Via Sunday Herald:

THE SCOTTISH historian Niall Ferguson has warned that the strategic alliance between China and Russia is more of a threat to the West than the credit crunch.

Ferguson, a best-selling author, broadcaster and professor of history at Harvard University, said that the development of the new Russia-China powerblock was set to put the two economic heavyweights on a path to confrontation with much of the rest of the world.

Speaking at Making Sense Of The Future, a conference organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) at Gleneagles, Ferguson also warned that unless Iran suspends its nuclear weapons programme a full-scale war in the Middle East is inevitable.

“I believe that Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin is about to have his Molotov-Ribbentrop moment,” said Ferguson, referring to the pre-second world war non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. “He’s going to realise that Moscow and Beijing can have a new and meaningful partnership.”

Ferguson also warned that the West had to sit up and take notice of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation. The SCO was officially founded in 2001 as a counterpart to Nato and the European Union. Aside from China and Russia its members are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Ferguson said that the SCO had sneaked “under the radar” of the West, and its activities should be carefully monitored. [Read more →]

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