Valdai Club

Unity is neither necessary not desirable in advancing the reformation of the world order in an era of deepening global uncertainty. Quite the contrary, what we need most is informal partnerships among and between unlike-minded actors that transcend conventional binary thinking and hence offer greater potential for boosting the spirit of experimental creativity and mutual learning.

While progressive European intellectuals, researchers, and activists have come to champion a non-binary approach to everything (even in the controversial domain of sexuality), the glaring paradox is that European political knowledge remains deeply attached to the binary of regime type. In a time of global crises, this sort of divisive thinking hinders effective and innovative policy solutions, writes Valdai Club expert Kazushige Kobayashi.

The bilateral relationship between Seoul and Tokyo has been a marriage of convenience, plagued by a perpetual deficit of trust and respect on both sides. Despite the fact that both nations are considered America’s primary allies in Asia-Pacific, they struggle to even agree on the name of the sea between them.

It is ironic that bilateral agreements between Japan and China have been more stable, because Chinese leadership rarely changes, and when it does, the continuity is (more or less) assured by the hegemony of the Communist Party. This is one of the reasons why Tokyo is not so enthusiastic about the prospect of democratization in China, because Chinese democratization is likely to replicate the ongoing problem of Japanese-Korean relations in a yet larger scale

Whilst the illusion that the liberal international order to be the steadfast and supreme one has been shattering, the rebirth of Eurasia as a rising hub of multilateral cooperation based on mutual respect breaks up the monopoly of liberalism and vividly demonstrates that an alternative is already in place.