The Valdai Discussion Club took part in the business programme of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) for the sixth time. On September 6th the Club held a session titled “Gateway to the multipolar world. The Far East in the new architecture of international relations”.
For several years the focus in world politics and economics has been shifting towards Asia. The development of relations with Asia is one of the central focal points of Russia’s foreign policy. Taking into account the crisis that broke out this year in relations with the West, for Russia the development of ties with the Asian region is of strategic importance. Today we are witnessing how the Russian Far East is gradually turning not just into “Russia’s gateway to Asia” but into “the gateway to the multipolar world”. Unlike the Western world, there are no countries in the Asian region that would claim world domination. Despite the fact that Asia’s political consolidation is far behind that of the West, the region occupies a central place in the emerging system of multipolarity.
Speaking at the SPIEF 2022 plenary session, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “multipolarity is inevitable” due to the fact that promising new centres of power are emerging in the world. Many of them are in Asia. In a world that will not be based on the centralised distribution of wealth, cooperation within large and small regions will be of great importance. One example of such cooperation is the ties between the Russian Far East and the greater Asian region. According to the Valdai Club, the Far East should become a kind of “interface” for interaction between Russia and Asia. It is there that the main practices and skills of Russia’s interaction with partners in the multipolar world will be formed and developed.
The Valdai Club session was a logical continuation of the Club’s series of events within the framework of the EEF, which were dedicated to Russia’s pivot to the East. It was political and economic in nature, and bringed together the representatives of public authorities, business, the expert community and academic circles.
Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club, made an opening speech at the beginning of the session.
Speakers:
- Anastasia Likhacheva, Dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, HSE University
- B.K. Sharma, Major General (Ret.), Director of the United Services Institution
- Natalia Stapran, Director of the Department for Multilateral Economic Cooperation and Special Projects, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation
- Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation – Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District
- Wang Wen, Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies (RDCY), Deputy Dean of Silk Road School, Renmin University of China
Moderator:
- Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of th Valdai Discussion Club
Working languages: Russian, English.