Irresistible rise of the dictators’ club - Simon Tisdall
From Guardian Unlimited:
Tony Blair’s promotion of shared global values and inclusive institutions in his Georgetown speech last month took little account of the rise and rise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Few may yet have heard of it. But out of the east comes a radically different paradigm for 21st-century international organisation, short on idealism and long on hard-headed self-interest. The “universal” principles of “liberty, democracy and justice” lauded by Mr Blair are hardly its driving force.
Founded by China, the five-year-old SCO groups together like-minded authoritarian leaderships in Russia and four central Asian republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Pakistan, Mongolia and India are observer members. So too is Iran.[full text]
