V Eurasian Research on Modern China and Eurasia Conference

Celebrating  the 5th anniversary of the foundation of the international academic conference and rethinking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Belt and Road Initiative.

December 8, 2023, Artashat Hall, Registration (10:30 Yerevan Time)

Welcome Remarks and Opening Address (11:00-11:40)

Dr. Narek Mkrtchyan (Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Republic of Armenia).

H. E. Mr. Yong Fan (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Armenia).

Opening Remarks(11:40-13:10)

Mrs. Gohar Barseghyan (Director, Integration Development Department in the Eurasian Economic Commission, Eurasian Economic Union). 

Mr. Hakob Abrahamyan (Assistant of  the Prime Minister of Armenia, Head of the team, Transformation strategy of Armenia until 2050).

H. E. Mr. Aleksandr Konyuk (Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus to the Republic of Armenia).

H. E. Mrs. Wei Zheng (Minister-Counsellor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Secretary-General of the Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Commission of the SCO). 

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Yuntian Zheng (Director, World Socialism Institute, Renmin University, China).

Conference Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mher Sahakyan (Founder, Eurasian Research on Modern China and Eurasia Conference, Director, China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Armenia).

Family Photo of Conference Speakers and Special Guests, Reception (13:15-13:35)

Plenary Session (13:40-15:35)

Dr. Narayanappa Janardhan (Director of Research and Analysis, Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, UAE), /Keynote Speech/.

Prof. Dr. Heinz Gärtner (Chair, Advisory Committee for Strategy and Security Policy of the Scientific Commission at the Austrian Armed Forces, Chair, Advisory Board, International Institute for Peace; Professor, University of Vienna, Austria), /Keynote Speech/.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bin MA (Deputy Director, the Center for SCO Studies, Fudan University, China), /Keynote Speech/.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexander Korolev (Deputy Head, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia), /Keynote Speech/.

Dr. David Morris (Senior Fellow, Center for China and Globalization, Senior Research Fellow, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Director, David Morris Projects OÜ, Australia). /Keynote Speech/.

Conference Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mher Sahakyan (Director, China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Armenia).

Panel 1. (15:40-17:05) China, Eurasia, and the World Order

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zheng Yuntian (Director, World Socialism Institute and Assistant Director of BRI Research Center, Renmin University, China), “Three Initiatives: Consensus-Building between China and Eurasia.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mher Sahakyan (Director, China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Armenia), “The Eurasian Continent in the Multipolar World Order 2.0 Stage.”

Prof. Dr. Zheng Jiyong (Director, the Center for Korean Studies, Fudan University, China), “Restructuring World Order: A China’s Perspective.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Oxana Karnaukhova (Southern Federal University, Russia), “In Pursuit of Sovereignty? The Global Gateway and its Vis-a-vie in Eurasia.”

Dr. Pengfei Hou (Xinjiang University, China ), “Journey to or beyond the West? Xinjiang and New Eurasian Order in the Making.”

Panel Chair: Prof. Dr. Heinz Gärtner (Chair, Advisory Board, International Institute for Peace; Professor, University of Vienna; Chair, Advisory Committee for Strategy and Security Policy of the Scientific Commission at the Austrian Armed Forces, Austria).

Coffee/Pasties (17:10-17:25)

Panel 2. (17:30-19:05) Belt and Road Initiative 2.0

Dr. Liu Chang (Institute of Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China), “The United States’ Position on BRI Under the ‘Threat Narrative’.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tuba Eldem (Fenerbahce University, Turkey), “China’s Belt and Road Initiative 2.0 and Turkey’s Strategic Connectivity in Eurasia.”

Dr. Jing Shi (Tsinghua University, China), “The People-to-People Exchange between China and Georgia in the Framework of the Belt and Road Initiative in an Era of Multipolar World Order 2.0.”

Mrs. Lolita Koroleva (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia), “The Belt and Road initiative and its implications for the EU”.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Giorgio Caridi (E-Campus University, Italy), “Belt and Road Initiative 2.0 or a Brand-New Approach? The impact of Communication in the Italian Case Study.”

Panel Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bin Ma (Deputy Director, the Center for SCO Studies, Fudan University, China).

December 9, 2023, Artashat Hall

Coffee/Pasties  (10:10-10:30)

(10:35-10:55) Signing of MOU between China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research and Public Administration Development, Strategic Research and Training Center NGO (10:35-10:55)

Panel 3. (11:00-12:05) The Digital Silk Road and Cybersecurity

Prof. Dr. António Tavares and Prof. Dr. Paulo Afonso B. Duarte (Lusófona University and Minho University, Portugal), “The Security Dimension of the Digital Silk Road: from Netpolitik to Digitalpolitik.”

Dr. Anahit Parzyan (China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Armenia), “Digital Power and Crisis Management.”

Xiaojuan Yang (Ph.D. Candidate, Hildesheim University, Germany), “A Comparative Study of China and Russia’s Cyber Sovereignty.”

Panel Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zheng Yuntian (Director, World Socialism Institute and Assistant Director of BRI Research Center, Renmin University, China).

Panel 4. (12:10-14:00) The Post-Soviet Eurasia

Prof. Dr. Kerry Longhurst (Collegium Civitas, Warsaw, Poland), “Best of all Worlds? China, Russia and the European Union in Georgia’s Gaze’.”

Asst. Prof. Dr. Jessica Neafie and Mrs. Kamila Koshimkhan (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan), “Kazakhstani Public Attitudes toward Chinese Foreign Direct Investments: Survey Experiments, Causal Mediation, and Social Media Analysis.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jin Xi (Renmin University of China), “Perceptions of Chinese Scholars on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.”

Mr. Akira SANO (University of Tsukuba, JST-SPRING, Japan), “Text Visualizing for Russian Anonymous Chat on Ukrainian War: A Case Study of Views of the US and China in YouTube Comments.”

Dr. Gevorg Melikyan (Director, The Armenian Institute for Resilience and Statecraft, Armenia), “Cognitive Warfare: Understanding the Battle for Hearts and Minds.”

Dr. Péter Pál Kránitz (Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Hungary), “(Sur)realities of Armenia’s EU accession.”

Conference Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mher Sahakyan (Director, China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Armenia).

Coffee/Pasties  (14:05-14:25)

Panel 5. (14:30-15:20) China and Maritime Routes

Prof. Dr. Paulo Afonso B. Duarte (Lusófona University and Minho University, Portugal), “The South Atlantic in China’s 21st Maritime Silk Road: from a Bystander to a Quest for Residency.”

Mr. Jinrui Liu (PhD candidate, Yunnan University, China and PhD researcher, Leiden University, Netherlands), “A Comparative study of China and the United States’ reactions to ASEAN Centrality in the Indo-Pacific Context.”

Mr. Chaoting Cheng (Doctoral Candidate, Free University of Berlin, Germany), “Foreign Strategic Capabilities: A Comparative Analysis of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Indo-Pacific Strategy of the US.”

Panel Chair: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matthieu Grandpierron (Head, Political Science Department, Catholic University of Vendée, France).

Panel 6. (15:30-17:05) Great Powers, Energy Security and Interconnectivity

Dr. Tamas Dudlak (ELTE University, Hungary), “Opening to the East: the Energy Partnership of Iran and China.”

Dr. Ioana Constantin-Bercean (“Ion I.C. Brătianu” Institute of Political Science and International Relations, Romanian Academy, Romania), “Sino-Iranian Ties: Toward a Strategic Equilibrium or Pragmatic Partnership?”

Dr. Connor Judge (Ashoka University/Harvard-Yenching Institute China Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship), “China, India, Russia, and Oil Sanctions Circumvention: Emerging Approaches, Challenges and Externalities of Economic Statecraft.”

Mr. Yeghia Tashjian (Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon), “Russia, INSTC, Regional Trade Interconnectivity and the Future of the Middle East.”

Panel Chair: Dr. Narayanappa Janardhan (Director of Research and Analysis, Anwar Gargash  Diplomatic Academy, UAE).

Panel 7. (17:10-18:15) China, SCO, and NATO

Dr. Yajun Bao (2022—2023 Visiting scholar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University), “Implication of the Emerging Perspective of Party-Centred Analysis to China’s Governance.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Matthieu Grandpierron (Head, Political Science Department, Catholic University of Vendée, France), “NATO and SCO Visions and Understandings of Security – a Comparative Analysis.”

Armine Arzumanyan (American University of Armenia), “Analysing CPC’s Image-Building for the EU and the US in the Context of NATO.”

Asya Gasparyan (Yerevan State University, Armenia), “Mutual Perceptions in Flux: Rethinking NATO-China Relations.”

Panel Chair:Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexander Korolev (Deputy Head, Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Russia).

Official Closing Ceremony of the Conference (18:25)

Organized by: China-Eurasia Council for Political and Strategic Research, Foundation, Armenia.

Dress Code: Business attire or national dress.

Working language: English

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ChinaEurasiacouncil/

Conference Website: https://chinastan.org/

Twitter: @ChinaEurasiaCO

Email: info@chinastan.org

All audience members are required to register for the conference. Please get in touch with info@chinastan.org