The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – which now represents some 42 percent of the world’s population – is increasingly turning its attention to building financial infrastructure independent of the US dollar. At a forum held on the sidelines of the 14th World Peace Conference in Beijing, officials and analysts from Iran, Russia, China, Belarus and Uzbekistan debated how the bloc might construct alternative settlement mechanisms capable of insulating its members from Washington’s unilateral sanctions.
The context is the growing use of sanctions as a weapon of economic warfare against independent states – Iran, Russia, Belarus, Venezuela and Cuba among them. As the following report from Press TV explains, the proposals under discussion build on an initiative advanced by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at the SCO’s Tianjin summit: expanding trade in national currencies, developing secure digital infrastructure for cross-border payments, and establishing a multilateral swap fund to cushion members against financial shocks.
For its proponents, such a system is about more than evading sanctions. It is about establishing a sovereign financial architecture for the Global South – one that would allow nations to decouple from Western financial hegemony and conduct their trade, investment and development on their own terms. It is a further sign of the emerging multipolar order.
This article first appeared in Press TV.
At the 14th World Peace Conference organized in Beijing, discussions on global governance, international security cooperation, integrity, and inclusiveness were the primary topics on the agenda.
Notably, a forum on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization attended by officials and members of think tanks from Iran, Russia, China, Belarus, and Uzbekistan stood out as a platform for debating alternative financial mechanisms to bypass the hegemony of the dollar system and evade international sanctions.
During last few years we have been witnessing that some other countries in our region, including the SCO members, now are subject to these kind of unilateral sanctions; unfair, unlawful sanctions against these independent countries.
So we are now facing a serious common problem, a common challenge between us, and this might be a very important driving force for the countries of the SCO.
Alireza Khodagholipour, Director, Center for Political and International Studies (IPIS)
At the last Tianjin meeting, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian proposed a comprehensive accounts and settlement initiative designed to boost economic resilience.
The plan rests on three pillars: expanding the use of national currency to reduce dollar dependence, developing secure digital infrastructure for cross-border payments, and establishing a multilateral swap fund to provide liquidity support for members facing financial shocks.
We have a new treaty between our countries, which implies the development of economic operations, but the fact is … that the volume of trade between Russia and Iran is going up.
I would say that this result is on the bilateral side, this is a result of bilateral relations, and as I said today, I would be more happy if this would be a product of multilateral cooperation, right? So, if we design something on the level of multilateral interaction under the auspices of the SCO.
Ivan Timofeev, Director, Russian International Affairs Council
With the Shanghai Cooperation Organization representing 42% of the world’s population, this bloc has increasingly been seen by many analysts as a powerful tool to challenge Western aggression and hegemony.
We will be together and we will keep our relations, because in this moment Belarus, Iran, and Russia, and other countries, for example, Venezuela, Cuba, (are) under aggressive pressure, and I think in future we will keep our relations, and to find a good solution in framework, of course, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and of course another organization.
Ruslan Yesin, Political Commentator
The SCO establishes a sovereign financial infrastructure for Global South countries to neutralize unilateral sanctions through independent multilateral settlement systems.
It empowers member nations to decouple their economies from external hegemony, securing trade, investment, and development on their own terms.
