Speaking at the IV meeting of the Astana Club on Nov. 13, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, proposed to create an Asian organization for security and cooperation. He claims that the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) could be used as a platform to launch the process. His idea includes the creation of a security zone throughout all of Eurasia and the introduction of a dialog between the CICA and the OSCE. A CICA-OSCE summit could take place in Astana in 2020 to mark the 45th anniversary of the Helsinki Act.

Kazakhstan hosted the OSCE summit in 2010. The fourth CICA summit, held in Shanghai in 2014, demonstrated that the group had the potential to become something much more than just a platform for dialog. It could generate new global initiatives. It was then that the term the Organization of Security and Development in Asia (OSDA) was used for the first time.

The recent EU-Asia meeting in May demonstrated this momentum, as the need to jointly tackle security issues is growing stronger. In theory, ASEAN could join the effort to expand the shared security zone. The new organization in Asia could become a kind of competitor for the OSCE, which has failed at a number of its missions, including the management of the conflict in Ukraine. Relevant bilateral military alliances would become more transparent and be incorporated into this new regional security system.

The idea proposed by Kazakhstan to create the OSDA, or the Asian OSCE, has been floating around for some time. The Asian continent is facing a myriad of security challenges. Chapter VIII of the UN Charter encourages the creation of “regional arrangements or agencies,” as appropriate initial actors seek to defuse tensions and resolve conflicts prior to the intervention of the Security Council. Article 52(2) of the UN Charter states that regional arrangements or agencies should “make every effort to achieve pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or such regional agencies before referring them to the Security Council.”

In recent years, Russia has been working to advance a multilateral dialog on the prospects for creating an Asian security architecture. Consultations on the issue initiated by Russia were launched in 2013 as part of the East Asia summits. It has actively supported the CICA in its institution-building efforts. Moscow has participated in the ASEAN-led security dialogs and cooperation mechanisms. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Singapore to take part in the Nov. 13-14 Russia-ASEAN summit.

Speaking at the fifth Meeting on interaction and measures of trust in Asia (MIMTA), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the Asian continent needed its own platform to address international problems. Addressing the Russia-ASEAN summit held in Sochi in May 2016, President Putin made a pitch for launching the Greater Eurasia project (the Greater Eurasian Partnership), aimed at creating a shared zone in Asia that would include security cooperation and eventually encompass the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the countries involved in the integration of the China’s One Belt One Road initiative. According to him, the SCO could cement this construction. The implementation of the initiatives mentioned above could also be a practical step toward creating the unified trade and security zone “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” that Russia has proposed.

Events in Afghanistan and North Korea, the tensions between India and Pakistan and between India and China, the situation in the South China Sea, the emerging arms race, and the militarization of the region could all be placed on the agenda of the new organization, were it to be set up. The US cannot be shut out, but it should not become a dominant actor bringing its weight to bear on others. No US “exceptionalism” should be allowed to play a part or to influence the proceedings under the auspices of this new Asian security organization.

2018 is the year the OSCE marked its 45th anniversary and its experience should be taken into account. The Helsinki Act has played a very positive role, but the organization has failed to become a truly effective mechanism for ensuring security in Europe. The treaties concluded within the OSCE framework, such as the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE), are either dead, or about to go belly up like the Open Skies Treaty. The NATO expansion has not added to the enhancement of European security. The organization has failed to prevent the tensions that are running high in Europe at present. Double standards are permitted, attempts to produce color revolutions are staged, and sanctions battles have not been prevented. The use of sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy has not been countered, or even condemned, by the OSCE, which flies in the face of the provisions and spirit of the Helsinki Act. The sad lessons of the OSCE should be kept in mind when the architecture of this new Asian security organization is discussed. It should be an alliance based on equality and transparency that is able to effectively handle problems in a multipolar world while keeping the so-called “Western influence” at bay.

The Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is an inter-governmental forum created for promoting peace, security and stability in Asia. It was created in response to the changing times in an attempt to strengthen regional awareness and enhance the effectiveness of tackling the problems. 

Asia has increasingly become a driving force of global progress. In recent years, it has accounted for over 50% of global growth with China leading the race. Supported by robust economic growth and political awakening, the region boasts a growing ability and confidence to resolve its own problems. The idea of convening the CICA was first proposed by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev in October 1992 at the 47th Session of the UN General Assembly. Founded in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1999, the CICA pledged to create an «an environment of confidence» among its members states, which is merely, as its own mandate explains, a «stepping stone» for the ultimate goal – military alignment. 

The first meeting of the CICA Ministers of Foreign Affairs was held in 14 September 1999 to adopt the Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between CICA Member States. At present the Organization unites 26 member-states which hold summits once every four years. The US and Japan are not full-fledged members with observer status. Canada is neither a member, nor an observer. Conspicuously Japan, the Asia’s second-largest economy, the Philippines, a US military ally, and Indonesia, locked in territorial dispute with China, are missing as members. This year the summit included Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, an open challenge to the US, and United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-Moon. 

In the last two decades of CICA’s lifespan, Asia has resolved many disputes through equal-footed consultation, mutual understanding and seeking common ground while setting differences aside for the time being (for example, China has settled the boundary with 12 of its 14 land neighbors), thereby setting a good example of regional security. 

China and Russia are working together to turn CICA into the basis for a new regional security framework keeping the United States outside. This security vision also seeks to downplay the importance of regional military alliances, a major source of US influence in Asia. Instead, CICA would serve as the major body for the collective handling of security issues.

As of 15 January 2013, CICA member states have agreed to implement the following four Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) of the military-political dimension:

1. Mutual visits by the military authorities and representatives of defense colleges; 

2. Mutual invitations among armed forces for participation in national holidays, cultural and sport events; 

3. Information exchange on CV’s of top military personnel; 

4. Exchange of information on the status of their accession to or ratification of multilateral instruments on arms control and disarmament as well as conventions on the outer space.

The document is to large extent based on the Joint Russian-Chinese Initiative on Strengthening Security in the Asia Pacific Region adopted on October 6, 2010 in Ankara, Turkey. 

Speaking at the conference on May 20 President Xi Jinping called for the creation of a new Asian structure for security cooperation based on a regional group that includes Russia and Iran and excludes the United States. «We need to innovate our security cooperation (and) establish new regional security cooperation architecture», he said speaking to an audience that included President Vladimir Putin of Russia and leaders of Central Asian countries. The Chinese leader said he wanted CICA to be «a security dialogue and cooperation platform» for all of Asia being a basis for a regional security framework. Clearly pointing a finger at the United States he called military alliance alliances to «the outdated thinking of the Cold War». According to him, «We cannot just have security for one or a few countries while leaving the rest insecure». He also noted that «a military alliance which is targeted at a third party is not conducive to common regional security.» In his speech Mr. Xi Jinping offered an alternative vision for the region based on an all-inclusive regional security framework rather than individual alliances with external actors like the United States. China stands for Asian problems to «be solved by Asians themselves», meaning there was no role for the United States. After the conference the Chinese leader called for Asian countries to «completely abandon» old security concepts, presumably including the alliance system currently maintained by the U.S. China stands for the creation of a new mechanism within CICA to allow member states to hold defense consultations.

On a visit to China, Russian President Putin said in an interview that he wanted «a new security and sustainable development architecture in Asia-Pacific.». According to him, Russia and China have actively advocated establishing a new security architecture in the region to be based on the principles of equality, respect for international law, indivisibility of security, non-use of force or threat of force. He noted that CICA is a well-established cooperation mechanism which has been successfully working in such spheres as security, new challenges and threats. 

It’s rather symbolic that Russia and China were holding a joint naval exercise in the East China Sea at the time of the event. The routine training event has no specific targets but is nonetheless politically symbolic as China is engaged in a heated territorial dispute with Japan, backed by the US.

The initiative to enhance the CICA role as an instrument to tackle security issues dovetails with the Russia basis foreign policy document – the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation which was approved by President of the Russian Federation V. Putin on February 12, 2013. It says that Russia is an integral part of this fastest-developing geopolitical zone and is interested in «creating a transparent and equitable security architecture in the APR and cooperation on a collective basis». (Article 75). The Concept stresses that «Improving political and security environment in Asia is of fundamental importance for Russia as the potential for conflict in the region remains significant, military arsenals are built up, and the risk of WMD proliferation is increasing» (Article 76). The document emphasizes that «Russia considers it vital to create and promote a partner network of regional associations in the APR». (Article 77). The Russian Federation views the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia «as the main platform for strategic dialogue between leaders on key APR security and cooperation issues» (Article 78). 

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BRICS, the CSTO, the SCO, the Latin America’s Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) created in 2011 to keep outside the US and Canada – all of them are the examples of international organizations emerging in the world which exclude the US and its close allies to avoid the influence they find negative. The CICA summit is an element of the global trend taking tangible shape. 

Brennan, who served as President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser and reportedly, his CIA «deep state» control officer, has been at the forefront of repositioning U.S. foreign policy toward a more hostile stance against China, Russia, and other nations unwilling to buckle under to U.S. globalization objectives.

As part of Obama’s military «pivot to Asia», he and Brennan decided to replace governments friendly to China in Southeast Asia with ones more hostile to Beijing and friendlier to the United States. No sooner had the CIA and its Thai allies used judicial contrivances close to the Thai royal family to oust the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra from power than the CIA's fingerprints were suspected in a catastrophic plane crash in Laos. 

Top Lao government officials, including Defense Minister and deputy premier Defense Minister Douangchay Phichit, were killed when their Ukrainian-made AN-74TK-300 Lao Air Force transport crashed while en route from Vientiane, the Lao capital to Xiangkhoung near the Plain of Jars, an area not heard of by most Americans since the days of the John Kennedy administration. Also killed were Public Security Minister Thongbane Sengaphone, Vientiane Governor Sukhan Mahalad, and Lao Communist Party Central Committee Secretary and head of the Committee’s Commission for Propaganda and Training Cheuang Sombounkhanh.

Almost immediately, CIA media outlets, some connected to Radio Free Asia, the chief instigator of Uighur separatists in China, began reporting on an inevitable power struggle among the secretive Lao Politburo. The Voice of America began interviewing obscure "experts" who maintained that the Thai military was merely fulfilling its traditional role of government-busting based on the arcane Martial Law Act 1914. 

The influential Japan External Trade Organization said through a spokesman that the enforcement of martial law in Thailand was «positive» for Thailand. Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his revanchist nationalist government, Japan has moved its foreign and military policies under the wing of Washington.

The crash was fortuitous for the Obama administration. Naval and coast guard vessels of China and Vietnam had recently clashed over disputed waters in the South China Sea. Laos has maintained steady neutrality between Vietnam and China, the two traditional Communist allies of Laos. Vietnam had just ordered demonstrations against China over the South China Sea conflict tamped down because they were getting out of control and threatening stability in the country. The CIA has been using Vietnamese-American citizens to stir up, George Soros "rent-a-mob-style," anti-Chinese demonstrators, complete with protest signs in English, on the streets of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

The death of Douangchay, a powerful member of the Politburo of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, the Communist party that has ruled Laos since 1975, was expected to set off a power struggle between pro-China and pro-Vietnamese factions within the party. Apparently, the Obama administration decided to go for broke after successfully deposing Yingluck, who is of Thai-Chinese heritage and maintained friendly relations with China. Somewhere deep within the bowels of the Obama national security apparatus is a Presidential Finding authorizing an operation against the Lao government aircraft.

Douangchay, who was due to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defense Ministers meeting in Myanmar to discuss regional security issues with his Vietnamese, Thai, and other ASEAN counterparts. The "constitutional coup" in Thailand coupled with the wiping out of the senior security ranks of the Lao government placed the ASEAN defense ministers' conference into a quandary.

Douangchay was seen as close to Russia, Vietnam, and China while steering a middle course between the three. His death opens the possibility of a bloc friendlier to the United States and Vietnam coming to the helm in Laos.

No sooner had Laos recovered the bodies of the senior Laotian officials from the crash site, Thailand's largely U.S.-trained and -supplied military announced they were imposing martial law in Thailand, effectively ending the rule of the democratically-elected government headed by acting Prime Minister Niwatthamrong Boonsongphaisan since Yingluck's ouster by a politically-motivated Thai court intent on throwing the populist-based Pheu Thai Party out of power. The Thai government, or what was left of it after the royalist «Constitutional» Court deposed Yingluck, was actually holding a cabinet meeting as the Thai military moved to impose martial law. Boonsongphaisan and his ministers had not been briefed by the Thai military chiefs, all of whom maintain close contacts with their U.S. counterparts, about the plans to impose martial law.

The leader of the Thai military putsch, General Prayuth Chan-ocha attended the U.S. Army’s land warfare conference cos-sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) in Honolulu, Hawaii in April 2013, a few months before CIA-backed royalists began agitating for Yingluck’s ouster. Although Prayuth maintains that he is neutral between the populist Red Shirts and royalist «Yellow Shirts,» he is a strong supporter of the Thai king and royal family. In Honolulu, Prayuth rubbed shoulders with the director of the CIA-connected East-West Center, the director of intelligence for PACOM, and various CIA, NSA, and Defense Intelligence Agency officials.

Yingluck and her exiled brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, himself ousted in a military coup in 2006, are supported by Thailand's rural-based "Red Shirt" movement. U.S. intelligence contends that the Red Shirts include a number of Communists supported by China through Laos. The suspicious Lao plane crash followed by the Thai military coup, have increased U.S. pressure on China in Southeast Asia.

Obama's "pivot to Asia" has seen the Philippines invite the U.S. military to re-establish bases in their country, including one in western Palawan Island at Oyster Bay. There are also discussions with Vietnam to permit the U.S. Navy to return to Cam Ranh Bay in southern Vietnam. Obama is the first president since Richard Nixon to preside over a massive U.S. military buildup in Southeast Asia.

Although Obama visited Malaysia on his recent «pivot» trip to Asia, it did not stop former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed from suggesting the CIA and Boeing had something to do with taking over the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370 remotely and landing it in an undetermined location. A number of engineers based in Kuala Lumpur for the U.S. firm Freescale Semiconductor, which manufactures advanced computer chips for the defense industry, were en route to a technology exhibition in Beijing. There has been some speculation that the CIA wanted the computer engineers’ visit to Beijing aborted at any cost, including the disappearance of the aircraft with all of its passengers and crew.

In April, the United States concluded the annual «Angkor Sentinel» with the Cambodian armed forces. Part of the exercise was to train Cambodian forces in quelling domestic political disturbances. Like Laos, Cambodia has a nominal Communist government which, like those of Laos and Vietnam, is a prime target for American ouster when the time is suitable. The CIA’s Brennan knows the timetable for America’s re-entry into and full dominance over Southeast Asia.

The United States is also establishing a network of upgraded National Security Agency signals intelligence stations around China. U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent trip to Mongolia is believed to have discussed with Mongolian defense officials the upgrade of a number of tactical signals intelligence mobile units along the Chinese border that share their intercepts of Chinese military communications with NSA and its FIVE EYES partners. The disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have shown that Taiwan remains a close Third Party partner of NSA. A joint NSA-Taiwanese signals intelligence facility is located north of Taipei at Pingtung Lee on top of Yangmingshan Mountain. The facility monitors Chinese military and commercial telecommunications traffic across the Strait of Taiwan.

Now that the United States has forced the second Shinawtra government from power in Thailand, it can be expected that NSA will increase its operations at the NSA base at Khon Kaen, Thailand once code-named INDRA. The facility has been upgraded to intercept foreign satellite communications to and from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and China’s southern province of Yunnan. The modernized NSA satellite intercept facility is now code-named LEMONWOOD.

China responded to U.S. military maneuvering in Asia by calling for the creation of a new security alliance in Asia minus the United States. Using the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-building measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai as a backdrop, Chinese President Xi Jinping said, «We need to innovate our security cooperation,» adding, «we need to establish new regional security cooperation architecture.»

The new nationalist right-of-center Narendra Modi government in India has threatened China with force over disputed border territories. With such policies, Modi will find a willing partnership in Washington when it comes to tightening the noose on China. The recent unprecedented criminal indictments by the U.S. Justice Department of five Chinese military officers for allegedly hacking into private corporation computer systems in the United States may be the first shot of what may eventually end up as a new Indochina War, one of Mr. Obama’s own making…

This is a turning point in history. Russia is being dragged by the West into another cold war and is subject to unprecedented pressure with clear intentions to subvert it. It’s not just a collision of interests – the system of values is undermined, the very right of people and states for self-determination is scorned…

The policy of Moscow is getting more support internationally among the countries who oppose the US claims for global hegemony. The interest towards forums and organizations led by Russia and China is growing, for instance BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which have their summits slated for July and September.

The 4^th Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) Summit will be held in Shanghai, China from May 20 to 21. The theme of this year’s summit will be «increasing dialogue, mutual trust and collaboration to build a new Asia that is peaceful, stable and cooperative». It’s important to reach multilateral understanding of the fact that the emerging spread of nationalism around the world is a natural reaction to the collapse of westernization and a dangerous global challenge which is probably planned by the ideologists of the «clash of civilizations». The support of narrow minded Ukrainian particularism by cosmopolitan Europe fits well with this trend. Philosophers would call it cognitive dissonance, or an absurdity fatal for Europe itself.

China understands Russia perfectly well: the US-declared Asia pivot presupposes deterrence of China and dissemination of sinophobia in the neighboring states dragging them into military and political alliances led by America.

The recent impressive achievements of Russian foreign policy are appreciated in China along with the desire to help including countering all sorts of sanctions, another absurd move by the West. The aid is tangible: from point of view of industrial and financial might China can measure up to the US. As it has been reported, China’s GDP will catch up with the one of the United States by the end of 2014. China knows better how to achieve economic success than the masters of making people tighten belts and issuing paper assets with no back up.

The aid presupposes reciprocity (Chinese know how to trade and use partner’s weak points to their advantage). Beijing believes it has a unique chance to get access to Siberian riches. Moscow is ready to introduce new patterns of economic and scientific cooperation added by new achievements in developing cultural and humanitarian ties. Some kind of re-balancing to the East has become ripe since a long time ago. In Asia nobody stands in the way of doing business and launching long-term cooperation plans. It’s time to realize that large parts of Russian import from the West are repacked Chinese commodities. The elimination of go-betweens meets the mutual interests of Russia and China.

This time the Russian delegation is coming with a huge pack of cooperation documents (around 50) to be signed. New agreements have emerged in the recent months, while the talks of mutually important issues have intensified. There is another fundamental problem to be tackled. The visit would help to achieve progress here. The Chinese agencies face difficulty in finding counterparts in Russia. For instance, the China’s National Development and Reform Commission cannot find an interlocutor. There are other state bodies dealing in science and industry unable to make precise who to establish contacts with. The China People’s Bank has a Russian counterpart which is formally an independent entity, though it’s hard to say what this independence means and who exactly it is independent from. The list can go on. The legacy of tumultuous 1990s continues to negatively affect the prospects for cooperation between Russia and foreign partners.

These are removable obstacles. Economic dialogue cannot be artificially speeded up. It’s important to create a basis for cooperation – an infrastructure encompassing different spheres to serve the both parties well in the future.

The very rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, the partners who know the real meaning of the simple word – friendship, opens up a fundamental alternative to effect positive changes in the contemporary world. Our countries can and should gradually turn the tide of world history making return the ideals that stated that aid to the weak and poor, as well as countering predators, is a right thing to do. During his recent Africa tour the Chinese Premier said «If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together».