Valdai Club

On December 13-14, St. Petersburg will host the 13^th Asian Conference of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “Russia and Asia in the Emerging International Order”.

At the end of the year, the Valdai Club traditionally organises a meeting dedicated to issues relevant to Asia. The representatives of six partner organisations of the Club from Vietnam, India, Kazakhstan, China, Pakistan, the Republic of Korea, as well as political scientists, economists, and military experts from Russia, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore and Sweden will arrive at the conference in St. Petersburg; about 40 representatives from 12 countries in total. Andrey Rudenko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, has been invited to the conference as a guest of honour.

The Asian Valdai Club conference is a continuation of the discussion that began in October this year at the 19^th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Club on the international community in the context of the transformation of the world order. Now the Asian states are faced with the task of formulating their role in the new international conditions, when the waning hegemony of the West is giving way to multipolarity.

The development of ties in the Asia-Pacific region is one of Russia’s priorities, not only because of the rupture of ties with the West, but also as a continuation of the “pivot to the East” strategy. Participants’ attention will be focused both on specific issues of economic cooperation between Russia and Asia, which emerged during the “pivot” and during the months of acute crisis between Russia and the West, as well as on broader problems related to security and the development of the region.

During the five sessions of the conference, the following issues will be discussed:

• The development of Asia in the context of the disintegrating world order;
• Cooperation between Russia and Asia in the field of food and energy;
• Prospects for trade liberalisation between Russia and Asia;
• Transport and financial connectivity in Asia against the backdrop of declining international stability;
• Prospects for maintaining military and political stability in Asia.

The Valdai Club’s Asian conference will assess the development of relations between Russia and Asia after the crisis in Europe has progressed into a military-political confrontation. As always, the priority for the Club will be to ensure an honest and open dialogue between representatives of different countries and the exchange of theoretical and applied knowledge in order to understand the current world situation.

The foreign guests of the Valdai Club conference in St. Petersburg include Nguyen Hung Son, Vice President for Research at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; Rakesh Bhadauria, Major General (ret.), Head of the Indian Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation; Connie Rahakundini Bakrie, a defence, military and intelligence analyst from Jenderal Ahmad Yani University (Indonesia); Nelson Wong, Vice President of the Shanghai Centre for Strategic and International Studies; Nivedita Das Kundu, Senior Researcher at York University, Academic Director at Liaison College; Muhammad Athar Javed, founder and CEO of Pakistan House; Chung Yong-sik, Senior Research Fellow, Department of International Macroeconomics and Finance, Korea Institute for International Economic Policy; Lily Ong, TV presenter, international columnist from Singapore; Rahul Mishra, Director, Center for ASEAN Regionalism Universiti Malaya; Gregory Simons, independent expert, and others.

From the Russian side, the conference will be attended by: Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club; Fyodor Lukyanov, Director for Research of the Valdai Discussion Club; Timofei Bordachev, programme director of the Valdai Discussion Club; Yana Leksyutina, Professor, Department of American Studies, Faculty of International Relations, St. Petersburg State University, director of the Ho Chi Minh Institute at St. Petersburg State University; Vladimir Kolotov, Head of the Department of History of the Far East Countries, St. Petersburg State University; Natalya Stapran, Director of the Department of Multilateral Economic Cooperation and Special Projects of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation; Aleksey Kupriyanov, Head of the Group of South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies, IMEMO RAS; Victoria Panova, HSE Vice-Rector for International Relations and others.

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