On the occasion of the upcoming meeting, in Samarkand, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Global Times publishes a reflection by Shavkat Mirziyoyev, President of Uzbekistan.
Mirziyoyev writes about constructive dialogue and multilateral cooperation based on consideration and respect for everyone’s interests.
Respect for everyone’s interests is the first political step. In our opinion, this respect must be built with patient negotiation. In recent decades, international relations have transformed into a competitive arena between strategic interests and very little has been done in terms of necessary cooperation with respect to planetary challenges whose solution can no longer be postponed. Bringing back the interests “in dialogue” is a complex and urgent operation.
Mirziyoyev writes: The SCO’s success concept is the promotion of multifaceted cooperation through ensuring regional security.
We are in the time of regionalization of sensitive issues. Security, now a central issue in public debate, can only be guaranteed in the mediation between ineliminable national interests in dialogue at the regional level. The future of globalization, then, may be in glocalization as dialogue between regional systems. Mirziyoyev writes again: Therefore, the number of states that are ready to cooperate with the SCO is growing every year, and this is especially noticeable in the context of the transformation of the modern system of international and regional relations.
The Western approach to realities such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation must change. If only because, without making value judgements (democratic freedoms remain an unquestionable value), the total GDP of the SCO member states has reached about a quarter of the global figure.
Finally, in terms of historical judgement, quantitative assessments are not enough. Strategic vectors must be analysed, such as, writes the Uzbek President: transport and connectivity, energy, food and environmental security, innovations, digital transformation, and green economy.
