New World Order against Tariffs: SCO Development Bank as an anti-sanctions tool?

Farwa Sial1 Comment

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO鈥檚) 2025 summit in Tianjin produced a series of outcomes that, although modest in appearance, are strategically significant. The most prominent developments were the agreement in principle to establish an , seeded with approximately 楼2 billion in grants and a further 楼10鈥�14 billion in concessional loans from China. The summit also saw Beijing extend access to its , enhancing both civilian and defence applications from aviation and port logistics to military procurement. On the security side, leaders condemned the  in India, a diplomatic win for India that underscores China鈥檚 effort to align with India at a moment when the U.S. has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on Indian exports, citing India鈥檚 purchases of Russian oil. These headline measures were complemented by  on counter-terrorism through RATS (the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure) and a set of intensified SCO security-council meetings, together signalling a broadening of the organisation鈥檚 remit from finance into hard security enablers.

An additional dimension, often overlooked, is the SCO鈥檚 latent potential to serve as a platform for India鈥揚akistan rapprochement. Much as Beijing successfully mediated the Iran鈥揝audi d茅tente in 2023, the SCO framework offers a structured environment in which India and Pakistan are compelled to engage on shared issues such as counter-terrorism, energy connectivity, and infrastructure finance, under the auspices of a formal multilateralism rather than crude bilateral confrontation. The Tianjin summit鈥檚 emphasis on regional security cooperation, and its explicit condemnation of the Pahalgam attack, is already a small step in this direction, reflecting a willingness to acknowledge Indian concerns in a joint forum. With signs that India-China relations have modestly stabilised following high-level military disengagement talks along the LAC, there is space for Beijing to use the SCO to nudge India and Pakistan toward functional cooperation. This is not purely hypothetical: emergent trilateral conversations between India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh around trade corridors and energy-grid integration suggest that South Asia鈥檚 major economies are beginning to see value in pragmatic coordination despite unresolved disputes. In this sense, the SCO could provide an institutional ecosystem for gradual confidence-building between New Delhi and Islamabad, where shared participation in multilateral projects lowers the political cost of engagement, much as regional institutions elsewhere have historically diluted bilateral rivalries.

In line with a broader shift in global governance,  by Xinhua portrays the SCO as emblematic of Eurasian agency and multipolar resonance; 鈥�a living expression of multipolarity,鈥� bringing together diverse actors under a shared framework of non鈥慽nterference, counter鈥憈errorism, and connectivity. The enrolment of rivals within a single institutional ecosystem, makes the SCO, less of a confrontational bloc and closer to a practical architecture for regional autonomy and development.

Literature on the international financial architecture, has often highlighted the tension between established Western institutions and the alternative arrangements that have grown around them with much of the scholarship focusing on institutional challenges such as the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) or the New Development Bank (NDB). Yet the more subtle processes of institutional layering, where new mechanisms grow alongside existing ones, gradually altering the balance of power have received far less attention.

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Systems Thinking, Polycrisis, and the Blind Spot of Power

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Why do so many people who claim to 鈥渟ee the whole system鈥� remain blind to power?

This question struck me while listening to a recent episode of Planet Critical. The guest was Joseph Tainter, best known for The Collapse of Complex Societies. Tainter is celebrated as a pioneer of collapse studies and systems thinking. Yet when the conversation turned to the genocide in Gaza, his framing reduced it to Israel鈥檚 鈥渉istorical fear of Arabs.鈥� The structural realities of colonialism, imperialism, and resource politics 鈥� central to understanding both Gaza and the Middle East more broadly 鈥� disappeared. Here was a thinker revered for complexity, offering an analysis that was Eurocentric, ahistorical, and politically na茂ve.

This is not about Tainter alone. Similar patterns appear in the work of figures like Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger, both of whom have influenced me personally. Their mission is helping people make sense of the complex issues: Nate by weaving ecology, energy, financial systems and human behavior into accessible frameworks; Daniel by building sweeping syntheses across cognitive science, culture, and existential risk.

The often criticise most disciplines for their blindness. But their critique of blindness has its own blindness. Across their work, capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and class power rarely appear as sustained focal points. Yes, Daniel sometimes critiques modernity and gestures toward indigenous knowledge, and Nate occasionally hosts guests who reference colonial history. But overall, the crisis is cast as a species-level problem 鈥� as though 鈥渉umanity鈥� collectively overshoots limits 鈥� rather than as the outcome of specific, historically rooted systems of exploitation with identifiable beneficiaries and victims.

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How Philanthrocapitalism Will Not Save the World Health Organisation

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In the past two decades, global health governance has undergone a quiet revolution, shaped less by sovereign states and more by the growing influence of private capital. The World Health Organisation (WHO), once envisioned as the democratic engine of international public health, has increasingly come to rely on large-scale philanthropic foundations. This shift toward what is now commonly termed 鈥攚here billionaire-funded entities use business strategies and methods to tackle social and environmental challenges鈥攈as profound implications. It is not just a matter of money, but of power, accountability and legitimacy. Amid what many now describe as a , the WHO鈥檚 growing dependence on a handful of wealthy private actors has exposed deep cracks in the system of multilateralism upon which it was founded. Thus, philanthrocapitalism is undermining democratic global health governance by concentrating power in the hands of the wealthy and eroding public accountability.

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The Doughnut and the Divide: Can Norway Confront Its Imperial Mode of Living?

mohsenLeave a comment

In June, 1,200 scholars and activists from around the world gathered in Norway for a historic convergence of two movements: degrowth and ecological economics. During the closing plenary session, I listened to three speakers, two of whom鈥擪ate Raworth and Max Ajl鈥攔epresented radically different approaches to our current crises. Though Raworth and Ajl engaged in respectful dialogue, the tension in the room became almost palpable when Raworth’s polished slides on doughnut economics gave way to Ajl’s anti-imperialist critique: Can an apolitical reform tool truly coexist with the Global South’s demand for systemic revolution?

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The geopolitics of China in Chile鈥檚 lithium strategy and the trouble with critical minerals

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the Chilean government confirmed a report published earlier that morning: Chinese companies BYD and Yongqing Technology (Tsingshan Group) had abandoned their planned lithium cathode production facilities in Chile. This announcement dealt a significant blow to the ambitions of a country with a longstanding mining tradition, now striving to build industrial capabilities and develop value-added products from its mineral resources amid the global energy transition. However, just one day later, the Chinese embassy in Chile both the initial report and the Chilean government’s confirmation. After consultations with both companies, the embassy clarified that neither had officially withdrawn their investment plans. Instead, they reaffirmed ongoing interest in maintaining dialogue with Chilean authorities. The embassy further emphasized Chile’s continuing attractiveness to Chinese businesses, highlighting the numerous firms eager to participate in the country鈥檚 National Lithium Strategy. the Chinese embassy鈥檚 statement鈥攊ssued amidst escalating trade tensions and shifts in the international order鈥攕uggests this chapter is far from concluded.

This episode highlights the complexity and uncertainty confronting peripheral economies attempting to industrialize by leveraging their comparative advantages amidst the so-called energy transition and broader geopolitical tensions marked by trade wars. While significant global attention remains focused on the socio-environmental impacts of critical mineral extraction, less consideration has been given to examining how peripheral economies鈥攃ountries heavily reliant on natural resource extraction鈥攁re strategically navigating or capitalizing on this 鈥渃ritical minerals moment鈥� in relation to their own ambitions to industrialize.

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Private Equity in the Global South: Locusts? Vampires? The contagion effect

Farwa Sial1 Comment

The effectiveness of private equity has been a subject of ongoing debate in countries of the Global North. There is substantial evidence highlighting the extractive practices associated with private equity operations across Western nations. Examples include the decline of the  and the financial instability of local councils in the UK, particularly in the provision of . Similarly, in the United States, private equity has been linked to the attrition of an already fragile . In ., its influence has contributed to the deterioration of care homes, raising significant concerns about its broader social and economic impact.

In a recent blog, Michael Roberts characterized private equity as 鈥溾��, encapsulating the widely recognized critique that private equity firms function through a rentier model. These firms are frequently associated with practices such as asset stripping, worker lay-offs, and opting for excess leverage that increases the debt burdens of their acquisitions, all while failing to provide compelling evidence of value creation. This perspective aligns closely with earlier criticisms of private equity. During the 2000s, private equity operations were similarly likened to a swarm of , reflecting widespread disapproval of their extractive and often detrimental economic practices.

In summary, such analogies emphasize the aftermath of private equity operations, leaving behind 鈥渃arcasses and barren landscapes.鈥� Nevertheless, the evidence of a hollowed-out socio-economic landscape in the Global North has not deterred the international expansion of private equity into countries of the Global South. On the contrary,  have emerged in tandem with the globalization of Western private equity. In so-called 鈥渆merging markets,鈥� this expansion manifests in various forms, including an enthusiasm for deploying 鈥渕oral money鈥� through international development initiatives.

This article examines the role of private equity in Global South countries, focusing on three key characteristics: the escalation of indebtedness, the weakening of public markets, and the public subsidy function of development finance in facilitating private equity investments.

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Authoritarianism and Labour Repression in the Middle East and North Africa: Reflections on the 2025 ITUC Global Rights Index

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The International Trade Union Confederation鈥檚 (ITUC) was released on 2 June. The report presents a sobering picture of escalating violations of workers鈥� rights globally. Based on data from 151 countries, the Index reports that 87% of countries violated the right to strike, 80% restricted collective bargaining, and over 70% impeded union registration or denied access to justice. These trends, the report argues, reflect a 鈥渃oup against democracy鈥濃�攁n ongoing assault on core labour rights driven by repressive governments, emboldened corporations, and a broader authoritarian and conflict-ridden global capitalism.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region once again emerges as the most repressive in the Index (with an overall score of 4.68; a score of 5 indicates no guarantee of rights), with all countries in the region found to have violated fundamental rights to organise and collectively bargain, as well as registration of unions. The right to strike was suppressed in 95% of countries in the region, while over half of MENA states arbitrarily arrested or detained workers (p.28). The list of the ten worst countries for working people is composed mainly of Global South countries, with MENA cases including Egypt, Tunisia, and T眉rkiye. Over the past few years, my research has focused on the political economy and labour relations of these three countries[i], and below I briefly discuss them with insights drawn from the ITUC report.

However, before turning to these cases, it is important to highlight some potential limitations or problems in the ITUC report. While its findings are grounded in substantial and credible documentation, the non-contextualised regional framing of the Global Rights Index risks reproducing a familiar issue regarding the Middle East: the tendency to isolate MENA as uniquely authoritarian or culturally predisposed to repression. By highlighting MENA as the 鈥渨orst region鈥� without sufficiently situating its labour regimes within broader historical and structural dynamics, the Index could be seen to implicitly (albeit unintentionally) reinforce exceptionalist interpretations that have long shaped conventional understandings of the region.

When considering the Global South in general, and the MENA region in particular, we must not overlook the dynamics inherent to uneven capitalist development, such as persistent global and regional inequalities, the imperatives of cheap labour in hierarchical global production networks, IFI conditionalities, and the long-term consequences of war, occupation, and imperialist intervention. In countries like Egypt and Tunisia, and historically in Turkey, for example, the role of the IMF and World Bank in shaping labour markets through austerity, privatisation, and deregulation has been central to the weakening of collective rights. The region is also the most unequal in the world by income and wealth, according to the 鈥攁 fact that reinforces the political utility of repressing labour as a force of potential redistribution and mobilisation.

While specific political regimes certainly shape labour practices, and domestic political agency is not insignificant, these conditions should not be viewed as 鈥榓nomalies鈥� within an otherwise democratic capitalism. That countries like the United States and the United Kingdom (major centres of 鈥榣iberal democratic capitalism鈥�) are both rated as systematically violating workers鈥� rights (with a score of 4, p.21) should caution against any simplistic division between 鈥渁uthoritarian鈥� and 鈥渄emocratic鈥� regimes under capitalism. Rather, what we are witnessing is a global pattern of labour repression under crisis-ridden global capitalism.

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More than 100 Years of Ambedkar鈥檚 The Problem of the Rupee: Insights, ideas and intellectual rigour still awaiting discovery

Srihari ChikotiLeave a comment

It has been more than a century since Ambedkar鈥檚 second disquisition in the discipline of economics was published; The problem of the rupee: its origin and its solution was published in the year 1923. Ambedkar was awarded a Doctor of Science (D. Sc) upon completion of the aforementioned dissertation from the London School of Economics. Later, during the same year, it was published as a book (Jadhav 2015, p. 39).

This essay is fundamentally a tribute to The problem of the rupee; it aims to serve as a primer by discussing the theoretical gravitas and intellectual depth that Ambedkar鈥檚 second disquisition entails. While it is well-recognized that Ambedkar was trained in economics鈥攈olding two doctoral degrees[1]鈥攁nd made significant contributions to law and politics, this essay sheds light upon a few interactions with different economists and economic conditions that Ambedkar鈥檚The problem of the rupee engages with and subsequently invites for more extensive and nuanced engagement with the monograph.

Earlier, there have been multiple scholarly contributions that engaged with The problem of the rupee. However, they present only the overarching arguments i.e., the arguments are void of the details that explain the intellectual brilliance that is present in Ambedkar (1923). For instance, Jadhav claims that, after evaluating the Indian monetary system and operations, Ambedkar was in favour of a gold-standard rather than a gold-exchange standard (1991, p. 980). In a rudimentary sense, what gold standard and a gold-exchange standard mean is that the former indicates a monetary practice where gold is the direct form of currency that would be available for circulation. On the other hand, the latter i.e., the gold exchange standard is a condition where gold would not be a medium of exchange, but another form of currency would be the medium of exchange as gold would be held for reserve exchanges.

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