Role of research institutes in building competent relations with other countries
Kirill Vladimirovich Babaev also explained the appropriateness of renaming the institute, and talked about learning the Chinese language, Russia's pivot to the East, and much more.
The role of research institutes in building links with foreign partners is enormous. In fact, academic institutions create the foundations for this relationship. If those who sign official documents, those who shake hands at high-level summits are not equipped with information about what our partners actually represent, how to interact with them, what they need from us, nothing will work and it will all remain as declarations. Normal cooperation is only possible when there is a deep interaction between the countries at the research level, when we understand what our partners need.
The growing role of BRICS
Today BRICS is one of the leading international groupings in which Russia participates, which will in fact determine the future not only of the whole of Eurasia, but of the whole world. Therefore, the importance of BRICS in Russian and foreign policy and foreign economic activities is now growing very rapidly. We, as a leading scientific analytical institute that deals with the problems of studying today's Asia - and above all, of course, China and India, which are members of the BRICS - should certainly be part of this process.
We want the BRICS to evolve from a kind of club diplomacy into a real economic and political alliance between countries. All the more so as we see how much interest there is in BRICS from other countries in the world.
Turn to the East
Russia has embarked on what for years has been discussed and called Russia's pivot to the East. Today, this pivot is taking place before our eyes. And it happens quickly. Our foreign policy is also reoriented to a large extent towards Asian countries.
Our state needs to build new logistics capacity. We hear a lot about gas pipelines and various kinds of onshore logistics facilities that are being planned or already launched between Russia and China today. These are the very areas where we need to be very clear in our strategy and plan specific actions. And this cannot be done without a scientific study of these countries.
Inter-university communication
It is impossible to build a policy on countries such as China, Vietnam or Indonesia without engaging with representatives of their scientific community, the analytical expert community. In this sense, we are now very much focused on restoring the scientific and business links that existed before the pandemic.
We will now be launching a big programme of visits, inviting our colleagues to visit us, going there ourselves, because this is the only way to understand what is actually happening there in the field, on the ground, so to speak. We need to interact, we need to communicate, we need to exchange views, we need to have joint events, discussions and we need to do this very actively.
Mutual interest
China has had an Institute for Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia for quite some time. In fact, there is a lot of interest in Russia there today. In today's China there are maybe dozens of scholars, hundreds of scholars in various think tanks, not only in the capital but also in the provinces, researching both Russia and Russian-Chinese relations.
China is well aware that apart from Russia, it has no major allies today, let's say major strategic partners on the world stage. It is therefore the Russian-Chinese linkage that can provide some kind of stability in Eurasia and, in general, some kind of trend for the development of this kind of cooperation.
Everything in its place
In 2022, the Institute of the Far East, which was founded back in 1966, became the Institute of China and Modern Asia. The renaming of the institute put everything in its place. Because in 1966, the Institute of the Far East was created precisely to study China. In this sense, we have done justice by clearly indicating the focus of our research: first, modernity; second, definitely East and South-East Asia with a focus on China, because China is not only our biggest trade and economic partner, it is also our strategic partner.
Our focus is precisely on modernity. Unlike, for example, the Institute of Oriental Studies. We are virtually no competition with them because they study mostly the classics. It is philosophy, it is culture, it is history, it is language. We study modernity - politics, economics, social processes, contemporary culture and international relations. And here our main customers are federal authorities. It is the government, it is the presidential administration, it is the intelligence services, it is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
We are, in fact, forming the scientific basis for the development of our state's entire eastern policy in this sense. We are such a unique, not even so much a scientific, as a scientific and analytical institute.
Restore the balance
Studying a country is unthinkable without learning the language, literature and written culture, especially in China, where there is such an ancient tradition of calligraphy and a reverent attitude towards the word. Certainly Chinese is more difficult. Thanks to writing, above all. I think this imbalance should gradually even out. I am not calling for a complete rejection of European studies or European languages. But I think there should be some balance in the study of the East and the West.
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