🔋 Even in the original five-country format, BRICS looked like a formidable energy conglomerate.

It included the world’s largest hydrocarbons exporter (Russia) and the largest consumer of energy resources (China). After the expansion on January 1, 2024, the group emerged as a real energy giant.

With the addition of the three hydrocarbon powers, BRICS now holds about 40 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and more than 50 percent of gas reserves. On the demand end, the group accounts for 47 percent of the planet’s primary energy consumption, almost 50 percent above that of the G7 countries (including the European Union).

It is a hard fact that the centre of energy consumption is shifting from the developed countries, united under the G7 brand, to the so-called ‘emerging markets.’ But the scale of that transformation over the last thirty years has been truly monumental, writes Alexey Grivach, the author of a new #valdai_report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order”.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/reports/brics-energy-a-mover-for-the-new-world-order/

⏰ The presentation of the report will take place today at 11:00 a.m. Moscow time. Watch the live broadcast on our website.

📑 Report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order” in PDF

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #BRICS #energy

🗣🗣🗣

🎥 LIVE: at 11:00 a.m. Moscow time, the Valdai Club will host a presentation of the new report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order” on the eve of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. 

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239211

📑 Report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order”

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #BRICS #energy #valdai_report

🗣🗣🗣

🗣 On October 18, 2024, the Valdai Club hosted a presentation of the new report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order” on the eve of the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia. 

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 Video

📑 Report “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order” in PDF

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #BRICS #energy #valdai_report

🗣🗣🗣

🤝🔋 Energy Cooperation within BRICS: Revolutionary Resistance

On October 18, on the eve of the BRICS summit in Kazan, the Valdai Club hosted a presentation of a report titled “BRICS+ Energy: A Mover for the New World Order.”

💬 Ivan Timofeev, the moderator of the discussion, noted that although the BRICS agenda is quite broad, energy occupies a special place in the group’s agenda, since Russia is the largest supplier of energy resources, and India, China, and Brazil are dynamically growing economic giants that need larger volumes of supplies. The international situation is also favourable for expanding energy cooperation between the group’s countries.

💬 Alexey Grivach, Deputy Director General for Gas Problems of the National Energy Security Fund (NESF) and author of the report, pointed out that the centre of energy development is shifting toward the Global South, particularly the Asia-Pacific region and the BRICS countries. More than thirty years ago, the "collective West" thought that it had won once and for all and that history had ended. However, life has shattered this illusion, and now the BRICS countries are defending their positions in the world. The rate of economic growth in most BRICS countries is also higher than in the West.

In addition, BRICS is a serious energy conglomerate, which has further strengthened its position after expansion. Electricity production, which can be considered a measure of economic power, has grown in the group's countries almost five-fold. He added that in the context of sanctions pressure, the BRICS countries and all countries that want to develop without heeding the dictates of the West are faced with the task of building infrastructure, institutions, and instruments for energy trade. “Our resistance must grow, and this should become one of the main areas of BRICS’ work,” the author of the Valdai Club report believes.

💬 Nivedita Das Kundu, Professor at the Faculty of International Relations at the Uzbekistan State University of World Languages, briefly outlined India’s approach to energy cooperation within BRICS. In her opinion, the topic of the report is “very significant.” The global balance of power is now shifting towards developing economies, and this affects the political and geostrategic situation around the world, she said. Energy cooperation among BRICS member countries serves to break the Western monopoly and hegemony and advances the multilateral agenda. Das Kundu acknowledged that the BRICS group has now adopted a certain anti-Western attitude, and this raises certain concerns for India, which fundamentally adheres to a neutral position and does not want to join the blocs. However, she called the emergence of BRICS+ a good step that facilitates the transition to a new world order.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/energy-cooperation-within-brics-revolutionary-resistance/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #BRICS #energy #valdai_report

🗣🗣🗣

🇱🇧🇮🇱 Amid the current regional realities, agreement on the maritime border is becoming less and less advantageous for Lebanon and Israel.

Two incidents involving the detonation of communication devices, the liquidation of the Hezbollah Secretary General, and the IDF's operation Northern Arrows most aptly reflect the situation on the Lebanese-Israeli border over a period of just over a month.

Against this background, the "historic" agreement on the demarcation of the maritime border, signed two years ago and designed to pave the way for reconciliation between the two warring states, has remained in the shadows.

The reason for such inattention could be a complex array of foreign economic and domestic political factors that have predetermined the inability of the deal on the division of gas fields to contribute to preventing escalation, writes Elizaveta Yakimova.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/gas-for-peace-why-the-lebanese-israeli-maritime/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #Lebanon #Israel

🗣🗣🗣

🪙 Global changes in the system of international relations, the main examples of which are the movement towards multipolarity and the increase in the weight of developing countries in world economy and politics, have become one of the signs of the current historical moment.

This trend is reflected, among other things, in the increased interest of countries in organisations without a dominant leader such as BRICS, which already unites 10 states representing 45% of the world's population.

It seems that a turning point has come when the association has a chance to show its significance and effectiveness in terms of solving issues that do not have only an economic but also an ideological dimension for the countries of the world majority.

Problems in mutual settlements between Russia and China can be solved by introducing the BRICS Pay system. Based on blockchain technologies, it can become an analogue of SWIFT for transactions in national currencies.

If Russia and China are able to resolve current difficulties by becoming pioneers in the field of cross-border digital mutual settlements, the development of the world economy has a chance to change its vector, the weight of developing countries will increase significantly, and strategic sovereignty will acquire real, not declared outlines, write Natalya Pomozova and Artyom Semenov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/cross-border-payments-in-a-multipolar-world/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #BRICS

🗣🗣🗣

⛔️ Why do countries that initiate sanctions reduce them? How long-term and sustainable is such a process?

Too often sanctions drag on for years or decades. This makes the experience of China, which managed to lift most US sanctions, even more interesting. The process has dragged on for more than a quarter of a century, and in recent years, Washington has once again increased pressure on Beijing.

However, China’s example helps shed light on the possible motives for easing sanctions or lifting them that the US has been guided by and may be guided by in the future. Three such motives can be identified.

1️⃣ The first is to reduce sanctions in order to get closer to the target country in the interest of breaking up coalitions with its participation or containing a more significant rival.

2️⃣ The second is to obtain economic advantages in the event of favourable political opportunities.

3️⃣ The third is an attempt to “socialise” the target country, to integrate it into the system of bilateral and multilateral relations in order to create an economic foundation for political dialogue.

Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, writes on these motives in the context of US-Chinese relations.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/lifting-sanctions-the-chinese-option/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #China #sanctions

🗣🗣🗣

🎥 LIVE: at 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), we are starting an expert discussion dedicated to the Russia-DPRK Treaty and the security situation in Northeast Asia.

https://vk.com/video-214192832_456239230

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #DPRK #NorthKorea

🗣🗣🗣

🗣 On November 27, 2024, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion dedicated to the Russia-DPRK Treaty and the security situation in Northeast Asia.

📷 Photo gallery

🎥 Video

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #DPRK #NorthKorea

🗣🗣🗣

🇷🇺🇰🇵 Bilateral Dynamism: New Comprehensive Russia-DPRK Partnership Treaty

On November 27, the Valdai Club hosted an expert discussion on the Russia-DPRK Treaty and the security situation in Northeast Asia. The moderator of the discussion was Ivan Timofeev, Programme Director of the Valdai Club.

💬 Dmitry Kiku, Deputy Director of the Department for Control over External Restrictions of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, called the Russia-DPRK Strategic Comprehensive Partnership Treaty a continuation of the bilateral treaties and agreements that existed between the Soviet Union and the DPRK, as well as between the DPRK and the Russian Federation, in particular, the 1961 treaty. The new treaty continues a series of international documents demonstrating that Russia and its allies have begun to practically implement the policy of counteracting illegitimate sanctions.

💬 Georgy Toloraya, Head of the Centre of Russian Strategy in Asia at the Institute of Economics, RAS and Senior Researcher, Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, RAS, pointed out that the emerging reports on the presence of DPRK troops in the Special Operation Zone do not mean that the provisions of the Russian-North Korean treaty (Article 4) devoted to military assistance were invoked, since these reports have not received any official confirmation. The expert also noted the presence of a number of aspects of the treaty that are given less attention. We are talking, for example, about cooperation in the peaceful nuclear energy sector, possibly including the construction of a nuclear power plant.

💬 “It has always been clear to Russian experts on Korea that in the eyes of the United States, the DPRK is, in a sense, a testing ground for sanctions,” noted Ilya Dyachkov, Associate Professor of the Department of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Mongolian Languages at MGIMO university. He considers the lifting of unilateral restrictive measures against Pyongyang unlikely. Whatever the North Koreans do, it has not led to a softening of sanctions by either Seoul or by Washington.

💬 Anton Khlopkov, Director of the Centre for Energy and Security, stressed the importance of building strategic contacts with the DPRK without excessive regard for the reaction of other states. “We have noticeably delayed the adoption of an updated fundamental document that would regulate bilateral cooperation,” he believes, pointing out that North Korea is one of the few countries in the modern world that can afford to maintain an independent foreign policy, and therefore relations with it should have an appropriate legal basis and a basis in trade and economics.

💬 Xu Bo, Professor at the Northeast Asia Research Centre of Jilin University, is convinced that since the signing of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty, Russian-North Korean relations have entered a new stage. He proposed to consider these relations primarily not from the point of view of the Ukrainian crisis, but in the context of Russia’s strategic turn to the East, within the framework of which Russia is strengthening relations with all countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

💬 Konstantin Asmolov, Leading Research Fellow at the Korean Studies Centre at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted that speculation around Article 4 of the new treaty overlooks the fact that within its framework, military assistance is possible if one of the parties finds itself in a state of war, which is not identical to any armed conflict and is marked by a declaration of war. At the same time, he considers Article 3 to be more significant, as it speaks of consultations, which in themselves are a serious deterrent. It implies that in a situation of impending conflict, Moscow and Pyongyang will coordinate strategy together.

https://valdaiclub.com/events/posts/articles/bilateral-dynamism-new-comprehensive-russia-dprk-partnership-treaty/

#Multipolarity_and_Connectivity #DPRK #NorthKorea

🗣🗣🗣