Building Bridges: Russian–Chinese Summer School on International Relations Opens
The XII Russian-Chinese Summer School on International Relations has opened at HSE University. This year’s theme is ‘Facets of the World Majority: Practice and Narratives.’ The school has brought together 27 master's and doctoral students as well as early-career researchers from leading universities in China and Russia.
Timofey Bordachev, Academic Supervisor at the HSE Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS), opened the programme by highlighting that the summer school has been running for 15 years. ‘A unique tradition of our school is that we always begin with a lecture by its founder and the Academic Supervisor of the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, Dr Sergey Karaganov,’ he noted.
Sergey Karaganov also welcomed the participants, encouraging them to engage in active communication. ‘Such cooperation offers a chance to build international bridges. Friendships of this kind contribute to stronger inter-state relations,’ he said. In his keynote lecture, Sergey Karaganov gave a historical overview of the development of the current system of Western value dominance and Russia’s position in the modern world. ‘Established capitalist models have exhausted themselves, and consumption-driven growth has led to climate change,’ he remarked. According to him, Russia is ‘concluding its European journey.’ ‘Russia is returning to itself and moving away from Europeanisation. The economic centre of gravity is shifting towards the Urals and Siberia. We are modernising and restructuring our economy,’ he emphasised.
Also on the opening day, July 1, Prof. Feng Shaolei, Director of the Centre for Russian Studies at East China Normal University, delivered a lecture focused on crises and their role in shaping global orders.
‘Large-scale wars are the crises most directly linked to world order. These wars are often intertwined with revolutions and have a profound impact on the world. Since the emergence of the modern international system, new world orders have largely arisen from wars and revolutions,’ Prof. Feng explained. He pointed out that the Thirty Years' War led to the Westphalian system, while the Vienna system emerged following the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. ‘Unlike wars, which reshape the world order, global economic and financial crises tend to result in the reconstruction of the international economic and financial system,’ he added.
The participants actively engaged with the lecturers, asking questions on topics such as responses to the growing climate threat, interpretations of hegemonic theories, the nature of the current Middle Eastern conflict, and potential areas for deeper Sino–Russian cooperation.
In the coming days, the Summer School will feature lectures by: Anastasia Likhacheva, Dean of the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs; Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Centre for Eurasian Studies at the MGIMO Institute for International Studies; Dmitry Suslov, Deputy Director of the HSE Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies; Da Wei, Director of the Centre for International Security and Strategy (CISS) and Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University; and Fyodor Lukyanov, Research Professor at the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs.
The summer school ‘Facets of the World Majority: Practice and Narratives’ runs from July 1 to 7. It is organised by the HSE Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs in collaboration with the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS) and the HSE School of International Cooperation. Participants from China represent East China Normal University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Dalian University of Foreign Languages, and Nanjing University. Russian universities represented include HSE, St Petersburg State University, St Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University, Moscow State University, Volgograd State Technical University, Russian State University for Humanities, Volga State University of Technology, Tomsk State University, MGIMO, and others.
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