Eurasia within the "Rest"

In the joint press conference of Russian and Chinese foreign ministers held in Berlin on the 9th of April as part of the former's trip to Beijing, Lavrov put his finger on the heart of the matter I wanted to discuss in this post. He characterised the BRICS as a "programme" sharing at a global level similar ideals and principles as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). He did not specify but for the followers of the SCO and BRICS, it should not be much difficult to figure out what these "ideals and principles" are. These ideals, among other things, include opposing US hegemony and unipolarity as such, the aspects concerning the structure of the international system. Principles utilized in service of these ideals are sovereignty, multilateralism often referring to the the UN roof, and non-interference in internal affairs, posed against the liberal internationalist order. The declarations adopted in SCO summits almost always emphasise these principles, particularly in recent years. What looked previously as primarily a quest for great power status and hence, a challenge to the unipolar structure of the world has now a paralleling normative dimension. Even though these ideals and principles may echo widely in what is often collectivized and essentialized in the Western discourse as the Global South or the Rest, it has a core, home geography - Eurasia. And, in this geography, among many other regional organisations, the SCO is the one that does not aim to serve a single regional power or hegemon. It has grown from the Shanghai Five, a security and conflict-handling mechanism in Central Asia to a mechanism of power-sharing between between China and Russia, and now to a supra-regional organisation. When you put Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Iran together under a single roof, it is not anymore merely a regional organisation. It is more than that but less than the G20 or BRICS, obviously. The SCO+ format, in which this year's summit will be held in July in Astana, which we also saw in September 2022 demonstrates this perhaps better. This year the organisation will also welcome Belarus, extending the geography of the organisations from East and South Asia to Eastern Europe.

Moreover, Lavrov added that Russia and China had reached a mutual understanding to align the agendas of the BRICS and the SCO. This seems nothing impossible at all, given that China takes the SCO chairmanship soon following the Astana Summit to be held in July of this year. This year's summit is likely to involve broader attendance not only from the SCO neighbourhoods but also from far regions. I have little doubt that this is going to be the most spectacular event the SCO has ever had. It will serve to showcase what in a recent workshop, Richard Sakwa called "political East". I found this term attractive. First, it offers horizontality rather than verticality. Second, it defines the rising constellation of states and regions in opposition to the West, which tells already a lot.

Lavrov also added that Russia and China agreed to institute the partner state category within the BRICS. In my understanding, it is an effort already now to introduce some hierarchy or concentric circles within the BRICS and on the other hand, to enable some hesitant states to join the BRICS but still keep some distance. Turkey would no doubt be one of the aspirants, as it already in 2022 signalled its interest to join the SCO. Central Asia states would follow soon. This is to ensure that not only agendas but also memberships of the SCO and BRICS are brought closer to each other, channelling the spirit of the former to the latter and strengthening the position of Eurasia within the latter. Without ensuring the position of Eurasia within the latter, expanding the BRICS would be tricky. The majority could be lost to Africa or the coalition of the African and Latin American states.

Somehow in all this, I see also the Soviet legacy "the Friendship of Peoples" or as it says in Russian, "Дружба народов" ("Druzhba Narodov"). If I am not mistaken, Lavrov, himself used this term in his speech during the press conference in Beijing. It echoes well with China's "Harmonious World Order", India's post-Nehruvian emphasis on multi-alignment instead of non-alignment and polycentrism within which Indian exceptionalism can be constructed, as well as the emphasis on sovereignty, multilateralism and non-interference in the SCO declarations. It does not offer a system of thoughts to be truly an ideology. Yet, it offers a discursive framework within which opposition against the liberal internationalist world order can be sheltered. The synergy these three discourses create also feeds into the transformation of the so-called Rest. Eurasia's place within the Rest is radioactive in this sense. It transforms the Rest.