The Drunk Diplomat

It’s to early to tell what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will evolve into. The SCO was founded in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan as a security organization to fight extremism in the region. However, I could envision a time when the SCO evolves into something similar to OPEC for natural gas, or the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for mutual economic development, or even a military organization to counter NATO. Maybe it will be a hybrid of all of these models.

The ECSC, founded in 1957, was the precursor of the European Union. The organization was created to unite the Western European powers against the Soviet Union and create common markets for Western Europe. There were visions of what the ECSC would evolve into, if it would evolve at all, but I doubt that many foresaw the breadth of integration the Maastricht Treaty would bring in 1992 to create the European Union, a short 35 years. Furthermore, the Schengen Agreement signed in 1985 provided the rights for Western European citizens free movement across borders without passports.

Could the Schengen Agreement be something of a precursor for the status of Eastern Russia and Siberia? Russia is in the midst of a massive demographic decline, especially in the East. With such vast sparsely populated areas, the general decline in population of the entire country, and the declining power of their conventional military – is it really a stretch to see Russia, China, and the Stans create some kind of free movement treaty in 30 years? There are three factors beyond Russia’s demographic and military decline that lead me to believe the SCO will provide the framework for some kind of freedom of movement to the Chinese in Siberia.

The first is the enormous amounts of pollution, garbage, and toxic waste the Chinese are producing and will produce at an ever accelerting pace the next 30 years. There are estimates that China, alone, will produce as much greenhouse gases that the entire world produces today by 2050. That’s a lot of smog and health problems. The climate change caused by China’s greenhouse gas emissions alone may force massive migrations to areas that have clean water and away from the polluted mess that China’s mainland may become.

The second is the emerging middle class in China. The demand for natural resources, land, food, and water may not be sustainable when China has a middle class parrellel in wealth to the US. Imagine 300 million (possibly more out of 1.5 billion) more people on the planet living like the average US consumer, in China alone. Their demands may eventually push the Chinese government to create some kind of access to the verdant lands in the North.

The third is that Chinese immigration to Russia is the fastest it’s been in recent history. Since the fall of the Soviet Union Chinese laborers and traders have been flooding into Siberia and the Far East. Also, an ultimatum the Chinese have issued to Russia in regards to it’s WTO bid is that it must allow Chinese laborers into Russia at some pace.

In my opinion something like a Schengen Treaty is really for the SCO is not that far fetched in the future. It’s difficult to keep 300 million Chinese crammed together in Northern China while there are millions of empty acres of land to the North. Russia may decide it cannot fight history any more and create some kind of agreement through the SCO so the Chinese can have access to their far East before they loose it completely.