🇦🇫 In practice, over the past two years, the Taliban has not fully satisfied either positive or negative expectations.

The Taliban did not abandon its principles. The movement considers itself a liberator of the country from foreign occupation. They are confident that they deserve victory and have the right to be in power. No constitution, no elections, no inclusivity (no coalition government with anyone who isn’t “our own”). The Taliban’s right to power stems from its ability to take and hold this power.

The Taliban has held out and has generally managed to control power. It cannot be said that the Taliban order in Afghanistan is something completely unusual in comparison with other countries. Afghanistan under the Taliban fits into the spectrum of global diversity. However, long-term problems still remain. 

The Americans left, but faith in their myths about the prospects for economic development and expectations of corresponding projects from foreigners have remained. In terms of belief in these American myths, the Taliban is no different from the leaders of the previous pro-American government. Moreover, the Taliban tends to ask their regional neighbours for the implementation of American myths, Ivan Safranchuk writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/two-years-after-the-return-of-the-taliban/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Afghanistan #Taliban

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🇹🇷 The new presidential term of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who won the elections on May 28, 2023, fully reflects the key trends in Turkey’s political transformation over the past decade.

📍The most noticeable is the large-scale and consistent consolidation in the hands of the president of monopoly control over all branches of power

📍The dismantling of institutional checks and balances on presidential power, both on the part of state institutions and civil society

📍Desecularisation of public life in Turkey in general, especially in the sphere of education  

📍The offensive foreign policy, with the deepening of its militarisation and de-Westernisation 

On the way to his third presidential term, Erdoğan faced the biggest political challenge of his career. The rapid economic growth that characterised his early years at the head of Turkey gave way to a long-term financial and economic crisis. The Turkish lira over the past five years has depreciated more than five sixths against the dollar and the euro, losing more than 38% in the aftermath of the elections. 

Erdoğan and his supporters will have to seriously prepare for the municipal elections in the spring of 2024, in which the AKP plans to regain control of the largest cities – the capitals Ankara and Istanbul, as well as Antalya.

The municipal elections scheduled for March 2024 will be another major electoral test for Erdoğan. The president considers them “decisive” and regards them as a kind of vote of confidence, Pavel Shlykov writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/erdogan-s-new-term-what-changes-in-turkish-policy/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Turkey #Erdoğan

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🌏 Russia is a significant trading partner and a welcome element of regional food and energy security systems, not only for politicians, but also for business circles in Asia.

From the point of view of our eastern partners, the main aspect of Russia’s Pivot to the East 2.0 is that it provides a testing ground for solutions and projects for a new type of international cooperation: less vulnerable to sanctions or any unilateral decisions, and tailored to the fundamental and long-term interests of the participants.

This ambition is quite understandable – there is not yet a single country in the world with an economy comparable in scale and structure that has fallen under such large-scale sanctions. Russian pioneering in this case is not only a serious challenge, but also a potential asset.

However, this can only become an asset with the consistent construction of new infrastructure and the creation of cooperation networks, writes Anastasia Likhacheva.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/nets-over-ropes-or-the-new-priorities-of-the-pivot/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Asia #East

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🌏 BRICS and the SCO are the antipodes of NATO and the European Union -the pinnacles of the institutional building of the West.

NATO was built around the rigid core of absolute US military dominance over its allies. This allows this organisation to avoid serious internal conflicts, and also ensures its most important task - maintaining the strategic internal stability of the participants. All NATO governments are handing over the crucial function of defence planning to the United States, and in doing so, rid themselves of one of the most frequent sources of domestic political upheaval.

In the case of the European Union, it is about a more complex balance of power between the big countries, allowing the sustainability of overall cooperation despite the persistence of injustice towards the interests of the weaker countries.

BRICS and the SCO have nothing in common with this nature.

For the BRICS and the SCO, the risk of following the path of the West is much lower than one might assume, with traditional ideas about the consequences of strong institutions for global peace. In any case, both examples are new in their philosophy; an assessment of their nature and potential gives us rich material for a better understanding of how a more just world order can be organised, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/false-and-real-international-institutions/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #WorldOrder #BRICS #SCO

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🌏 Turan, Iran, Russia and China are the core around which the economic development of the non-European world will be built.

Today, as the BRICS association is becoming one of the most dynamically expanding economic conglomerates of states in the world, it is obvious that the trend of economic growth is shifting towards non-European countries. 

The question remains: is it possible to do without Europe? Here it is important to immediately outline the boundaries of what kind of Europe we are talking about - Europe as part of the Euro-Atlantic bloc, claiming world hegemony. The answer to the question is not so obvious; it requires a deep look into the future.

The fact is that in the case of Eurasian integration based on BRICS, SCO, ECO and with the participation of North Korea, a relatively coherent paradigm of regional relations is obtained. Its success will, over time, push Europe toward cooperation, most likely on more equal terms than it currently has.

These circumstances necessitate, first and foremost, the need for the Eurasian world to overcome Europe’s claims to hegemony. A strong Eurasian economic bloc cannot go unnoticed and without being involved in the world economy.

The Greater Eurasian Partnership will take on new contours in the near future, write Kubatbek Rakhimov and Alexey Mikhalev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/between-iran-and-turan-or-new-horizons-of-the-grea/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Iran #Russia #China #Eurasia #BRICS

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🌏 The United States prefers not to swing the “sanctions baton” in Central Asia.

During the year, only a few companies were subjected to restrictions. None of the major local players were affected by the restrictions. Washington fears that more radical measures could embitter local elites and reduce Western influence in the region.

The conflict between the West and Russia, as well as the degradation of the system of international relations, have given the countries of Central Asia a chance to rethink their role in the world, build new relationships with each other and push for the economic development of the region, writes Grigory Mikhailov.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/central-asia-competition-or-cooperation/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #CentralAsia #Eurasia #sanctions

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🇷🇺🌏 Over the past decades, Russia’s policy in Asia has fallen loosely into the so-called “Asian Paradox.”

This term that became popular in academic and expert circles in the 1990s. In other words, it can be described as “hot economics and cold politics”, a pattern characteristic of Asia, where difficult and often toxic political relations between countries go hand in hand with close trade, economic and investment cooperation.

There are two prerequisites that led to the current situation.

1️⃣ First, the largest sub-regions (South, Southeast and Northeast Asia) were not of existential importance for Russia to the same extent as Europe or the post-Soviet space. As a result, Russia has never been involved in political and economic processes in Asia as thoroughly as in Europe or the former Soviet republics.

2️⃣ Second, a specific and at the same time strategic asset of Russia for a long time was the absence (with the exception of relations with Japan) of any serious contradictions relevant for maintaining a bilateral dialogue. Relations were devoid of severe historical trauma, as well as territorial and other disputes regarding the most sensitive issues. This favourably distinguished Russia from other major players – the USA and China.

The peculiarity of Russian participation in Asia is that it has not only refused to accept the classic formula of the Asian paradox, but also promoted alternative models of interaction.

The classic model of the “Asian paradox” in the current conditions is not applicable for Russia’s interaction with all major countries in the region. Moreover, Asia itself and the balance of power in the region have undergone changes, taking into account the active rise of China and India and a number of regional and global trends, Alexander Korolev writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/new-paradoxes-of-russian-policy-in-asia/

📑 Read more on Russia-Asia relations in the Valdai Report, titled “Russia and Asia: The Paradoxes of a New Reality”

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Asia #Russia #WorldOrder

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🌐 The discussion about the “polarity” of the international order has been dominant for several decades in the academic science of international relations, expert statements and, of course, statements by political figures.

It is equally popular both among those who seek to preserve the unjust international order of the past and those who call for its change for the sake of a better, more just global order.

Now discussions about the coming multipolarity have become so universal, that only American intellectuals, who remain faithful to the idea of complete US domination over the rest of the world, do not participate in them. The role of those who are looking for compromise solutions is assigned to their closest satellites in Europe. They talk about the onset of a “new bipolarity” based on a comparison of the combined capabilities of China and the United States.

At the same time, those who actively talk specifically about the coming of a multipolar world, and this is not only Moscow and Beijing, but also many other states of the World Majority, imply a greater democratisation of international politics; the disappearance of dictatorship as such from it. Although, strictly speaking, in its academic version the theory that world politics is locked to “poles” does not imply any democracy. 

The discussion about the “poles” constantly takes the academic community away from studying the reality of world politics, forcing it to concentrate on a plot that has little to do with the changes that shape international life, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/beyond-the-vanishing-poles-the-pitfalls/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #WorldOrder #multipolarity

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🌏 The heart of Asia will continue to beat in unison with Russia’s. 

Over the past 30 years, the Central Asian states have established independent political and economic ties throughout the world. Promising integration processes launched at the initiative of the President of Uzbekistan in 2017 have radically changed the atmosphere in the region. The united voice of Central Asia is increasingly heard on international platforms.

At the same time, being the geopolitical core of Eurasia and located between major world civilisational centres, Central Asia is an object of growing attraction for many powers and forces. This, among other things, confirms the growth of the 5+1 formats, which have no analogues in international relations.

The development of events convinces us that the goal of extra-regional players is to penetrate as deeply as possible into the Central Asian countries. Through the “Global Gate”, “Greater Central Asia” or other structures, they draw them into the orbit of Western values and strategic influence in order to use the region as a platform for their games against Russia and China.

Over the years of the countries’ independence, the five have determined their true friends. For example, it is quite acceptable to assert that the Russia-Central Asia-China connection is a completely tangible positive phenomenon of modern international life. 

It is important not to miss the strategic initiative, to strengthen all corners of this stable triangle, including within the framework of the SCO, writes Rashid Alimov, Professor at the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan and at the Taihe Institute (China), Doctor of Political Sciences, SCO Secretary-General (2016–2018).

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-space-of-the-former-ussr-lessons-from-the-past/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #VALDAI2023 #Eurasia

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🌎🌏 Recent processes, especially the crisis in the Middle East, may open a new chapter in how most countries around the world perceive the policies of the United States and Europe, as well as make it impossible to return to the previous world order.

Israel's confrontational policy does not pose a direct threat to Russia, the United States or China, the main powers of the modern world, and they are not going to cross their swords over what the Middle East region should look like after the events of this fall. But it would be short-sighted to underestimate the detrimental effect that some features of the position chosen by the West have had on the credibility of the United States and its allies among the world community. 

The West is erasing its own previous achievements. A huge part of the world's population has clearly become convinced of the boundless cynicism and duplicity of the political elites, brought to the top of the power hierarchy by the vaunted democratic system.

Due to their obsession with the current election cycle and their own career ambitions, the current leaders of the West aren’t hesitating to jettison the enormous achievements of past years in building trust in international relations and a balance of interests at the global level, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/how-the-world-majority-sees-the-consequences/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #UnitedStates #EU #WorldMajority

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🇷🇺🌏 So far, Moscow’s policy in its immediate circle is showing signs of such adaptability to inevitably changing conditions.

However, in order for this not to become just a form of retreat, which is delicate for our own pride, we have to solve several more important problems.

1️⃣ First, Russia will be faced with the question of how to find a relatively optimal combination of adaptability to changes that occur against our will, and consistent firmness where the problem is truly of fundamental importance.

2️⃣ Second, the general crisis of international institutions will inevitably force us to answer difficult questions in the case of those organisations whose condition now looks quite good. The aforementioned SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union or the CSTO — all of these organisations differ in their nature from Western institutions, which are built on the “leader — tribe” model. However, we still have no way of gauging the viability of organisations within which there is no strict disciplinary principle in the form of a patron power.

3️⃣ Finally, we do not yet know very well how to interact with medium- and small-sized neighbours when they find themselves in a crisis. So far, Greater Eurasia is a region with relatively established states capable of conducting responsible foreign policy. However, we must not forget that many of them in the coming years may face serious internal challenges.

In the coming years, Russia’s policy in the Eurasian space will most likely be aimed at avoiding excessive obligations, but at the same time strengthening relations with those countries that are really interested in cooperating with Moscow, as well as strengthening the influence of broad international institutions, particularly the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Such a strategy will have to meet Russia’s most important goals, which are internal in nature and consist of maintaining social stability, social harmony and economic growth, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/mideast-crisis/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Eurasia #Russia #MiddleEast

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🌐 The architects of the current global governance system have failed the world.

Not only didn’t they redeem the sins of their ancestors, but we now have the leaders of the richest club in the world convening every year preaching to the rest of the planet about the rules-based order, while the rules are treated like tissues from a Kleenex box, usable at times but discarded when inconvenient.

The root cause of the failings of the current system has everything to do with the unipolar world, or the almost-unipolar world after the Cold War. Unipolarity brews hegemony, and hegemony promises neither peace nor prosperity. 

The rise of the BRICS and this year’s BRICS Plus expansion signify a new era coming, in which unipolarity no longer holds anymore, and in which the Global South calls for the end of the current, broken system. The endeavour of BRICS Plus to restructure the global political, economic, and financial architecture rests on the pillars of multilateralism and international law.

Today, BRICS Plus already represents nearly fifty percent of the world’s population and 36% of the world’s GDP.

It is time to reflect on the true state of the world we are living in and act accordingly, John Gong writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-rise-of-brics/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #multipolarity #BRICS

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🇨🇳🇺🇸 While the conflict in Ukraine is still on-going and with Gaza falling now under firing and bomb shelling exchanges between Hamas and Israel, China’s security concerns are also rising, particularly to its east out there in the Pacific Ocean where challenges are on the increase.

There are still no signs of de-escalation of tension between the US and China with disagreements over such issues including the Taiwan problem, the maritime disputes China has with countries like the Philippines, and the sliding down of China’s relations with Japan and South Korea. Behind all of these issues, China sees the visible and invisible hand of the US.

The repeated statements of China on its position towards seeking a peaceful return of Taiwan to the motherland have met with open resentment by the US which has rallied up the supporting response among its allies such as Canada and some European countries.

By selling and sending weapons to Taiwan and patting on the shoulders of the regime in Taipei, the White House continues to play with its “strategic ambiguity” when it still claims that the US “does not support Taiwan’s independence”.

China seems to have exhausted its patience in continuing to play the game with the US by laying its cards clear on the table, Nelson Wong writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/china-and-its-security-challenges-in-the-pacific/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #China #UnitedStates #Taiwan #AsiaPacific

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🌏 The breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991 was a big strategic shock that led to the fragmentation of a superpower into 15 hapless countries.

This ‘Black Swan’ event consequentially bolstered the ‘Pax Americana’, marked by an era of Uncle Sam’s unilateralism and pre-emption in world affairs. US assurances to dismantle NATO and facilitate Russia’s accommodation into Europe’s economic and security architecture remained mere lip service. Quite to the contrary, it began a new Cold War, which was manifest in the rapid eastern expansion of NATO and the European Union to amalgamate the Former Soviet Union States (FSUS) into the Western alliance’s ecosystem.

Foreign-backed ‘Colour Revolutions’ along Russia’s periphery and the abrogation of agreements such as the ABM, INF and ‘Eyes in the Sky’ treaties heightened Russia’s threat perception and deepened strategic mistrust between Russia and the US. The post-Soviet space has become an arena of big power contests.

New Delhi will navigate a polarised world through its multi-vector engagement, championing the cause of the Global South and seeking reforms in the UN Security Council and other international institutions, writes Major General (Ret.) B.K. Sharma, Director of the United Services Institution (India).

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/evolving-geopolitical-dynamics/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Eurasia #India #WorldOrder

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🇦🇫 The rise to power of the Taliban* in Afghanistan marked the end of many years of war.

Today, peace has virtually returned to Afghanistan. The Taliban are consolidating their power and preparing for long-term rule there.

Afghanistan in the future, while strengthening peace, ensuring stability and developing the national economy, will completely change the geopolitical and geo-economic alignment in the region.

Central Asia is in search of an acceptable model of interaction with the new government of Afghanistan. The path of a new confrontation with the Taliban is an extremely ineffective exercise for any foreign policy forces.

Based on the above, today the main global and regional players in the geopolitical space of our region have opted for a bad peace with the Taliban rather than a good war with them, Rustam Khaydarov writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/the-afghan-challenge-is-the-problem-decreasing/

*banned in Russia by court order

#Asia_and_Eurasia #Taliban #Afghanistan

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🌐 The science of international relations knows three basic types of behaviour of states in relation to the existing international order: powers with permanent status (status quo), revisionist powers, and revolutionary powers. 

Nowadays it is impossible to find a large or medium-sized state that would set as its goal the complete destruction of the world order that arose after the Second World War and received its main attributes in the second half of the 20th century.

1️⃣ First, none of the big powers feels completely humiliated as far as its basic interests and values are concerned. Whether we like it or not, the Second World War led to a situation in which none of the major players remained outside the space for making major decisions.

2️⃣ Second, the fact that several great powers possess nuclear weapons renders completely futile any attempts to organise a decisive attack against the order that they generally support. Even if a country like India goes crazy and decides to fight those who lead the modern world, it would hardly be able to hold out for a relatively long time.

At the same time, the leading nuclear powers themselves, as well as average regional players, are not completely satisfied with the existing order; they strive to “edit” it and are, thus, revisionists.

The revisionism of Russia and China extends to those aspects of the modern international order that are better designed to serve the interests of the United States and its European allies. At the same time, Russia is, of course, in a more advantageous position than its Chinese ally, since the question for it is not a question of lack of control over part of its sovereign territory.

Historical experience confirms that revisionists always emerge victorious, writes Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/total-revisionism-of-world-politics/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #WorldOrder #revisionism

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🧩🌐 In the case of environmental degradation is global warming, whereas in the case of globalization degradation it is global harming.

The world has several poles now, like the USA, China, EU, and BRICS. Regionalism is the ineluctable byproduct of the interaction between the multiple poles of political power in the world. It is also a byproduct of another tendency amongst nations, i. e. to move away from multilateralism towards minilateralism.

Multilateral institutions like the UN and WTO have apparently failed to resolve serious conflicts and differences between the member states. As a result, small groups which share an agenda on geo-politics and economics have started emerging.

The world today and particularly the developing nations need a humane and inclusive mode of globalisation. Erecting tariff barriers and sanctioning competitors in the name of de-risking and decoupling is fuelling unnecessary tensions in an already anarchic world state system and preventing a common approach to combat poverty, hunger, disease and the vagaries of climate change.

All nations need to respect the economic and security sensitivities of others, writes Raashid Wali Janjua, Director Research at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI).

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/globalisation-and-regionalisation-approaches/

📌 The article was prepared especially for the Valdai Club’s 14th Asian Conference.

#AsianValdai #Asia_and_Eurasia #globalisation

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🇪🇺 The Ukrainian crisis itself was, to a certain extent, the result of the fact that the continental Europe has lost all ability to be strategically independent.

This occurred as part of a gradual process that combined the consequences of the events of the middle of the last century and the failure of attempts to build a genuine political union on the basis of European integration, combining this with the expansion of the membership and the creation of a common economic policy through financial instruments within the Eurozone.

The actual position of Europeans in world politics is increasingly consistent with how we might see it in terms of abstract assessments of the relationship with the United States and their ability to act independently, Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev writes.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/consequences-of-europe-s-strategic-failure/

#Asia_and_Eurasia #EU #Europe

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🗣 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣ The year 2023 has shown that Greater Eurasia and Asia are, so far, resistant to negative external influences, which have had the most dramatic consequences in Europe and the Middle East.

There are no opposing military-political alliances in Asia and Eurasia, and the so-called “geopolitical fault lines” only exist in the imagination of especially impressible readers of American newspapers. This is due to peculiarities of the political culture there, but also to the general trends of international life at the present stage.

1️⃣ First, despite the fact that this macroregion has its own experience of severe interstate confrontation, turning to violent conflict as the go-to means of achieving goals is not a central part of the foreign policy culture here.

In other words, when the peoples of the West take arms and see conflict as the solution to difficult situations, the peaceful resolution of disputes is preferable for Asia and Eurasia.

2️⃣ Second, the associations of states emerging in Asia and Eurasia are not aimed at achieving aggressive goals in relation to third countries. They are primarily aimed at implementing the development goals of their members and maintaining their internal stability. Therefore, now in Asia and Eurasia there are no unions created to ensure a privileged position for their members in relation to the rest of the macroregion.

3️⃣ Third, within the macroregion there are no relatively large states that would act as “agents” of extra-regional actors. The only countries that may be an exception in this sense are Japan and South Korea.

Asia and Eurasia remain a space of cooperation, not competition, and the leading regional powers are able to achieve terms that would be comparatively fair for their smaller partners, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Timofei Bordachev.

https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/asia-and-eurasia-in-2023-shaping-a-new-internation/

#valdai_year2023 #Asia_and_Eurasia #Eurasia #Asia

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