MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) - Current processes happening in Asia present a major challenge to Russia's national security, a deputy secretary of Russia's Security Council told a government daily Tuesday.
"Changes occurring at present in Asia pose a quintessential, maybe the most important challenge to Russia's national security for the next decades," Nikolai Spassky said in an interview with Rossiiskaya Gazeta. "It is a challenge so far, not a threat."
Speaking on the eve of a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit slated for June 15 in Shanghai, Spassky said that this challenge could turn into a threat only if Russia ignored it or did not respond to it adequately, he said.
The SCO, a regional cooperation and security organization, was founded in 2001. It has six permanent members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. India, Mongolia, Iran, and Pakistan are observers, though Pakistan is expected to apply for full membership at this month's summit.
Spassky said Russia could close the growing technological gap between itself and other nations, as well as dramatically increase its competitiveness and become a leading independent center of power in the 21st century, "only if it continued to play its traditional role as a bridge between the East and the West."
China, the largest country in the Asian Pacific region, is rapidly becoming a global superpower whose potential could soon match that of the United States, he said.
"It is important for Russia to maintain the course it has set in strengthening [the SCO]," Spassky said. "The SCO has everything necessary to become a key element of 'rising Asia.'"
