Valdai Club

The idea championed by President Putin seems to be to transform the informal group of permanent members of the United Nations Security Council into a form of world quasi-government, or a forum where major security issues could be discussed. This idea is tantamount to “resuscitating” the great alliance which triumphed during the Second World War.

At the moment, holding a summit of the leaders of the permanent members of the UN Security Council seems rather unrealistic. The only two topics worthy of such a summit are related to nuclear weapons issues. For Russia, this is the preservation of the current model of nuclear arms reduction and limitation (New START, which may cease to exist next year). For the United States, it’s forcing China to participate in international efforts to control and limit the number of nuclear weapons.

The greatest contradiction is that the WEF continues to be a Forum for the rich and powerful while the rest of the humanity still suffers from endemic poverty.

Any discussion on actual and future relations between the US and the EU should start with a realistic assessment of the current internal status of those two global actors. Which United States – the country of the hysterical Democrats or the country of the nationalistic Republicans? Which EU – one of boosting Macron or of leaving Merkel; of the nationalist East or the hypocritical West?

The agenda of multilateral cooperation in Greater Eurasia and along its rim, where the most important player is India, poses more questions than it provides answers. Yet the most positive fact is that the region, which was a scene of confrontation between outside players just two or three decades ago, is now involved in an active multilateral dialogue.

The main levers of pressure in the Phase 2 talks will no longer be tariffs, but export-import control methods, investment restrictions, and possible sanctions against individual Chinese companies.

Beijing is unlikely to speed up the phase two talks this year but will prefer waiting for the outcome of the US presidential election.

The U.S presidential election is this year. The P1 agreement has become President Trump's first term's big achievement. Although it can be expected that during the presidential election, China will remain a major public topic and be subjected to all kinds of criticism, speculation and discredit, China has become accustomed to the rule that "every US election, they must scold China."

It is good that Europe is finally realising that Libya can quickly become a second Syria. Europe is now suffering severely from the disintegration of the Middle East and the countries of Africa. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, Libya, Syria – tens of “failed states” could be added to this list during the 2020s. They produce mass migration, international terrorism, civil wars on Europe’s doorstep.

The agreement between China and the USA is a good thing for the world. As the biggest economies in the world, the joint initiatives, such as the protection of intellectual property rights, bank regulation, etc., will promote economic reform globally, and lay the foundation for a new round of WTO reform and negotiations on the rules of trade.