Russia in Global Affairs

In the current situation, a multi-vector policy—smart balancing between three centers (EU-NATO, Russia, and China)—may open up opportunities for Serbia to exert political agency on the international stage in the near term.

The liberal values lying at the core of the European continent’s integration into the European Union (EU) are being put to the test by new factors, particularly the consistent and all-around strengthening of China. Europe’s attitude towards this new global “center of power” and, in particular, its Belt and Road Initiative, increasingly demonstrates the fragility of the existing system of values in EU countries, and its declining effectiveness.

Developing the Russian Far East and Siberia has been an important step in state-building for Russia. Although there have been debates about appropriate ideas and policies in the strategy, developing the vast frontier region and promoting relations with Asian countries has set a steadfast direction of development for Russia. Chinese-Russian cooperation in the border region during the early stages of imperial Russia’s policies in the Far East holds enlightening significance for today’s bilateral cooperation.

China has gradually evolved from a consumer into a producer and exporter of international knowledge. The shift of not only world power but also the production of international knowledge to China is already a real phenomenon of modern IR theories.

Almost all foreign policy concepts inherited from the bipolar and unipolar eras are either obsolete or false. Russia must stop dragging in the wake of the old foreign policy thought, which is obviously used more and more selfishly for protecting the waning positions of the West.

The 2018/2019 world political season ended in an atmosphere of some fated madness, with tragedies degrading into a farce in line with Hegel’s trite aphorism. But the atmosphere of farce makes everyone fear that the situation may spiral out of control for the most trivial of reasons.

Our age is witness to a proliferation of discourses about the ‘commons’. They are emerging from more and more quarters, and the word is being applied to more things than ever before. One important strand of discourse, claiming to be communist, seeks to apply it to all kinds of spheres, from the earth and its natural bounty to culture, and to all sorts of resources, from the most immaterial, such as common knowledge, to the most material, such as the use of the earth’s finite natural resources. Internet activists refer to information and knowledge that exits on the web as the ‘digital commons’.

The year 2018 was marked by escalation in trade tensions among the world’s largest economies, mostly via bilateral trade restrictions.

Even if China’s high-tech offensive could be contained through a strategy of decoupling, it would not necessarily benefit most Americans. To the extent that corporations are rerouting supply chains out of China, the jobs and manufacturing are not returning to the United States but relocating elsewhere in Asia.