Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Global South strategic cooperation

More on this deal from WSJ. Very likely to be understating China's contribution here.
I think what's important is that China is taking initiative here and will be hosting further dialog between Iran and GCC countries. not only that, it has committed to basically rescuing Iranian economy. So the earlier visit from Iranian president seems to have pushed things in the right direction, since Iran got concession from China to invest in their economy.

Still a lot of work to do here, but China now has opportunity to get more positive press when this deal moves further along and when the GCC/Iran meeting takes place in Beijing.

Looks like Sinopec is setting up refinery in Sri Lanka to get into their energy market. And looks like there is a competition there with India.
Interesting that the refinery they are setting up has twice the capacity that Sri Lanka has right now.

So I see Dovish/Western view on the China/Iran/Saudi deal and then the Chinese commentary on it.

Generally speaking, I think Western countries at the moment don't understand how much security/weapons China already provides to the GCC countries. It just has to be secret for now, because GCC countries don't want this to be in the open. But it's quite clear that China does supply more security to GCC countries but also has significant leverage over Iran.

The ideal case for China is that Iran can join GCC countries in some kind of oil/gas bloc that it can influence and that will price things in Yuan. Countries friendly to China would then buy energy in Yuan. At the same time, it builds the entire new energy and tech infrastructure in these countries so that they are entirely dependent on China. Over time, you will see more open military cooperations but that down the line.

Well, there are certainly this. China is building an energy bloc to support is industrial base. Perfect partnership.

We already know about China's efforts in Saudi and UAE. It's building huge green hydrogen plant in Egypt and selling weapons there. It's selling weapons in Algeria and have strategic partnership + wants to join BRICS.
Iraq has now become more pro China since the pro-Iran party got in power and wants to trade with China in Yuan.
China signed several major LNG deals with Qatar, but could use more influence there

this guy is pretty biased, but there is no question China is building influence in Oman also

I'd have to look into Kuwait and Bahrain a little more.

But as a whole, China's influence is building under the surface in both energy trades and infrastructure. Before long, it will also gain significantly in military. If the the underlying push behind Petrodollar is US security to GCC countries, then a more Chinese influence in the region + its already control over Russia/Iran oil will allow for wider adoption of PetroYuan.

I think after Iran is in sco and Saudis join as dialogue partners, there should be the plans to make trans crude oil pipeline from Iran to china, which every countries that have pipeline pass join as a block and have central transaction between exporters and importers.

To maintain Iran and Saudi relation, it will be great if they have common enemies like turkey.
This will make US support turkey which lead to worsening of US europe relations.

well, they first need a pipeline from Iran to China. It's amazing that there hasn't been any movement on that front. just oil/gas pipeline from Russia, Central Asia and Iran alone is enough to satisfy most of China's hydrocarbon energy needs if they have to ration in a war time scenario.

One other interesting apart about Ukraine conflict is that central Asian countries are turning to China for trading and manufactured goods as opposed to Russia. And I think that once countries like Kazakhstan get used to Chinese products, they are not going back to the Russians. Over time, not only is Russia becoming more dependent on trade with China, but rest of EEAU. Of course, 2023 is the first full year to view this dynamic playing out, so will be interesting to see what the numbers look like by December or later by 2025 when countries like Kazakhstan are buying a lot more Chinese cars, phones and other products.

Interesting points brought up here.
Afghanistan is a prime target and geopolitical weak spot because it lies square in the center of Asia, a perfect breeding ground to launch destabilizing terrorist attacks on neighboring countries like China and Iran and to prevent the Silk Road from reaching West Asia. The US is extra desperate to achieve this in the wake of the renewed Iran-China relationship.

Having miserably failed to bend the Taliban or Central Asian states to their will, the US and allies may resort to funding insurgents and inciting anarchy to turn Afghanistan into a living hellhole. You can easily gauge their true targets from the Islamic State's to the Russian, Pakistani, Chinese, Iranian and Indian embassies functioning in Kabul.

The UN Paris meeting of western spies and ‘diplomats’— the Special Representatives and Envoys for Afghanistan of Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States— this March 7th is the start of a renewed attempt to ruin Central Asia and geographically separate the Russia-Iran-China triumvirate.

luminary said:

The UN Paris meeting of western spies and ‘diplomats’— the Special Representatives and Envoys for Afghanistan of Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States— this March 7th is the start of a renewed attempt to ruin Central Asia and geographically separate the Russia-Iran-China triumvirate.

Click to expand...

In case the West manage to cause chaos to return to Afghanistan once again, is it possible for Iran, Russia and China to completely bypass Afghan territory? Would Central Asia be secure enough for this to happen?

I'm always thinking that Central Asian countries would serve as a good backup option for Iran-China-Russia land connections.

tphuang said:

well, they first need a pipeline from Iran to China. It's amazing that there hasn't been any movement on that front. just oil/gas pipeline from Russia, Central Asia and Iran alone is enough to satisfy most of China's hydrocarbon energy needs if they have to ration in a war time scenario.

Click to expand...

Pakistani side is the delay. It is even being left behind by India, and you really don't get to say that very often.

I think china should consider east med pipeline too, but starts from Iran Iraq Syria Lebanon instead of begining in Israel.