On some aspects and results of the past UN General Assembly
The “high week” within the UN General Assembly has ended. The status of a high week implies a maximum level of representation of countries, i.e. speeches and meetings of top officials. But the status turned out to be blurred even before the start of the UN General Assembly, since the Chinese leader decided not to attend this event.
The media, as usual, focused on the Ukrainian agenda, but, in addition to Ukraine, two important topics should be highlighted: the issue of UN reform and the C5+1 summit or “Central Asia - USA”.
UN Secretary General A. Guterres decided to go even further.
“The time has come to reform both the Security Council and the Bretton Woods institutions. Fundamentally, it is a matter of redistributing power in accordance with the realities of today's world."
Observers could not ignore such a speech, since the discussion of the timing of the collapse of the system has long been one of the most popular topics, because it seems that the Bretton Woods system has been dying for several decades, and dying, having been abolished back in 1976 - amazing vitality, especially in the minds . But what did the UN Secretary General mean then?
As we will see later, the UN Secretary General will be very precise in his formulations, essentially answering with this phrase a number of almost conceptual questions.
Strictly speaking, the quote that caused a stir is just another in the last fifteen years. Similar theses were voiced quite often by UN functionaries after the crisis wave of 2008. For example, one can recall the words of A. Guterres’ predecessor in this post, P. Ki-moon, back in 2009.
“There is consensus on the need to continue to reform and modernize international financial institutions so that they are better able to respond to current financial and economic challenges and to the needs of UN Member States.”
Now everyone has conveniently forgotten that the UN traditionally launches a discussion about the reform of international financial institutions every time there is no longer enough money for programs. But, on the other hand, it would be a mistake to reduce everything only to a banal UN budget deficit.
In this particular case, for the first time we are talking not about a hypothetical, but about a very real reform of the UN, and here there are certain chances that, along with the reform, changes will be made to the work of the IMF and the World Bank. Another thing is that real changes and expectations from them may once again diverge greatly.
A thick and bushy conspiracy theory has grown up around Bretton Woods in recent years. Although, in fact, the Bretton Woods system today functions only in the form of rudiments - those same macro-financial institutions that A. Guterres so accurately spoke about.
With the help of Bretton Woods, the dollar became not just the base currency of international payments - this is a consequence, the main thing is that the US dollar became the base investment currency. The Jamaican system later untied the dollar from the gold standard and made it a universal measure of other currencies, both regular and reserve, a unique measure of value of a new type. The system has become different, but the basic regulatory institutions remained, having been rebuilt to suit the new rules.
Actually, calling the current system Bretton Woods can only be done out of inertia and with great stretch, just as one can talk about its “reform”. It is difficult to reform something that has not been working for almost half a century.
Then why does a discussion about its reform start so often and on different platforms, especially since today they are mixed together: the heir institutions of Bretton Woods (IMF and the World Bank with its subsidiaries), the system of free exchange rates based on reserve currencies (the Jamaican system ), as well as a set of general rules for regulating markets in the early 1990s (the so-called “Washington Consensus”)?
There are indeed some reasons for this confusion.
Since the USSR and its bloc did not become participants in the Bretton Woods institutions, they could not further influence the decision-making of regulators. And these institutions were created purely for the purposes of industrialization and assistance to countries during periods of financial crises. In fact, this is an extensive banking structure, which, with the combined capital of many participants, could at some point issue interest-free loans to certain countries. Loans are general, sectoral, for specific programs, stabilization, the main thing is that they are interest-free.
Thus, the UN and the World Bank turned out to be strictly tied to each other in real life, since without the funds of the IMF and World Bank participants it was simply impossible to launch economic assistance and stabilization programs. After the financial crisis of 2008, the UN’s own funds became smaller. Therefore, it is completely logical that at the UN, every Secretary-General was simply obliged to advocate that macro-financial regulators do not skimp on the allocation of funds.
However, a good undertaking in the form of the creation of macro-financial funds and regulators resulted in a completely understandable first political and then commercial enterprise. Since the mid-1950s, loans have become strictly linked to certain steps of needy countries in foreign policy. Later they were distributed in the interests of raw material corporations, then in the interests of TNCs. In general, it would be even strange if this did not happen.
But the UN is periodically forced to work outside the direct interests of TNCs or American foreign policy, and this is very, very difficult to do. Therefore, it is from the UN that there are calls for reform not of the Bretton Woods system, which no longer exists, but for the reform of specific institutions that were based on it, but operate today as private mega-corporations.
The general complaints of the participants in the “world community” are addressed not to Bretton Woods, dollar hegemony or the ten principles of the Washington Consensus, but to the fact that specific institutions, the finances of which are filled, it seems, from the pockets of all 188 participants, are distributed in the interests of a limited number of interests, yes still with a thick political overtones. At the same time, lending criteria are based on a general (and simplified) macroeconomic model for all markets, both developed and developing.
We are not talking about any “breaking of the dollar system”, which is what optimists are so animatedly discussing. A. Guterres quite logically expects that the reform of the UN Security Council will increase pressure on corrupt (in the classical sense) macro-financial regulators, who will be more accommodating in terms of allocating funds to developing countries. From the point of view of the administrator, A. Guterres, in principle, correctly puts these theses into circulation, this will improve the status of his organization.
And here we should consider the issue of reform of the UN itself.
If we take speeches from both the western and eastern, as well as the southern directions, then in this regard, a strong consensus was demonstrated on the sidelines of the UN GA.
The bottom line is that we are talking about expanding the number of permanent members of the UN Security Council through several options: India, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Japan. Germany and Japan will most likely drop out of the discussion, and the rest of the three may enter the Security Council as a whole.
But the fact is that whether the composition is expanded or truncated, the main battles will still revolve around the right of veto. The idea that the Security Council should make decisions with 2/3 votes is not passable by definition, and giving new members the right of veto is unlikely to change anything in the work of the Security Council in principle, although it will make its agenda quite rich.
For A. Guterres, as an administrator, this option is also good, since it will increase public expectations from the reformed UN. But this reform will not help much in solving key problems. One gets the impression that the UNGA participants simply want to lead the organization out of a historical impasse by making a deep, but cosmetic overhaul.
The next interesting aspect in the work of the UN GA is the holding of the “US – Central Asia” summit within its framework.
A month ago I went to VO material “At the summit in September, the United States will try to add confusion to China’s plans in Central Asia,” which described the stages of the formation of the Central Asian Five, which over the past year has transformed into a separate foreign policy entity. The Five found it much more convenient to negotiate on external platforms, both with Moscow and with China, the EU, and the Gulf countries. The USA was next.
The point of this summit was not that the United States would be able to offer Central Asia full an alternative Xi'an Declaration, but to what extent Washington will be able to introduce disagreements into this unique bloc when implementing the strategy signed by China and the Group of Five in Xi'an.
It is not for nothing that before the summit it was the President of Uzbekistan who was offered a separate program by the United States, because in the logic of last year for China, the unofficial first number in the list of five countries is Kazakhstan.
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were able to overcome quite a lot of differences and sign a union treaty. The United States decided, if not to drive a wedge into these schemes, then to try to drill “technological holes” in them.
It was very interesting to look at the results of this event because over the past year the United States has achieved frankly good results in the Middle East, in relations with India, the integration of Turkey and the EU, and with a number of Southeast Asian states.
This was watched very closely in Central Asia, but observers were left disappointed. The dialogue turned out to be vague; the participants, if not bored, did not really understand what they were doing besides the protocol.
The contrast is all the more striking since the neighbors brought large investment contracts from the sidelines of the Central Asia-GCC summit, and the grandiose strategic Xi’an Declaration from the sidelines of the Central Asia-China summit.
Apparently, what we are seeing here is that the United States does not yet really understand how to work with this new foreign policy association – the Central Asian “Group of Five”. For a long time, Washington's policy was generally built around individual diplomacy. This work is often compared to the British Great Game project, but so far the United States has not developed a concept similar in scale.
Here the United States does not yet have effective approaches, and the reason for this may be that they are neither directly nor indirectly participants in such a format as the SCO. The SCO is also a “talking shop,” but a talking shop created outside of globalist project schemes.
It would seem that they talk there and talk here, but the institutions operate outside the usual framework for the United States. This does not mean that the United States will not pick up the keys - it will, but so far this process has not yielded results. Another thing is that you also need to be able to use it wisely.
So far, Washington sees the water crisis and the green agenda and climate issues as such, since they understand that playing on the shortage of water and electricity in the region can cumulatively affect the interests of the entire Central Asian five. The stumbling block here is Rosatom’s position in terms of building a nuclear power plant, and the United States is still trying to open the door with this key.
It should also be noted that a rather interesting point is that the famous NGO/NGO programs, “open societies”, “Soros and Co.” have performed rather weakly in Central Asia over the past year and a half.
There is traditionally a lot of noise from them, but according to the past elections in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and political battles in Kyrgyzstan, their influence at least has not increased. Although they, together with the Ukrainian diaspora, made a decent mark with a number of Russophobic actions.
This does not mean that their funding is cut off - this is impossible due to the fact that these NGOs are directly integrated into US foreign policy institutions; another thing is that their maneuver is now somewhat limited. For now, they decided to involve them in an information campaign related to Russian nuclear power plant projects.
The fact is that, for example, in Kazakhstan, the thesis about the importance of denuclearization has long been one of the basic ideologies. Here Kazakhstan appears on international platforms as a country affected by nuclear tests.
The discussion about how high the degree of such contamination is does not matter; what is important is the opportunity to use this narrative in international politics. Now that the time has come to build nuclear power plants due to a shortage of generation, this thesis becomes antagonistic.
It would be strange if pro-American NGOs did not seize on it, actually preventing the implementation of nuclear projects associated with Russia. As a result, things may come to the point that Kazakhstan may even hold a referendum on this matter. So essentially anti-Soviet narratives boomerang back to their creators after many years.
It is necessary to monitor the US attempts to pick up the keys to the region, since Washington always retains the option of negotiations related to Afghanistan - this is one of the key aspects of security that none of the members of the Group of Five can reject. This problem allows the United States to always be present in regional politics, picking up master keys in other areas.
Many people noticed that China and the United States held a meeting in Malta, where Wang Yi and J. Sullivan discussed issues for twelve hours that did not spill over into the public sphere. J. Sullivan is one of the real architects of US foreign policy. Neither side voiced the questions, but since mid-September Beijing has been actively launching messages regarding the future October Belt and Road forum.
In general, according to the unofficial schedule, the second half of the fall, in theory, should have been devoted to an in-person SCO summit. But Beijing, quite logically, decides first to hold a kind of “review of the ranks” at the “One Belt, One Road” forum, where it will voice specific investment programs and enter into political alliances.
This is a smart approach, since China will see the limits of its capabilities and will also form its core, a base based on which it will be possible to enter the nearby SCO and other foreign policy platforms.
By the way, it would be great if the continental axis “Iran – China – Russia” was formalized there. It is not for nothing that agreements were recently concluded with Syria, which very much counts on direct and open Chinese participation. If you follow US policy towards Syria and Iraq, this is a direct response from China to the results of the I2U2+ policy in the Middle East.
The fact that China is openly going to Syria with an official economic strategy is a signal for Washington, which is pursuing a policy of financial strangulation - dollar hunger, in relation to pro-Iranian forces in Lebanon, Iraq and official Damascus.
China has reduced its participation in the UN General Assembly and the GXNUMX summit, is conducting very complex and closed negotiations in Malta, and is holding a kind of pause in foreign policy, preparing for the “One Belt, One Road” forum. This shows that Beijing is very seriously preparing to respond to changes in the situation in the Middle East, US acquisitions in Southeast Asia and India, and Turkey’s success in joining the EU. Everything superfluous is discarded, everything unimportant is pushed aside.
For Russia, with our reactive foreign policy, this thoughtful approach from China is very positive, it means that the Chinese are preparing to confront US projects properly.
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