The Ninth Asian Regional Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “A Changing Asia in a Transforming World,” will be held in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on November 21-22, 2018, on the heels of the meetings of ASEAN, APEC and the East Asian Summit.
This year, the Valdai Club conference agenda is related to the growing influence of Asian countries in world politics, economy, and their active involvement in solving international problems. In Southeast Asia, international security issues are no less acute than in Northeast Asia: there, the interests of China and the United States overlap and may collide directly in the near future.
Amid these changes, Russia is the only country in Asia that maintains smooth, business-like and friendly relations with all regional players. At the same time, the Valdai Club is the only Russian think-tank, which organizes forums of such scale in Asia.
All sessions of the conference are devoted to the most pressing problems of the region, taking into account large-scale changes on the world arena. International security in Asia will occupy an important place on the conference agenda. Participants in the session on the economy will focus on the trade wars and protectionism, which are common challenges for Russia and the Asian countries. The future of the dialogue between the EAEU and ASEAN will be discussed at a separate session. Particular attention will be paid to the discussion on the prospects of competing concepts of the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions.
The Valdai Club’s partner for the conference is the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia’s main analytical centre on international politics and economics. It is part of the network of leading think tanks in the ASEAN countries.
Along with Russian experts, the conference will be attended by representatives of about a dozen Asian countries, including Japan, China, the Republic of Korea, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
