Valdai Club

On June 6 at 15:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), as part of the business programme of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2024, the Valdai Discussion Club will hold its ninth annual special session for the event: “Conflict or Harmony? The Secret of Proper Development in the 21st Century.” The event will take place in Conference Hall G6 at Pavilion G of the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Centre, and will be open to all Forum attendees. The session will also be livestreamed on the Club’s website.

The world is currently facing a political and military crisis. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has escalated to a global level, while the situation in the Middle East has become increasingly volatile. As more and more areas of tension arise, it becomes clearer that the old order, where wars and revolutions could resolve the accumulated contradictions, is crumbling.

The theme of this year’s Valdai Club discussion is based on the premise that modern conflicts are a legacy of a past era and not a means to shape a future one. Instead, the future success of global and national development depends on our ability to avoid conflict. 

Recent events have demonstrated that economic cooperation alone does not guarantee peaceful development. Therefore, the Valdai Club’s discussion aims to focus on interconnectedness and mutual enrichment in the socio-political realm. Instead of confrontation, the Valdai Club proposes relying on harmonious development, the harmonisation of the interests of all countries and a balanced level of national pride. 

The Valdai Club will provide an opportunity for experts from Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa to present views that differ from Western concepts and discuss ways of promoting conflict-free harmonious development.

Participants in the Valdai Club session will consider the following issues:

• How could interstate contradictions be resolved without clashes?
• What conditions contribute to the harmonious development of diverse societies?
• How can we overcome inequality, which gives rise to social conflicts and leads to political conflict?
• Is the global community prepared to recognize the futility of conflict and seek new paths of development?

By tradition, the Valdai Club session at SPIEF-2024 will be opened by Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club.

Speakers:

• Ram Madhav Varanasi, President of the India Foundation (India)
• Gustavo De Carvalho, Senior Research Fellow for Russian-African Relations at the South African Institute of International Affairs (South Africa)
• Rahakundini Bakrie Connie, professor at St. Petersburg State University (Indonesia)
• Wang Huiyao, Founder and President of Center for China and Globalization (China)
• Ruslan Yunusov, Co-founder Russian Quantum Centre
  

Moderator:

• Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Director of the Valdai Discussion Club

Working languages: Russian, English.

Venue:  Conference Hall G6, Pavilion G of the Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Centre, Petersburg highway 64/1, St. Petersburg.

Admission to the event is possible for SPIEF-2024 participants and journalists accredited at the Forum.

Links to the live broadcast of the discussion will be posted on all online platforms of the Valdai Club: on the website, X (formerly Twitter), VK, Telegram and Dzen.