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A regional security alliance dominated by Russia and China yesterday demanded the US and its allies in the "war on terror" name a date for the removal of their military bases from central Asia. In a sign of growing tension after the massacre in Andijan, Uzbekistan, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) issued a terse request for Washington to name a deadline for withdrawal of troops and hardware.

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there there is the BRIC alliance of brazil, russia, india and china.

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Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Kyrgyzstan today to shore up an unsettled military basing arrangement here that has been critical to operations in Afghanistan. But this agreement appeared to be cast in jeopardy earlier this month when Kyrgyzstan and three other Central Asian states joined Russia and China in calling for the United States to set a deadline for withdrawing from the base here and another in neighboring Uzbekistan.

Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters traveling with him en route here from Washington that the status of the bases was a matter of negotiations with the host countries, not the regional alliance, which is known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and is dominated by Russia and China.

Ten days ago, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was even blunter in his assessment of the alliance's demand: "It looks to me like two very large countries were trying to bully some smaller countries."

A senior Air Force officer familiar with operations in the region said the military's Central Command was already examining "work-arounds," military parlance for alternatives, in the event the Pentagon is forced to leave the Uzbek base.

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BRICs is an easily graspable thesis put forward by the investment bankers at Goldman Sachs a year or two ago. By 2050 (and probably much sooner) the BRICs countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - will be up there at the top table of the world. At current rates of growth, China's economy will become bigger than that of the US in 2041. And then there's India, which has a younger population than China and its one child families. Maybe India will outstrip China in population and growth terms.

Brazil and Russia are obviously more problematic, but they are huge suppliers of the raw materials, iron ore, soyabeans, and energy that the other two nations have such a huge hunger for.

China's influence in particular is all over the world map: courting Russia for guaranteed oil supplies, negotiating to finance a new railway line in Brazil for the swift transport of farm goods to the ports for export; setting up a door factory in Ghana to add local value to the wood it needs to build the mushrooming new Chinese cities.

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Originally posted by Willowdale Wizard:
bbc news:

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