The Trump Administration declared China a strategic competitor and a revisionist power. It escalated a trade war to a fullfrontal clash with China. Some experts qualified it as a new Cold War between the US and China. Both countries are undergoing dramatic transformation. Their destinations will determine the course and outcome of the emerging US-China rivalry. This article argues that while engagement is now defined by competitive interests, the profound interdependence continues underpinning the bilateral relationship. Although there is no precedent to guide economic and geostrategic competition between the two largest and deeply intertwined economies and heavily militarized superpowers, the US and China must find some balance of interests with each other and avoid violent confrontation that serves neither’s interest. This level of engagement requires vision and flexibility. With strong economic interdependence, the existence of an international institutional order, limited ideological confrontation, and nuclear second-strike capability, leaders of two countries have no choice but find ways to manage their competition and continue futher engagement with each other. Authors conclude that the stronger China grows, the harder it gets for Washington to force it back down. Driving PRC into a corner is the way to make China even tougher. So it could cause more severe consequences for both countries.

In summer 2018 the United States launched a trade war against China. Before that, there was a chance that both sides would find a compromise, some hopes were still in place during bilaterial negotiations in May. However, new US tariffs on import from China were imposed in July and August with the total of $50 billion. Beijing responded proportionally. September brought another round of US tariffs worth $200 billion. The successful economic growth of China leads to the transformation of the world economic space, where the leading positions are still occupied by the countries of the West. The new US administration, fearing economic competition, announced a policy of containing China. In this case, Washington is going to violate the existing rules of international trade. The tension in the economic relations of the United States and China is growing. The authors look into the history, ideology and details of the conflict between two major powerhouses of the global economy. They try to investigate how both countries will be affected by the emerging trade war, which is also challenging the whole system of international trade regulation. Besides, the conflict between Washington and Beijing is understood as a fundamental shift in the world economy and politics where rising powers take the lead in globalization. For the first time in the history of Sino-American relations economic tensions between the two sides have reached such a scale. Analysis of their consequences far exceeds the standard methods of assessment of trade policy measures.

The crisis in relations between Russia and the European Union (EU) is part of the broader breakdown of the post-Cold War security order. This essay focuses on structural interpretation and identifies four interlinked processes shaping the crisis: tension between the logic of the enlargement and transformation; a dynamic of involution and resistance; the problem of monism, whereby the expanding self is unable adequately to engage with the un-integrated other; and the recent emergence of ‘other Europes’ that may potentially overcome involution. The erosion of the Atlantic system provides an opportunity for delayed institutional and ideational innovation. Based on the methodology of classical realism and modern constructivist theories, the author analyzes how the lack of mutual understanding and mistakes in understanding the intentions and actions of Russia, on the one hand, and the West, on the other, led to deep structural and cognitive contradictions that managed to renew confrontation between the Euro-Atlantic bloc and Russia. The author comes to the conclusion that the impossibility of implementing the “Greater Europe” project with the participation of Russia led to a deepening of the contradictions between Russia and the West, and also forced Moscow to look for an alternative to European integration in the “Greater Eurasia” project. At the same time, the European Union also entered a crisis stage, as evidenced by Brexit.

The «One Belt, One Road» (OBOR) initiative was proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, in 2013. The initiative «One Belt, One Road» could be fully treated as a comprehensive domestic and foreign policy concept. OBOR is designed to strengthen China as an attractive actor in the global market and advance its soft power. It is mostly aimed at increasing economic exchanges between China and the world. Historically the concept of the «Silk Road» was not only focused on the trade agenda. It also had rather significant cultural meaning. Obviously, the OBOR initiative could serve as a cultural bridge between China and the world and in this sense, emphases the dialogue between civilizations, not only markets and forces. With its long-term interests, China treats OBOR as a grand strategy. The initiative has been extensively discussed among academics and policy-makers both inside and outside China. The article shows also coordinating efforts of China and Russia in regional development as well as the internationalization of Central Asian region after 1991 and the role of China in this process. Contours of possible great powers rivalry as well as lack of mutual political trust between the Central Asian countries are described. This article intends to provide the analysis on the issue from the Chinese scholars’ perspective.

The image of a country, and especially how the country is viewed from beyond its borders, is becoming an increasingly important resource capable of exerting positive or negative influence in various fields, including international relations. In the USSR, Western Europe was endowed with a dual image of cultural treasury and the territory dominated by classes and forces hostile to the socialist camp. After the collapse of the USSR, Western Europe began to be perceived as a capitalist model to be coped, and it is from those years that the contemporary ideas of the youth in Kazakhstan about its image have being originated. In order to probe them, a pilot sociological survey was conducted in two Kazakhstani universities, one of which is located in the north-east of the country, in the city of Ust’-Kamenogorsk, the second is in the south, in Shymkent. The results obtained allow us to assert with confidence that students do not have a holistic image of Western Europe; their views are dominated by images of individual European countries, and these images differ greatly in the degree of completeness. The most developed images are those of France and Germany, but even they represent no more than a set of widespread stereotypes about the economic, political, cultural characteristics of both countries. It is also striking that the images of Western European countries, which emerge from the students’ answers, are generally deprived of any meaningful and easily recognizable embodiment, i.e. they are very rarely identified with historically, politically and culturally significant personalities. According to the authors, this feature indicates that students view Western Europe most and foremost as a place where their various consumer needs can be satisfied.

The article discusses the issues that striving for getting on the first lines of ratings, Japanese universities have faced to face with in recent years. Since 2003, when universities began to receive their public evaluation on the pages of global university ratings, the world university system has entered a new phase of its development. For many countries, including Japan, getting into the top-list of global ratings has become almost a national goal. Of the new issues that have emerged over the course of the past years, the most important at present is the “internationalization” of Japanese universities and the most obvious manifestations of this tendency are the increasing interest in world university rankings. At the same time in Japan internationalization has become both a universities and a government priority because it is seen as a sign of global competitiveness. Since 2000, the government has introduced a series of legislative and policy initiatives aimed at increasing institutional autonomy and management capabilities, enhancing evaluation and emphasizing quality, and developing internationally-competitive research via centres of excellence and graduate schools. To solve this problem the Japanese government decided to increase the number of international students from the current 100,000 to 300,000 by 2020. However now the ranking of Japanese universities is on a downward trajectory, as universities elsewhere in East Asia catch up. In order to become more competitive with universities in other countries, Japan needs to open up its universities and work positively to welcome more-and more talented-researchers and students from overseas, it also needs to increase the number of courses available in English. At the same time it needs to send more Japanese researchers and students overseas to stimulate their research and improve necessary for top-ranking standards.

The relevance of the study is determined by the role and place of sports diplomacy in international relations and foreign policy today. Sport is truly a global phenomenon. In the modern world, it is a tool of political influence with the greatest potential and opportunities. History abounds in examples of how different countries used this tool to realize their goals. The “pingpong diplomacy” confirms this fact, since it was a breakthrough in US-China relations. Thanks to the efforts of the PRC State

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