New economic dialogue in global geopolitics context

The 2024 SCO Summit – also called the 23rd Meeting of the SCO Council of the Heads of Government – ended in Islamabad, helping to place Pakistan back on the 'global happenings map'. Pakistan confidently managed arrivals and departures of over 1,200 foreign delegates for which the civil and military leadership deserves praise.

However, media coverage of this event exposed the painful reality that the Pakistani media needs capacity building for reporting such sensitive, significant and crucial events. One of my colleagues commented that the TV coverage of the event exposed the 'professional bankruptcy' of a majority of local media experts who did not even know the agenda items of the 23rd Heads of Governments Summit and even called it the '23rd Heads of States Summit'. Since the world has changed dramatically and geopolitics has now categorically fallen into Global South and Global North, the media should update itself with the changing realities. Unfortunately, Pakistan's top analysts cannot see much more than just 'Indo-Pak relations' and 'Pakistan's success in hosting the event' while talking about the dynamics of a huge multilateral meeting such as SCO.

Instead of reporting the joint declaration of the Summit, it is appropriate to explore the soul and the depth of the Joint Communique that has categorically rejected expansionist and protectionist approaches that are harming global peace and burying 80 per cent of the world's population under the burden of poverty.

Besides, the Joint Communique sent a message to Global North that its lethal tool of 'sanctions' would not work in the future because a multilateral trading system backed by de-dollarisation would enable Global South to flourish within its spectrum. The message was also sent that a 'New Economic Dialogue' is needed among the member states as well as with Global North.

As expected, the western media covered this event extensively but did not report much of it. 'Downplay' was the strategy adopted by the Western media, representing the Global North.

An academic analysis of the SCO Communique provides reasons to believe that BRICS and SCO would soon tail each other instead of moving parallel. Issues such as collective economic strategy, multilateral trade, mutual cooperation to build a prosperous, peaceful, safe and ecologically sustainable planet are also included in the agenda of the 25th BRICS summit.

More or less a security organisation in the past, SCO is now turning into a forum that is challenging the protectionist approach of Global North alongside tailoring strategies to mitigate the adverse impact of this approach as the majority of victims live in Global South. Both BRICS and SCO are working for a non-discriminatory, open, equitable, inclusive and transparent multilateral trading system and for encountering unilateral sanctions and trade restrictions that undermine the multilateral trading system and obstruct global economic growth.

For the first time, the SCO has talked about bridging the Eurasian Economic Union with OBOR (Belt and Road Initiative) which means foundations are laid down for a 'Greater Eurasian Partnership'.

To mitigate the influence of Global Northern – such as passing resolutions against independent states and using Western think tanks and Western media tools to disapprove of governments in developing countries – the SCO Communique called for non-interference in the internal affairs of any country.

One should also appreciate all those who made this event possible and mitigated the farcical narrative that Pakistan has become isolated in the global arena. Interestingly, news that arrived from Canada during the Summit testified the fact that Global North has made an error of judgment while choosing a proxy against China in Indo-Pacific. Surprisingly, Five Eyes is also talking about the cross-border terrorism of New Delhi that had been trying to tag Pakistan as a 'threat to global peace'.

Greek Poet Homer in his epic Odyssey writes a passage that is simplified by English writers: "Truth can be rattled, not defeated."