIC, Brasile, Russia, India e Cina.
– Previsto a latere un incontro del presidente russo con i presidenti di Afghanistan e Pakistan; attesi segnali per un maggior sostegno di Russia e paesi confinanti alle operazioni militari americane in Afghanistan,
– e di conseguenza della volontà russa di ricucire i rapporti con gli USA di Obama.
– Nel 2005 la SCO sostenne la decisione uzbeka di estromettere le forze USA da una sua base usata per le operazioni in Afghanistan.
– Ora Russia e paesi centro-asiatici hanno accordato il permesso di passaggio di rifornimenti militari “non-letali” sul loro territorio.
● Il Kyrghizistan ha deciso di chiudere la base aerea Usa di Manas (a metà agosto) dopo aver ottenuto dalla Russia la garanzia di un aiuto e credito per $2MD.
CLIFFORD J. LEVY
● Il vertice dei BRIC (Brasile Russia, India e Cina) vuole far emergere il loro crescente peso economico – circa il 15% del PIL mondiale, e il 40% delle riserve monetarie –
● e la richiesta di un corrispondente maggior peso politico;
● NYT: il risultato sarà per lo più simbolico.
i 4 BRIC non sono un gruppo monolitico, faticano a concordare una linea comune di azione avendo economie e relazioni con gli USA molto differenti tra loro; più facili gli accordi bilaterali con le potenze occidentali.
La Cina, con la più forte economia dei 4, dipende dall’export di prodotti della manifattura verso USA ed Europa;
La Russia esporta petrolio, gas e risorse naturali;
il Brasile esporta soprattutto prodotti agricoli;
l’economia dell’India cresce soprattutto grazie al mercato interno.
le relazioni economiche tra i 4 non sono forti, nel 2008 solo il 2% del commercio cinese è stato con la Russia, nonostante sia un paese confinante;
la Cina quest’anno ha però superato gli USA come maggior partner commerciale del Brasile.
I 4 BRIC sono uniti dalla loro posizione rispetto al $ divisa internazionale:
devono scegliere se re-investire in buoni del Tesoro USA le loro ampie riserve in $ o se rischiare di tenerle, mentre con la rivalutazione della loro divisa diminuisce la competitività delle loro merci sui mercati internazionali.
● La critica dei BRIC al $ è divenuta più aspra e frequente; tranne l’India, gli altri paesi BRIC accusano gli USA di aver agito in modo irresponsabile per 30 anni, accumulando un debito di cui ora saranno essi a pagare le conseguenze.
Contraddizioni in Cina sulla questione del $, scarsamente discussa sui media ufficiali: a marzo 2009, espressa dal primo ministro cinese la preoccupazione per i $ 1 000 MD investiti nel debito americano, motivo per cui la Cina avrebbe l’interesse al mantenimento dello status quo; la Banca centrale cinese ha chiesto l’adozione di una nuova valuta internazionale e sovrannazionale in sostituzione del $;
Cina Brasile e Russia intendono acquistare valuta dall’FMI per iniziare a diversificare le loro riserve.
● NYT: in realtà i BRIC non vedono un’alternativa reale percorribile al $ come strumento del commercio internazionale:
nessun altro mercato ha la profondità e liquidità di quello USA;
nonostante la Russia abbia lanciato recentemente segnali confusi sulla questione del $ valuta internazionale, il suo ministro Finanze, Aleksei L. Kudrin, ha riconosciuto che non ci sono ancora le condizioni internazionali per sostituirlo.
– La Russia ospite del vertice BRIC intende utilizzarlo per scagliare una freccia contro gli USA.
Il concetto di BRIC è stato lanciato nel 2001 da un economista della Goldman Sachs.
– RUSSIA: Leaders from Central Asia, China and Afghanistan joined Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday at a summit that underscores Moscow’s determination to maintain influence in its backyard and seek a stronger voice in global economic issues.
– Members of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization and leaders of observer nations are meeting in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg for two days of talks that are expected to include extensive discussions of Afghanistan.
– The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which Moscow and Beijing have used to counter Western influence in the energy-rich region, is comprised of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
– In addition to Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia are observer nations.
– The Shanghai group gathering will be followed late Tuesday by the first full-fledged summit of BRIC, which links large emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India and China.
– Medvedev may reprise Russia’s call for a new global reserve currency to augment the dollar -one of the many messages Moscow has sent to the US suggesting its global dominance is waning.
– Medvedev was expected to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Shanghai group summit, which Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko said would include talks on Afghanistan.
– Amid efforts by Washington and Moscow to improve strained ties, the summit will be watched for signs of stronger support from Russia and its neighbors for US-led operations in Afghanistan – in turn a signal of the depth of Russia’s determination to mend fences with the US.
While Moscow and its neighbors in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization have stressed solidarity with the West on the need for stability in Afghanistan, Kremlin critics say they have used their combined clout in the past to confound US efforts.
– In 2005, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization supported Uzbekistan’s eviction of US forces from a staging base for operations in neighboring Afghanistan, closing ranks after a violent Uzbek government crackdown on unrest drew sharp Western criticism.
On Sunday, Prikhodko said that the Shanghai group has seen "more transparency" from the administration of President Barack Obama on US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The niches of interaction with Western countries, including the US, may be widened," he said.
– Russia and the Central Asian states have already allowed the transport of non-lethal military supplies across their territory.
– Prikhodko did not say what the nations might to do increase cooperation, but made it clear they want a greater say in resolving a major problem close to their borders. "The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is taking an increasingly active part in working out recommendations for the international community and concrete steps on Afghanistan," he said. – AP
– MANAS, Kyrgyzstan: A US air base in Kyrgyzstan, used as a hub for operations in Afghanistan, has started to shut down and will close by mid-August as ordered by the Central Asian state, its outgoing commander said on Monday.
– The ex-Soviet republic gave the United States six months from February to shut the Manas air base, but US officials have voiced hope Kyrgyzstan could change its mind.
Speaking to reporters after a change-of-command ceremony, Colonel Christopher Bence said the facility had started to wind down operations.
"We have started shipping equipment and supplies to other locations," he told reporters at the base outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
– Asked when US forced would leave, he added: "On August 18 as the Kyrgyz government has asked us."
– Kyrgyzstan announced its decision to close Manas after securing pledges of $2 billion in aid and credit from Russia, which operates its own air base in the mainly Muslim nation. While repeating that its decision was final, Kyrgyzstan has shown more flexibility on the issue in past weeks, stressing the need to increase cooperation over Afghanistan at a time when regional instability is on the rise.
In the strongest sign yet that there might be room for change, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said last week he would consider new ways of expanding ties with the United States after receiving a personal letter from President Barack Obama. – Reuters
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY
Leaders of some of the world’s most powerful economies are gathering on Tuesday to plot how they can exert more control over the global financial system as it takes its first wobbly steps toward recovery.
Yet not an American or Western European will be in the bunch.
– The first summit meeting of the so-called BRIC group — Brazil, Russia, India and China — is intended to underscore the rising economic clout of these four major developing countries and their demand for a greater voice in the world. And Russia, the group’s host and ideological provocateur, is especially interested in using the summit to fire a shot across Washington’s bow.
– All four countries have expressed varying degrees of discomfort with Washington’s financial stewardship, and are particularly concerned about the value of the dollar at a time of rapidly mounting indebtedness in the United States. At the same time, most economists say the BRIC countries can do little to change the current architecture of the global financial system, and that the outcome of this meeting will be largely symbolic.
– The BRIC countries comprise about 15 percent of the world economy and, perhaps more important, have about 40 percent of global currency reserves. Brazil, India and China have also weathered the financial crisis better than the world as a whole.
– While they are far from a monolithic group, they are generally united in their frustration with the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, which enables Washington to run budget deficits without fears of facing the kind of budgetary day of reckoning that other countries risk.
– The excess dollars fill up in foreign central banks, leaving those countries with a difficult choice: reinvesting the dollars in United States securities or holding them and facing an increase in the value of their own currencies, making their products less competitive in world markets.
– While there have been periodic complaints about the dollar through the years, the criticisms from the BRIC countries have become more frequent and more acerbic lately, and have included calls for a supranational currency to replace the dollar.
– In March, the prime minister of China, Wen Jiabao, expressed concerns about United States budget deficits, suggesting they might lead to inflation, a weaker dollar and rising yields on Treasuries, any one of which would hurt China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt. Later that month, the head of the Chinese central bank called for a new international currency to replace the dollar.
For the Kremlin, undermining the dollar as the prevailing medium of exchange reflects a broader Russian belief that the United States exercises a dominance in global affairs that exceeds its diminishing power.
“What we need are financial institutions of a completely new type, where particular political issues and motives, and particular countries, will not dominate,” Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, said this month.
Senior officials in most of the BRIC governments — India, which does not depend as much on trade, is something of an exception — assert that while the United States has acted irresponsibly over the last 30 years by amassing too much debt, they will be the ones who suffer.
– “The world economy should not remain entangled, so directly and unnecessarily, in the vicissitudes of a single great world power,” said Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Brazil’s minister for strategic affairs. “The developing countries should not have to see painfully accumulated hard-currency reserves fall under the shadow of major devaluations.”
– China, Brazil and Russia have said recently that they will purchase notes from the International Monetary Fund to begin diversifying their reserves.
– Still, the reality is that even many forceful critics of the dollar see no immediate alternative to it as the vehicle for international trade. No other markets in the world have the depth and liquidity of those in the United States, experts say.
– And the four BRIC countries, while newly emboldened, have starkly different economies and relationships with the United States, complicating their attempts to unite. Each of the four also has a currency that either has been historically unstable or is not easily convertible.
– “Between the BRIC countries, there is really little in common,” said Yevgeny G. Yasin, head of research at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “Each of them has its own destiny, its own special character, and it will be much more difficult for them to agree among themselves than separately with Western countries.”
– China, whose economy dwarfs those of the other three, depends on the export of manufactured goods to the United States and Europe.
– Russia sells oil, natural gas and other natural resources abroad.
– Brazil focuses on agricultural exports,
– while India’s growth has been largely based on its domestic market.
– The four countries do not necessarily do much business with one another. Only two percent of China’s trade last year was with Russia, though the countries are neighbors, according to official statistics.
– At the same time, Brazil announced this year that China had surpassed the United States as its largest trading partner, and said last month that they would look for ways to finance their trade without the dollar.
– The very notion of the BRIC nations was conceived in 2001 by an economist for Goldman Sachs, and only then embraced by the countries themselves. Their leaders have conducted informal discussions before, but the event on Tuesday in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg will mark their first formal gathering, officials said.
– Russia has sent somewhat mixed signals recently regarding how determined it is to confront the dollar. Last week, it announced that it would purchase bonds from the International Monetary Fund, but then the finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin, acknowledged that the world was not yet ready for another reserve currency.
– Vladimir A. Mau, rector of the Academy of National Economy, a government advisory organization in Moscow, said Russia and the other BRIC countries had legitimate worries that the United States was piling up too much debt. But Mr. Mau said that at this point, he doubted that the Kremlin had any recourse.
– Mr. Unger, the Brazilian minister, agreed, saying that the BRIC countries do not see replacing the dollar with “heavy-handed, bureaucratic machinery,” such as a global, European-style Central Bank.
In China, popular sympathies are with Russian and Brazilian demands for a robust challenge to American control, analysts said.
– Yet there has been no consensus on what a new financial system should look like, and China’s dependence on exports and enormous holdings of dollar-denominated assets give it a vested interest in the status quo, leaving China’s leaders reluctant to pursue far-reaching changes.
While China’s official news media often give sizable attention to coming international gatherings, they have offered little coverage of the BRIC summit meeting.
Xu Xiaonian, an economist at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai, said the silence reflected a desire not to raise hopes for the meeting. “What can they agree on? So little,” Mr. Xu said. “This meeting is more symbolic than of real effect.”
Vikas Bajaj contributed reporting from New Delhi, Alexei Barrionuevo from Rio de Janeiro, and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.