China-led bloc touts unity amid G-7 strife

Free-trade remarks hit U.S. policies

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a photo at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province Sunday, June 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a photo at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province Sunday, June 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

QINGDAO, China -- Chinese President Xi Jinping extolled free trade and criticized "selfish, short-sighted" policies Sunday during a closely orchestrated gathering of a Beijing-led bloc, standing in stark contrast with the Group of Seven summit that ended in disarray over trade tensions.

"We should reject selfish, short-sighted, narrow and closed-off policies. We must maintain the rules of the World Trade Organization, support the multilateral trade system and build an open global economy," Xi said.

Although his remarks did not mention President Donald Trump, Beijing has sought to portray itself as a defender of free trade in response to the American leader's support for import controls. This is despite China's status as the most-closed major economy.

Xi also hailed the entry of new members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, calling the presence of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain "of great historic significance" in opening remarks at the weekend summit in the northern Chinese port of Qingdao. The two South Asian nations joined the bloc as full members last year.

The group also welcomed the presidents of Iran and Mongolia, and it pledged to increase cooperation on energy and agriculture and create more favorable conditions on trade and investment.

The group pledged to uphold the Iran nuclear deal, a major source of G-7 contention after Trump's withdrawal last month. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose country has observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, made the summit his first foreign trip since the U.S.' decision.

Addressing the summit, he said that Iran would expect other participants in the nuclear deal to provide guarantees that they would honor the agreement.

With tight security, closed roads and restricted press access, the summit's choreographed show of unity was a contrast to the tumultuous G-7 summit of leading industrialized nations, which concluded Saturday in Quebec and saw the U.S. and its allies divided by escalating trade tensions.

Even as the scope of the breakdown over U.S. tariffs became clear, Xi was taking the podium to criticize what he said were new forms of "unilateralism" and "protectionism."

"We oppose the practice of sacrificing other countries' security for their own absolute security," Xi told a gathering of the group's heads of state.

China's state-run media had fun with the contrasting images of the feuding democratic states and the orderly proceedings of the China- and Russia-led bloc. The English-language Twitter account of the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper posted photos of a tense scene in La Malbaie, Quebec, and another of Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin smiling, with the caption, "G7 vs SCO: two meetings on the same day."

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which experts see as a bloc that seeks to challenge the Western-led order, is dominated by China and Russia and also includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Founded in 2001, it was originally conceived as a vehicle for resolving border issues, fighting terrorism and -- more implicitly -- to counter American influence in Central Asia after its invasion of Afghanistan.

While the 17-year-old Shanghai Cooperation Organization has increasingly extended into trade and economic cooperation -- the G-7's central focus -- it was founded as a security group. The bloc has rallied around opposition of the "three evils" of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

The summit comes as Russia and China have boosted ties in response to the U.S. national security strategy that describes them as America's top adversaries.

"We should reject the Cold War mentality and confrontation between blocs," Xi said, adding that the countries should "oppose the practices of seeking absolute security of oneself at the expense of the security of other countries."

In recent years, the Shanghai bloc's economic component has grown more prominent, embodied in Xi's signature, trillion-dollar foreign policy and infrastructure drive known as the Belt and Road Initiative.

Xi announced that China would offer $4.7 billion in loans through the bloc, highlighting its economic aspect.

Beijing's infrastructure projects in Central Asia make some in the bloc uncomfortable -- particularly India, which alone among members has refused to endorse the program. Russia, too, is wary of China's expanding influence, and though it has embraced the Belt and Road Initiative, it is also seeking to expand its own economic and political leverage in the region through a customs union it dominates, known as the Eurasian Economic Union.

BUILDING TIES

As trade tensions have simmered between China and the U.S. in recent months, Beijing has drawn closer to Moscow and New Delhi.

On Saturday, Xi met Modi for the second time in two months, signing deals on the export of nonbasmati rice and sharing information about the waters of the Brahmaputra River, which runs between China and India, according to tweets by Raveesh Kumar, spokesman of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Xi and Modi also found common ground on security. On Sunday, Xi urged closer cooperation on joint counterterrorism exercises and law enforcement, while Modi called security "our top priority" and said India would play "an active and constructive role" in the bloc to work against extremism in Afghanistan.

On Friday, Xi presented Putin with China's first Friendship Medal at an elaborate ceremony in Beijing.

Putin said Sunday that the current structure of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is "optimal" and emphasized its combined economic power and political clout.

"In terms of per-capita income, the G-7 countries are richer, but the combined size of the SCO economies is bigger and their population is much bigger -- half of the world's population," he said.

He emphasized the importance of the group's statement in support of free trade and pointed at U.S. plans to raise tariffs on imported cars in contrast.

"This is quite serious. It may hurt the interests of many countries, primarily European," Putin said. "It's very significant for the global economy."

Putin also said he is happy to meet with Trump once Washington is ready to hold such a summit, and he welcomed Trump's call to bring Moscow back into the G-7 group.

Putin said that some nations, including Austria, have offered to host his summit with Trump, should they have one.

"The U.S. president has repeatedly said that it's reasonable to hold such a meeting," Putin said. "As soon as the U.S. side is ready, the meeting will take place, depending, of course, on my working schedule."

Putin's remarks follow a report that White House officials were working toward setting up a meeting. Trump has said he was open to having a summit with Putin, who U.S. intelligence officials have said directed Russian meddling in the 2016 election to help Trump win.

Putin also welcomed Trump's statement that Russia should be invited to rejoin the group that was called the G-8 before others expelled Russia.

"It wasn't us who left," he said. "Colleagues refused to come to Russia on well-known grounds."

"We will be ready to greet them all in Moscow," he added.

Russia was expelled from the group in 2014 after it invaded and annexed Crimea and for its support of pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine.

Putin also dismissed as mere "chatter" a G-7 statement that criticized Russia.

The statement had said: "We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing behavior to undermine democratic systems and its support of the Syrian regime." It also said the countries shared and agreed with Britain's assessment that it is "highly likely" that Russia was responsible for the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Britain.

"Once again, nothing concrete was said," Putin said, referring to the G-7 statement. "It's time to stop that chatter and deal with real issues."

Earlier Sunday, Putin criticized the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal in a speech at the summit.

He emphasized that the bloc's members are worried about the U.S. move.

Putin said Washington's decision to exit the agreement could "destabilize the situation" in the region. He added that Moscow will continue to honor its obligations under the Iranian nuclear deal.

Information for this article was contributed by Dake Kang and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press; and by Dandan Li and Stepan Kravchenko of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 06/11/2018

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