Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and his list of delusional US demands was welcomed in Beijing by Foreign Minister Wang Yi and President Xi Jinping as little more than an annoying gnat. Wang, on the record, stressed that Tehran was justified in defending itself against Israel’s shredding of the Vienna Convention when it attacked the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
At the UN Security Council, China now openly questions not only the state terror attack on the Nord Streams but also the US–Israel combo’s blocking of Palestinian statehood. Moreover, Beijing, just like Moscow recently, hosts Palestine’s political factions together in a conference aiming to unify their positions.
Next Tuesday, only two days before Moscow celebrates Victory Day, the end of the Great Patriotic War, Xi will land in Belgrade to remind the whole world about the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the Chinese embassy by the US, UK, and NATO.
Russia, meanwhile, provided a platform for the UNRWA – the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has sought to defund – to explain to high representatives of BRICS-10 the cataclysmic humanitarian situation in Gaza, as described by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.
In short, serious political business is already being conducted outside of the corrupted UN system, as the United Nations disintegrates into a corporate shell with the US dictating all terms as the largest shareholder.
Yet another key example of BRICS as the new UN: Russian Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev met in St. Petersburg with his Chinese counterpart Chen Wenqing on the sidelines of the 12th International Security Summit, congregating over 100 nations, including the security heads of BRICS-10 members Iran, India, Brazil, and South Africa, as well as Iraq.
The SCO security show
But the key crossroads these past few days was the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) defense summit in Astana, Kazakhstan. For the first time, the new Chinese Defense Minister, Dong Jun, met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, to emphasize their comprehensive strategic partnership.
Dong, significantly, stressed the “dynamic” nature of China–Russia military interaction, while Shoigu doubled down, saying it “sets a model for interstate relations” based on mutual respect and shared strategic interests.
Addressing the full SCO assembly, Shoigu emphatically refuted the massive western propaganda drive about a Russian “threat” to NATO.
Everybody was at the SCO defense ministers’ meeting – including, at the same table, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Belarus as an observer. Minsk is eager to join the SCO.
The interlocking Russia–Iran–China strategic partnerships were totally in sync. Apart from Dong meeting Shoigu, he also met Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, who lavishly praised Beijing’s condemnation of the Israeli terror air strike in Damascus.
What is happening now between Beijing and Tehran is a replay of what started last year between Moscow and Tehran, when a member of the Iranian delegation on a visit to Russia remarked that both parties had agreed on a mutual, high-level “anything you need” relationship.
In Astana, Dong’s support for Iran was unmistakable. Not only did he invite Ashtiani to a security conference in Beijing, mirroring the Iranian position, he also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Shoigu, meeting with Ashtiani, provided extra context when he recalled that “the joint fight against international terrorism in Syria is a vivid example of our long-standing friendly relations.” The Russian defense minister then delivered his clincher:
The current military-political situation and threats to our states oblige us … to common approaches to building a just world order based on equality for all participants in the international community.
A new global security order
Establishing a new global security order is right at the heart of BRICS-10 planning – on par with the de-dollarization debate. All of this is anathema to the collective west, which is incapable of understanding the multifaceted, intertwined Russia, Iran, and China partnerships.
And the interaction goes on in person. Russian President Vladimir Putin will be visiting Beijing later this month. On Gaza, the Russia–Iran–China position is in complete sync: Israel is committing genocide. For the EU – and NATOstan as a whole – this is not genocide: the bloc supports Israel no matter what.
After Iran, on 13 April, changed the game in West Asia for good, without even using their finest hypersonic missiles, the key question for the Global Majority is stark: in the end, who will restrain the genocidals, and how? Diplomatic sources hint this will be discussed face-to-face by Putin and Xi.
As one Chinese scholar, with unique aplomb, remarks:
This time, the barbarians are facing a 5,000-year continuing written civilization, armed with Sun Tzu’s Art of War, Mao thought, Xi’s dual circulation strategy, Belt and Road, BRICS, renminbi digitalization, Russia and China unlimited, the world’s most powerful manufacturing industry, tech supremacy, economic powerhouse, and the backing of the Global South.
All that against a polarized Hegemon in turmoil, with its genocidal aircraft carrier in West Asia totally spinning out of control.
US threats of a “clear choice” between ending several key strands of the Russia–China strategic partnership or facing a sanctions tsunami don’t cut it in Beijing. The same applies to Washington’s wishful attempts at preventing BRICS members from ditching the US dollar.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has made it quite clear that Moscow and Beijing have nearly reached the point of abandoning the US dollar in bilateral trade. And the outright theft of Russian assets by the collective west is the ultimate red line for BRICS – and all other nations watching with horror – as a whole: this is definitely a “non-agreement capable” Empire, as Lavrov has been emphasizing since late 2021.
Yaroslav Lisovolik, founder of BRICS+ Analytics, dismisses the Hegemon’s threats against BRICS as the road map toward an alternative payment system is still in its infancy. As for Russia–China trade, the non-dollar high-speed train has already left the station.
Yet the key question remains: how will Russia–Iran–China (RIC), as BRICS leaders, SCO members, and simultaneously top three “existential threats” to the Hegemon, be able to start implementing a new global security architecture without staring down the genocidals.
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Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. He is the author of Globalistan (2007), Red Zone Blues (2007), Obama Does Globalistan (2009), Empire of Chaos (2014) and 2030 (2015), all by Nimble Books. Pepe was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy and is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok.
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