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Toward the Great Ocean—2, or Russia’s Breakthrough to Asia
In 2012, the Valdai International Discussion Club presented its report “Toward the Great Ocean or the New Globalization of Russia” for the political and expert communities in Russia and abroad. The present report, “Toward the Great Ocean-2”, is a follow-up on the previous one; it has taken into account the experience gained in implementing some of the recommendations contained in the first report and results of its broad discussion.
The authors of the present report hold that the shift of the center of gravity and the pivot of Russia’s foreign and foreign-economic policies toward the Asia-Pacific region is a natural and top-priority response to the challenge faced by the country in the global and diverse world of the 21st century. We have been witnessing an unprecedentedly fast shift of the center of the world economy and politics to Asia. Asia’s economic growth has become a “locomotive” driving many economies in the world, which have reoriented themselves to the supply of raw materials and goods to China, India and Southeast Asian countries. None of the leading states in the contemporary world can claim a truly global status without a strong presence in the Pacific. Russia, too, can and must use opportunities opened by the “Asian century.”