Moscow: Institute of Economic Strategies, 2006, 656 p.

Against the background of complex processes that accompany the formation of the system of modern international relations and determine the parameters of structuring the future world order, expert research devoted to the analysis of underlying trends, forecasting the situation for the coming decades, can attract the attention of specialists (and often a wider range of readers) by definition. At the same time, aspects of the problem associated with such a universally recognized factor of recent world development as the objective rise of China often and quite rightly arouse increased interest. However, such research and forecasts become particularly important when their final objectives are closely linked to the prospects for developing a course that would best correspond to the effective provision of future-oriented national interests of the Russian Federation.

Among the works with such a goal setting is the peer-reviewed monograph of the Academy of Sciences. RAS M. L. Titarenko and chl. - correspondent. B. N. Kuzyka of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in the preparation of which the most active part was taken by the staff of their teams - the Institute of the Far East (IDV) and the Institute of Economic Strategies (IES) of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The conceptual leitmotif of the work seems to be outlined by the authors already in the preface, which emphasizes that China and Russia, as strategic partners that solve similar problems in the context of globalization and common challenges, "can only develop and deepen good-neighborliness, friendship, and strategic interaction" and "confidently move along the path of co-development" (p.6).

Before considering the main provisions of the study, it is appropriate to make a reservation that its methodological basis is not traditional. An extraordinary fusion of scientific author's experience made it possible to present a book to the reader, where the actual political and synological analyses were performed according to the methods developed by a team of scientists from the Institute of Economic Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences. At the same time, the authors consider the growing influence of the PRC to be one of the key factors of global and regional forecasting, which is certainly important for the future of the Russian Federation, and focus on two groups of issues: the first concerns the "driving forces" of the current progress of the PRC and their viability in the future; the second concerns the impact that it can the fate of other countries, primarily on Russia, is a successful or, on the contrary, unsuccessful scenario for China's implementation of its tasks. The search for answers to these questions is based on the analysis of nine areas that, in their opinion, form the "basis of China's internal and international stability" and include governance, territory, natural resources, population, economy, armed forces, foreign policy, culture, religion, as well as science and education.

The first in this list (and, apparently, far from the last in importance), the authors consider the sphere of management. They analyze it on the basis of a variety of factual material from a quarter of a century of Chinese reforms, and try to show the complexity of polemics within the country on key issues - the degree of state participation in market transformations and the relationship between democracy and authoritarianism in modernization processes. As a result, it is concluded that a strong state and party power plays a crucial role in China's successful development of economic potential, and the preservation of this factor is a "critical condition" for the country's further "peaceful rise" (p.6, 81).

This conclusion is made taking into account a number of problems that have already arisen ("overheating" of the economy, large - scale corruption, structural imbalances, the gap in regional development, social differentiation, etc.), as well as against the background of a very sensitive topic that will inevitably require its solution-the issue of political reform. The paper presents three possible scenarios of evolution in the political sphere. According to the authors, the implementation of two of them, which is possible under the pressure of right - wing radical forces in one case and left-wing radical forces in the other, is equally unfavorable both for the development of China itself and from the point of view of Russia's interests.

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The third scenario, conventionally called centrist, would be possible if the current course is gradually modified and the social base of the current government is further expanded by taking into account the interests of those strata that are still far from the fruits of economic growth. As noted in the paper, there are enough reasons to believe that by the middle of the century, the management model, leaning towards this scenario, will become adequate to the "harmonious Xiaokang society", which is quite differentiated, but devoid of explosive contradictions. It is important to note here that in such a development of events, when the country's governability is not only preserved, but also predictable and optimal for Russia's interests, China has the right to count on its support. The advantage of analyzing this aspect is a scrupulous consideration of the historical, cultural, ethical, and traditionalist features of Chinese society, as well as the norms and values of Confucian attitudes, which make borrowing Western organizational models not only superfluous, but also counterproductive from the point of view of maintaining its stability and manageability.

Analyzing the complex of issues related to ensuring the territorial integrity of the country, the authors consider it appropriate to turn first of all to the history of the problem. In a concise but at the same time succinct form, they consider a wide time period - from the first moments of the emergence of Chinese statehood to the present day, identify characteristic trends in the processes of forming national borders, which generally allows us to perceive this section as a kind of brief outline of the complex history of the formation of the territory of modern China.

The paper draws attention to the fact that until the European occupation of the countries adjacent to China, the borders of its territory were "rather symbolic, to a certain extent conditional in nature and turned out to be clearly defined only where they passed along natural boundaries" (p.152). The need for their formal, contractual establishment arose in connection with the policy of the colonial Powers in the region. It is noteworthy, in the authors 'opinion, that contrary to the prevailing statements, in particular among Chinese scientists, about the" weakness " of the country at that time, China not only successfully defended its territorial integrity during the relevant negotiations, but also put forward its own claims, "firmly insisted on their satisfaction."

In the second half of the XX century. China regained its jurisdiction over a number of previously lost territories (Macao, Hong Kong), and from 1960 to the present day, it has reached agreements with neighboring states on the passage of the border along absolutely most of their common perimeter. Characteristically, while highlighting in this series of events the fact that the legal delimitation of the Russian-Chinese border was fully completed (under the Agreement of October 2004), which goes beyond the scope of bilateral relations, the authors consider it appropriate to point out the emergence of a practical basis for concluding a general Border Agreement between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China. After all, we are talking about a document that, in order to avoid any speculation in the future, from an international legal point of view, would completely resolve the border issue in relations between the two countries. Given the prevailing opinion among Chinese experts regarding the identity of the categories "agreement" and "contract" in the Chinese legal interpretation, this position of the authors seems to be very important.

The process of successful contractual and legal registration of the borders of China with neighboring states, although not yet fully completed, leads the authors to the conclusion that the "final" in general "completion of the formation of its national territory", which, in turn, allows the reader to consider such an assessment as a sign of eliminating the conflict potential in the border area of the country.

At the same time, it is clear, and this is emphasized in the work, that from the point of view of ensuring China's territorial integrity, reunification with Taiwan remains the most important task in the coming decades. The issues of China's demarcation with a number of neighboring countries in the waters of the East China and South China Seas will also be resolved; objectively, the problems of border settlement in the ongoing Sino-Indian negotiations remain difficult for both sides. In their forecasts in this regard, the authors seem to reasonably refrain from alarmist scenarios, considering that the possibility of military approaches is either excluded or (in the case of Taiwan) rather unlikely.

In the context of various statistics and special expert material presented in the section on natural resources, it is difficult to disagree with the authors ' opinion that

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Assessing the status and forecasting the future of the PRC in this parameter is one of the most difficult tasks. Having a fairly complete and solid set of minerals in absolute terms, the country is experiencing a growing dependence on imports of certain types of raw materials, primarily oil, as the volume of raw material consumption increases. In terms of natural resource security, China now occupies an intermediate position between "superpower" and" great power " with the prospect of evolution of this status towards the latter (self - sufficiency at the level of 50-80%). Deviations from this expected vector both in one direction and in the other will depend on the extent to which the Chinese leadership manages to solve a number of difficult tasks, including improving the structure of the energy balance, energy conservation, developing new technologies, and diversifying sources of hydrocarbon imports. The problems of optimal overcoming of natural limitations for development associated with such an urgent problem for China as ecology stand apart here.

In any case, in the medium term, the authors predict "China's great interest in cooperation with Russia, which has rich resources of raw materials and energy that China urgently needs" (p. 197). At the same time, it is optimal for Russia to pursue a policy of "conditional support", linking Russian supplies with investments from China, taking into account China's interests in its market. It is noteworthy that in the context of Russian interests related to cooperation with China in the energy sector, the paper draws attention to the possibility of expanding it by connecting India. Thus, we share a very well-founded and fairly widespread view that cooperation between the three countries in the energy sector could become the cornerstone of their strategic partnership, a common set of cooperation between these states in a trilateral format.

The issue of population regulation is also extremely important for China. The authors note that the policy of curbing population growth, launched in the 1970s and aimed at avoiding a demographic crisis, was one of the conditions for the success of the reforms of recent decades; it had a positive impact on the modernization and development of the country, raising the standard of living of families. In this regard, "birth planning remains a long-term task that is crucial for the existence and development of the Chinese nation" (p.229). Under this policy, the country's population should reach 1.4 billion by 2010, 1.5 billion in 10 years, and 1.6 billion by mid - century. human. Easing the regulatory policy is fraught with a rapid population growth beyond these limits, which can seriously slow down the development of the PRC, including creating intractable environmental problems.

At the same time, the implementation of measures to curb population growth, aimed at achieving zero natural growth in 30 years, gives rise to a number of acute socio-demographic problems, the main ones of which are: the aging of the population (according to the weighted average forecasts of Chinese scientists-about 350 million people over 65 years of age by the middle of the century), This means that there is an increase in the burden on the working-age part of the population, and if the necessary GDP growth rates are maintained, the problem of labor resources will arise. Since these factors run counter to the goals of the country's overall recovery as acutely as uncontrolled overpopulation, the Chinese leadership faces a difficult task of finding the optimum.

The authors also draw attention to such a feature of the development of the demographic situation in China as a slightly larger proportion of the male population, which by 2020 will result in a situation where the "excess" of men of marriageable age will amount to 15-18 million people. It is not by chance that when comparing this perspective with the size of the Russian population beyond the Urals, the paper speaks of the possibility of "forming a significant demographic load... to the neighboring countries of China" (p. 263).

Despite the abundance of problems associated with demographic issues, the authors nevertheless, based on the size of China's population, certainly position it in this indicator as a mid-century superpower.

The section devoted to the analysis of the PRC economy examines the historical context of its formation in modern times, including the factors of tortuous development in the first 30 years of the PRC's existence, and analyzes the ambiguous legacy of this period, with which the country's leadership began modernization in its current sense at the turn of the 1970s-1980s. Serious attention is paid to the stages (seven for the period 1978-2005) of formation and evolution of the conceptual foundations of modernization, summing up its intermediate results. By the way, these

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results, when the country achieved more than a sixfold increase in GDP by 2000 in 20 years, but remained on the 149th place in terms of its average per capita calculation, while experiencing the need to further address acute macroeconomic (for example, the transition from an extensive to an intensive development model), social (a huge gap in the income levels of urban and rural populations) and a number of other problems that once again demonstrate the complexity of forecasting attempts that require taking into account a complex of sometimes very contradictory circumstances.

The paper provides a detailed list of both Chinese and foreign scenarios for the development of the Chinese economy in the coming decades, some of which predict that China's GDP will be equal to that of the United States by 2030, while others only talk about the possibility of joining the world's top ten in terms of "level of economic modernization"by the end of the century. The authors themselves seem to be inclined to "moderate" multivariance of the forecast. Under the "sharp rise" scenario, this means maintaining a stable growth rate of 7% per year for 30 years, increasing GDP by 7.6 times, and China's entry into the second place in the world in this indicator. We also consider a less optimistic "fade - out" scenario (a decline in growth rates after 2010 to 5-6%, and even lower after 2020), and in theoretical terms, options for "stagnation" and even "disruption". The authors believe that the main argument in favor of pessimistic scenarios would be the inability of the authorities to cope with the aggravation of the internal political situation, which may arise if there is no improvement in the situation of the huge army of the peasantry. The trends of creeping "decommunization"have not been removed from the agenda either.

Nevertheless, the authors ' general conclusion is that from the perspective of economic development prospects, China is very likely to represent a neighboring country for Russia in the next two decades, committed to socialist guidelines, and more or less steadily increasing its power, which objectively creates favorable conditions for the development of mutually beneficial cooperation. Other scenarios are much less in line with Russian interests.

As for the development of the cultural sphere, which has also been undergoing some controversial processes in recent years, the authors predict its moderate progress as the most realistic scenario against the background of continued economic growth in China. The policy of openness and commercialization of various aspects of the country's life also influenced this sphere, where one of the most difficult features was, in particular, "the conflict of market mechanisms and ideological requests of the state" (p. 411). The authorities, in an understandable desire to maintain control over such an important area, are trying to resolve these contradictions by separating the propaganda and commercial (entertainment-consumer) hypostases of culture, putting forward, in particular, the concepts of "cultural business" and "cultural industry", respectively.

In the struggle for "manageability" and at the same time against "spiritual pollution", often introduced from the outside, great hopes are pinned on modernization, adaptation to the realities of the day of the values of Confucian ethics and morality. At the same time, the use of traditional moral and ideological values is conceived both within the country-with an emphasis on the norms of "honesty", "virtue", and from the standpoint of external orientation. It is no coincidence that the article emphasizes that national culture is perceived in the PRC as a tool for preserving national identity in the context of globalization. In this sense, the authors draw attention, in particular, to the integration into modern Chinese doctrines of the Confucian thesis "unity without unification", which is designed to ideologically support, and most importantly - to "explain" to the outside world the slogan of "peaceful rise" of China, and at the same time to debunk the postulate of the "Chinese threat"circulating in the West. According to the authors, if extreme nationalist manifestations are avoided in the sphere of ideology of the PRC, stability and economic growth are preserved ,then "in the coming decades, China has a chance to reach the level of an influential regional power and begin moving towards acquiring certain attributes of a great cultural power" (p.428).

Science and education are equally important for the overall progress of the country. In its analysis, the authors draw, in particular, from the world practice of assessing the dynamics of development in this area, according to which the recovery stage is characterized by a combination of two indicators: the amount of funding at the level of at least 1% of GDP and its per capita mark of $ 1,000. and higher. China achieved this combination by 2002, and the noticeable positive dynamics continued. There are also serious achievements - for example, Nema-

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In absolute terms, China's exports in 2004 consisted of a quarter of new and high-tech products (p. 452). Nevertheless, the gap with the world leaders is still quite noticeable. However, it is this fact that the authors consider to be a factor that gives China a large space for growth-moving along the path of combining externally attracted technologies with its own developments and saving on technical research. It is also considered important that the state leadership has developed and provided appropriate funding for comprehensive programs, a system of specific measures aimed at innovative and technological breakthrough; its priority areas are identified (including energy, space, information technologies). According to the forecast, by 2030, China's science and technology are expected to reach the level of advanced countries at the beginning of the XXI century. (R & D spending is 2.5% of GDP), and by 2050, when the contribution of science and technology to economic growth reaches 70%, the country will be able to reach the world level in certain sectors.

Studying the state of the armed forces, the authors proceed from the fact that the role of the army in China is determined by general strategic security policies aimed at ensuring favorable external conditions for the country's development through preventive measures of a political, diplomatic, economic and military nature. At the same time, the country believes that some events in the world (undermining the foundations of the NPT, etc.) have led to an increase in the international importance of the military factor. A special feature of the position of the army in the PRC is also its role as an instrument of internal political stability. From the point of view of the current state, the work emphasizes that the Chinese army, with all the components of the modern armed forces, including nuclear ones, nevertheless lags behind in a number of essential parameters (the latest equipment requirements, mobility, command systems) from the most militarily developed countries. As in other areas that are of basic importance for the implementation of the country's recovery tasks, the development of the Chinese military complex has developed and is currently being implemented detailed modernization programs in terms of content and time. Within the framework of such programs, the first stage (out of the three planned ones) is completed by 2000 - the creation of the foundations for transformation.

The main long-term limitation in the implementation of further steps is that the country still has a relative technological lag in general, which is particularly sensitive for the military-industrial complex. There are achievements, as well as high growth rates, in the field, but according to the authoritative expert estimates given by the authors, the probability that China will be able to achieve tangible results in the military field in the next decade is very problematic. In these circumstances, failures in attempts to directly copy the best foreign models make it extremely important for foreign purchases, the development of military-technical cooperation in joint or licensed production with other countries, primarily with Russia and the CIS countries. The" catch-up " development model, the paper says, makes it possible to reduce, but not eliminate, China's military-technical backlog.

Nevertheless, it is concluded that the faster pace of increasing military spending in comparison with the overall economic growth (in terms of their volume in the coming years, the country may become the second in the world after the United States), as well as the consistent implementation of the second and third stages of the military modernization program, can make the Chinese army the strongest in in this regard, and by 2050 - " to reach the advanced level of the armed forces of most developed countries." However, even in this case, "achieving the status of a military power comparable to the United States is problematic" (p. 520).

Finally, in the section on the foreign policy development of the PRC, the authors, considering the course of the Chinese leadership in the international arena since the formation of the PRC, express the opinion that the lessons of the irrationality of its individual stages are unlikely to have been in vain. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, as at present, the country's foreign policy will remain peaceful, aimed at providing favorable conditions "for solving China's huge internal problems." Its main principles will remain the desire for full independence, non-membership in alliances, full equality with partners, and determination to defend sovereignty.

Points that are theoretically capable of provoking the accumulation of conflict potential are primarily the issue of Taiwan, as well as a number of historical aspects of Sino-Japanese relations and the mentioned stories related to the remaining issues of territorial integrity.-

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administrative division. According to the authors, possible aggravations in these areas will most likely not lead to large-scale military operations.

To these problems may be added the acute issue of lack of energy resources, which can, as noted in the paper, " overturn the entire course of successful development of China." The authors do not assess the degree of probability of such a scenario, but rightly point out the need for Russia, which is objectively interested in cooperation with the PRC, to closely monitor the direction in which the Chinese side will act, firmly defend its positions, thereby minimizing the possibility of pressure and infringement of its interests.

In general, the authors predict that as China "rises", it will face an increasingly complex challenge from external factors, which will result from the proportionally increasing opposition of certain Western forces; but this same circumstance, in their opinion, will determine the growth of China's interest in stable relations with Russia.

The result of a comprehensive review of all nine parameters of China's long-term development (made taking into account the factor of Russian interests) is a conclusion about the huge and yet untapped potential for complementarity and mutual stimulation of China and Russia. Emphasis is placed on the imperative of their co-development, which is understood by the reader as a serious opportunity for the most effective solution of the tasks facing each of the two countries, which stems from the prospects for their long-term and trusting partnership.

It seems that the arguments in favor of such a judgment are supported not only by the analysis of a wide range of objective factors, but also by the fact that the authors avoid the temptation of simplifications, actually pointing out potential "stress fields". These include, in particular, the preservation of the gap between the levels of political and trade-economic relations between the PRC and the Russian Federation, elements of an imbalance of their interests at the regional level, and cooling as a result of the "blurring" policy of the West.

An effective way to realize favorable potentials and eliminate challenges is the large-scale development of trade and economic ties that can satisfy the obvious interests of both China (the raw material deficit, the tasks of raising the Northeast and West of the PRC) and Russia, which cannot miss the chances of an economic and political breakthrough associated with the resource potential of Siberia and the Far East. The results of the Russian-Chinese summit in Beijing in March 2006, which ended with the signing of a number of economic agreements, are a good sign in this direction. It is no coincidence that the main ones are joint decisions on the construction of two lines of gas pipelines from Siberia to China and the immediate start of construction of the first section of the Eastern Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil pipeline, the first oil of which will be delivered to China by the end of 2008.

Further progress on this path, the paper emphasizes, will require a lot of political will from the leadership of both countries, which for Russia means consistent implementation of its policy of Eurasian geopolitical identity.

Scientific developments, including peer-reviewed research, also make an obvious contribution to understanding this need.

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