Sino-Russian bilateral organizations need to extend their functions
Comprehensive cooperation between China and Russia has become inevitable. Russia has begun to promote a ruble economic circle, while China is busy expanding the international use of the renminbi. The cooperation between the two countries must be built on the basis of certain international organizations, including the SCO, the CICA summit and the BRICS summit.
However, SCO, the CICA summit and the BRICS summit have some inherent problems. At the beginning, SCO aimed to fight against terrorism in Central Asia. The CICA summit was initiated by the President of Kazakhstan to strengthen interaction and build confidence among Asian countries. The main subjects of the CICA summit were discussed and solved by foreign ministers, and the meeting is held every four years, which means that a number of problems cannot be dealt with on time. The concept of BRICS countries was proposed by Goldman Sachs researchers, and the summit meetings were a mere formality.
The expansion in SCO membership has become a hot issue. The increased number of related topics may mobilize the initiative and participation of both old and new members. As anti-terrorism topics no longer raise the interest of some members, such as Russia, expanding and increasing other attractive topics has become important for the SCO members.
The expansion in SCO membership must take geopolitics into consideration. If it wants to include Mongolia, the problems related to the Silk Road have to be solved; if it involves India, the security of South Asia and multicultural stability need to be considered; if Vietnam joins, then the South China Sea issue must be negotiated under the SCO framework.
Ziyavudin Magomedov, the chairman of Russian Summa Group, has proposed that the issues related to Russia's Novorossiysk and Vladivostok harbors should be included in the agenda of the SCO summit. In 2013, Magomedov was nominated chairman of the APEC Business Advisory Council, and he is an important supporter of Putin's promotion of soft power.
In response to Western economic sanctions, Russia has to meet domestic needs for high-quality daily goods. Therefore, harbor construction and custom remodeling have become crucial, especially exploring ship routes from Russia to China and South African countries. Novorossiysk harbor is very close to India, South Africa and Brazil, while the port of Zarubino is close to China's Guangdong Province. If Chinese goods appeared in the Russian market through the Russian harbors and customs system, the long-standing gray areas in clearance between the two countries would be settled, and Chinese goods could be sold to Russian customers directly.
China and Russia should therefore expand their comprehensive cooperation within the framework of the SCO and BRIC summits while the United States is still busy strengthening the dollar economy, adjusting Europe and stabilizing the Middle East. The multilateral summit on harbor issues and multicultural exchanges should be included in the discussion lists of the two summits.
The author is a senior researcher of the Charhar Institute, and a professor of Journalism and Communication College at Jinan University.
The article was first published in Chinese and translated by Lin Liyao.
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