These days, much is written and said about the SCO summit in China and the Victory Parade in World War III, which took place in Beijing. The world mass media wrote about the system of relationships that China, Russia and India are trying to build.
Most analysts and political scientists believe that China, Russia and India are creating a bloc opposite to the US and Europe, trying to create a multipolar world. In the West, Biden is blamed for pushing Russia toward China, and China toward Russia, as well as Trump, who with his tariffs allegedly pushed India not only toward Russia, but also toward China, which gave impetus to the creation of an alliance of the Dragon, the Bear, and the Elephant.
However, the main leitmotif of the events in Beijing were the negotiations between the leaders of the Big 4, and the core of these negotiations extended from Anchorage, from Alaska, to China, and its source was the negotiations between Trump and Putin. Therefore, it can be considered that Trump invisibly participated in the summit in Beijing, because it was his agreements with Putin, along with the bilateral relations of the countries, that were the main topic discussed by the leaders in closed negotiations.
I want to draw your attention to few points and important aspects of what happened both in Anchorage and, especially, in Beijing.
1. After the summit in Anchorage, Trump and his inner circle repeatedly and harshly said that Ukraine would not be included in NATO.
In Beijing, Xi Jinping called for resistance to bloc confrontation and block policies, and Putin accused NATO of the fact that the war in Ukraine was provoked by attempts to change the regime in Kyiv in 2014 and include Ukraine in NATO.
Modi supported the non-block status and development path of the SCO, as did all other SCO members.
In Beijing, we saw the anti-bloc attitude of all members of The Big 4.
2. All bilateral negotiations both in Anchorage and in Beijing were conducted not just behind closed doors and without witnesses, but demonstratively secretly, emphasizing the closed nature of the discussions and agreements.
The members of each duopoly, as in Anchorage, emphasized their right to separate and secret discussions of their issues, problems, positions.
In both Anchorage and Beijing, long talks without interpreters in the car have become fashionable. Putin and Modi sat in the car alone for almost 40 minutes, discussing Putin’s agreements with Trump and the further development of relations between Russia and India. Putin then held talks in his car with Kim Jong-un.
Photo: Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin in the Russian president’s Aurus
3. In a rare display of discord during Beijing’s celebrations, several countries were not only pressured but ostracized. This was the case for Azerbaijan and Armenia, two nations from the former USSR and within Russia’s traditional sphere, the Russian civilizational macro-region that Moscow started to restore. India and Pakistan jointly blocked their accession to the SCO for comparable reasons.
Baku and Islamabad signed a significant agreement in 2023, solidifying their alliance. Azerbaijan, a close ally of Turkey, has positioned itself as a key partner to Pakistan. Reports indicate that during a recent conflict with India, Baku provided Islamabad with crucial intelligence support and coordinated diplomatic efforts. Following the conflict, Azerbaijan’s President Illyham Aliyev publicly congratulated Pakistan on what he termed its “victory over India,” a move widely seen as a profound provocation against New Delhi.
Conversely, Armenia’s foreign policy has shifted towards a pro-Western orientation, strengthening ties with the United States and Europe. This pivot has significantly worsened its historically strong relationship with Russia, costing Yerevan its traditional security guarantor’s diplomatic cover. This loss of Russian support left Armenia strategically isolated and vulnerable, providing Pakistan with a clear opportunity to act. In direct retaliation for India’s blockage of Azerbaijan’s SCO accession, Pakistan was able to block Armenia’s path into the organization without facing significant political pushback from within the bloc.
Moreover, the tensions surrounding Armenia’s position were further highlighted in Beijing during a lengthy meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Their talks focused on the deteriorating relations between Yerevan and Moscow.
According to unofficial sources, Putin presented Pashinyan with a quiet but firm ultimatum. The choice for Armenia was stark:
1. Return to the Russian macro-region. In this case, Armenia would regain Russia’s full support and protection, notably against pressure from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran.
2. Face strategic abandonment: If Armenia continues its pro-Western course, Russia would cease to consider Armenian interests as its own. Moscow would then pursue only its own strategic objectives in the South Caucasus, leaving Armenia isolated and vulnerable.
4. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico were present in Beijing, and Putin held very serious negotiations with Fico. They discussed in addition to bilateral relations, the relations between Europe and Russia, as well as the situation in Ukraine. Apparently, Putin conveyed the same quiet but firm ultimatum to Zelensky, which Fico conveyed to Zelensky – also behind closed doors – at their meeting in Uzhgorod.
5. The leitmotif culminated in Putin’s press conference in Beijing, where he explicitly stated that he had discussed Trump’s position and the agreements reached in Anchorage in separate, closed-door meetings with each leader. Putin claimed that both Xi and Modi supported the summit’s outcomes, agreed with his and Trump’s position, and were prepared to take collective action.
What does all this mean? What conclusions can be drawn?
- A “Supreme League” of world politics—the Big Four—has been formed. This was finalized in Beijing, where Putin spoke on behalf of both Russia and Trump. The Big Four consists of the United States, China, Russia, and India. Trump may soon announce the first upcoming summit for this group.
- Europe is excluded from the Supreme League because it opposes the policies of Trump, Xi, Putin, and Modi. Europe continues to defend Western democratic values, the prevalence of Western democracy over the values of other civilisations, a bloc-based position, and it refuses to cease its support for Zelenskyy or to force him to end the war.
To enter the Supreme League and become a member of the Big Five, Europe must establish itself as an independent macro-region—distinct from the American sphere—and align its position with the other members.
- Every member of the Supreme League—the Big Four—personifies an independent civilizational macro-region. A core principle is the non-interference in the internal affairs of these civilizations, recognizing each one’s sovereign right to determine its own development model, system of values, and traditions.
In international affairs, the members of the Big Four have consented to conduct themselves in a manner that does not jeopardize the strategic security of any member civilization. They will defend their pragmatic interests, foster cooperation, and be guided by a common set of laws and rules.
Accordingly, the framework governing the UN and other international organizations will be reformed to align with these principles.
4. The global system for trade, scientific and economic cooperation, and finance is built on principles established by transnational corporations, not by political or ideological movements.
To support my previous conclusion, I would like to highlight a significant outcome of the recent summit in China: the signing of two major agreements between Russia and China. The first is a $15 billion agreement to construct the “Power of Siberia – 2” gas pipeline. This pipeline will transport gas from Arctic Russian fields—fields that once supplied Europe before the war in Ukraine. The second is an agreement for the “Soyuz – Vostok” transit pipeline through Mongolia.
Together, these projects will enable Russia to supply China with 50 billion cubic meters of gas annually via Mongolia. When combined with existing routes, Russia’s total gas supply to China will reach 106 billion cubic meters per year. Incidentally, this surplus capacity could eventually allow for the partial resumption of gas supplies to Europe, should relations ever normalize.
This raises a critical question: what is the most technically complex and expensive aspect of building a pipeline of this scale? Russia will produce and supply the pipes. The energy and power equipment will be supplied partly by Russia and partly by Chinese companies. But who will build the compressor stations, as well as repair the pump stations destroyed in Ukraine and Russia’s Kursk region? Who are the world’s leading manufacturers of this vital compressor equipment?
The answer is: the USA, Europe, and China.
In Europe, nearly all companies producing compressor and climate-control equipment—with very few exceptions, mainly in Germany—were acquired by American transnational corporations back in the 1990s.
In 1994, these corporations also decided to purchase compressor plants in Russia. I was directly involved in this decision, as I was then heading the Russian branch of a major US corporation in this field. However, the attempt to acquire a key compressor plant in Moscow failed; it had been seized by a criminal group and ultimately destroyed.
This was followed by a corruption scandal during the reconstruction of the Grand Kremlin Palace, which led to a conflict between the American corporation and Kremlin security. The outcome of this conflict was the dismissal of Alexander Korzhakov, head of the Presidential Security Service, and Mikhail Barsukov, director of the FSB, by Boris Yeltsin in 1996. Pavel Borodin, head of the Presidential Property Management Directorate, was later arrested in the US and spent several months in a Brooklyn prison. As a result, American TNCs abandoned their plans to build factories in Russia and instead moved their production to China.
So, if you now look to see who manufactures the most advanced compressors, including the latest absorption compressors, you will find that they are produced in China. But if you ask who owns those factories, I will tell you: American transnational corporations.
Welcome to the real world. And this is only the beginning…
