Moscow has been pushing to establish a bloc against growing US hegemonic interests in the region for some time now.
Russia and China, together with co-signatories, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed a treaty in 2001 and became known as The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have all subsequently applied for membership, although at present they, together India hold observer status. Interestingly, the US was denied observer status when it requested it.
As well as seeking to protect their local energy interests, Russia and China have also started to tread on the US's toes elsewhere in the world. Russia have done some pretty interesting deals in Algeria, one of the Africa's largest energy exporters to the US. China, meanwhile, has built a strong relationship with another key US supplier, Angola, and more interestingly, has committed to negotiating with Venezuela's Chavez. This move, claims Chavez, will give "impetus to [Venezuela’s] attempts to break [its] dependence on oil exports to the United States" and will "[strip] major US companies… of their majority stakes in heavy crude projects."
Commenting on US-China relations in late 2005, Senator Joe Lieberman said:
The U.S.-China energy engagement that I foresee could be, in one sense, the 21st Century version of what arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union were in the last century.
But we’ve got to start those discussions before the race for oil becomes as hot and dangerous as the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union did in the last century.
In the same speech, he went on to remind us:
…wars have been fought over such competitions for natural resources.
Ughh.
