No 12 (2023)

The article analyses Volga-Yangtze Regional Cooperation Program as an example of the new forms of Russo-Chinese cooperation as the Program is aimed at developing economic and cultural relations between the regions that are located not only far from the state borders but in the central parts of Russia and China respectively.This Program was launched in 2013. The results after 10 years of implementation are far from being considered a breakthrough in the regional cooperation that can be explained by low level of connection between the regions of both the Volga and the Yangtze rivers as well as adverse impact of COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2022) which caused many projects to be put on hold. Although one of the main and most obvious aim of the Program was the development of the trade and investment cooperation between not peripheral but central regions of the two countries, the humanitarian relations within this paradiplomacy still seem to be the most perspective fields of the bilateral cooperation. In fact, along with traditional framework of sister cities relations, we are witnessing the emerging of the new form of relations, i.e. “sister regions”.In the future, considering the importance of public and paradiplomacy for further development of Russo-Chinese cooperation, similar programs are expected to be launched in order to bust cooperation between other regions of the two countries.

Japan has been adversely affected by the COVID-19pandemic which has had a negative impact on the demographics in the country in dramatic ways : the number of births in Japan has been on a downtrend since the government started compiling statistics on births in 1899 and this downtrend is expected to continue for years to come.On the one hand, the negative trend of declining fertility was laid down long before the pandemic by persistent features will continue including the gendered division of labor, rising rates of labor participation among women, breaking balance of work and life that ultimately has led to decrease of marriage rates and has caused women to delay plans to become pregnant due to economic reasons. On other hand, social distancing, changes brought upon by the prolonged coronavirus pandemic has continued to cause women to permanent stress which, in turn, also does not contribute to the solution of the fertility issue.For Japanese society, challenges which were caused by COVID-19pandemic may be an opportunity to re-imagine the larger role men play in their families (apart from work for family financial supporting) and this rethinking, with the adoption of certain decisions by the Japanese government, is likely to stop this negative trend in demography.

The article discusses the expansion of women’s rights in Egypt. The author notes that Egypt, concerning the status of women in society, has traditions that differ from those in other countries where Islam is the predominant religion. This is because the state has experienced various periods throughout its history, including the Pharaonic era, the Greco-Roman period, the era of Islamic dominance, and periods of revolutionary reformers.The author pays much attention to the fact that Egypt has strong class divisions and property stratification. People in different areas of the country live differently. What concerns educated urban feminists in Cairo and Alexandria is often alien to poor women in the rural regions of Upper Egypt.The definitions of “women’s equality” and “feminism” themselves in a country with nationalist and Muslim traditions often have different meanings than in Western countries. On the one hand, Egyptian women have historically been considered the heads of their households as wives and mothers, and many women have consented to this role. A small percentage of Egyptian women worked outside the home, and their involvement in political life was limited. However, “state feminism” became the policy of all successive authoritarian regimes. The author also highlights the “Islamic feminism” as an interesting recent phenomenon.

The article analyzes the implementation of NATO’s regional strategy in Africa after the end of the Cold War. The author evaluates the intervention of NATO in conflicts on the continent, primarily in Libya, as well as anti-piracy missions and considers the development of NATO’s partnership with African countries in multilateral and individual formats.Special attention is paid to the study of the Alliance’s interaction with the states of the Sahel region, primarily Mauritania. It is concluded that Africa in the near future will be one of the world’s regions on which NATO will project its military and political power, trying to include it in the sphere of its geopolitical influence. To realize this goal, the North Atlantic Alliance will not only increase security cooperation with various regional partners, but will also seek to limit the cooperation of Russia and China with African states in the military-political sphere.