Russia in Global Affairs

The call for “fair trade” will soon replace the mantra of “free trade,” which will eventually legitimize the U.S. launching sanctions against Chinese enterprises operating in strategic areas where ethical norms have not yet been established—from biotechnology to artificial intelligence.

The epidemic has rationalized what many thought was a reckless deviation from a reasonable order. The rise of nationalism, the rejection of dogmatic universalism, the creeping fragmentation of the world economy, calls for abandoning the liberal economic model so that the state could play a bigger role (in one form or another), intensifying all-round competition between major countries, primarily the United States and China...

Globalization American-style has reached its natural limits, and now China and Asia as a whole are becoming the main beneficiaries of world development. The current growth of neomercantilism, protectionism and regionalization in the world resembles the situation of the decade before World War I.

Faced with threats ranging from climate change to hugely disruptive technological advances, the world is clearly at a crossroads. More than ever a stable, inclusive and global governance is needed.

This article is an abridged and revised version of the paper written for the Valdai International Discussion Club. The original copy is available at: http://valdaiclub.com/a/valdai-papers/the-global-resurgence-of-economic-nationalism/…

Moscow appears to be unprepared for polycentrism as it has not yet grasped its basic rule, which was well known to Russian chancellors of the 19th century: one should make compromises on individual issues in order to have closer relations with other centers of power than they have among themselves.

Tendencies will continue—a geopolitical shift towards Eurasia and the Asia Pacific Region; symbolic ‘sovereignization’ of Russia and its further distancing from the U.S. and Europe; and the erosion of a foreign policy consensus. The fourth edition of Putin’s foreign policy will most likely differ significantly from the previous three.

A concert of powers in which European nations performed throughout the 19th century provided for peace and tranquility on the continent for almost a hundred years. Today, in an era of overall domination by one country and collapse of the former international architecture, it is time to recall the principles of that Concert. But now the Concert will have to be played according to global scores of the new millennium.

Against a background of shifting geoeconomic power from the West to the East, economic nationalism has become the development strategy that allows rising powers to reverse negative asymmetry in interdependent economic relationships.