ИСТИНА

In his paper Dr. Andrei Karneev from the Moscow State University Institute of Asian and African Studies touches upon several salient trends of the changing world-order we are facing in the current period. The global financial crisis has been an important milestone in the restructuring of international system. The post-crisis period has brought less relief than expected as the US and EU still continue to struggle for economic recovery. The crisis and its aftermath highlighted and probably exacerbated the trends already obvious some time before the outbreak of financial storm in 2008. Never since the times of the Great Depression have the Western modes of socio-economic and political development as universal recipes for growth and progress been questioned so extensively, with the simultaneous rise of the so-called “China model”, “Indian model” and other successful patterns of modernization. The ability of the US to contribute to the global governance has been on the decline due to the economic difficulties and miscalculations or sometimes lack of credibility on the part of American policy-makers. Yet the current situation show us that the rise of the emerging economies like BRICS or other groupings is not a panacea, as it is often based on a rather fragile foundations , and that the often-touted multi-polarity will probably be more difficult to implement than previously thought. Events like the “Arab Spring” or challenges we face in the Central Asian Region point to the direction of growing turbulence in the forthcoming period. Countries like Russia and China should keep their close cooperation on certain international issues and thus contribute to stability and development in the vast region of Eurasia and in the Asia-Pacific.