On May 24, at 11:00, the Valdai Club’s session “Turning Back the Clock: Political Rivalry vs Economic Interaction,” will be held as part of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

       “Cold war” is the most widespread definition of what is going on between Russia and the West now. Strictly speaking, the notion refers to a certain period of the second half of the 20th century, whose political and economic circumstances are impossible to recreate. But the spirit of antagonism, the lack of common political projects and the readiness to up the ante in confrontation – something we observe now – are the essence of cold war. But this is not the cold war as we knew it before globalization. The current level of economic interdependence, the number of potential adversaries, and such diversity of actors simply did not exist back then. This makes the overall picture much more complicated and non-linear with the role of means of economic impact growing and economic wars on the agenda. This, in turn, undermines the very idea of globalization. How will the political cold war influence the economy and who can benefit from it? Is the new confrontation a tool of rebuilding the world economy along the lines of the America First ideology? How should Russia behave when the global environment is experiencing defragmentation? What development models are possible after globalization in the liberal understanding? These and other issues will be addressed by the Valdai session participants.

       Moderator:

       John DEFTERIOS, Emerging Markets Editor, CNN

       Speakers:

       Anton SILUANOV, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation - Minister of Finance of the Russian Federation

       Andrey BYSTRITSKIY, Chairman of the Board, Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club; Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics Jim ROGERS, President, Rogers Holding Company Xavier ROLET, Chief Executive Officer, London Stock Exchange Group Plc (2009-2017) XU Sitao, Chief Economist, Partner, Deloitte, China

       Working languages: Russian, English

       Information for participants: in order to be accredited for the event, you need to arrange a participant’s badge at the SPIEF website.

       Information for the media: in order to be accredited for the event, you need to arrange a badge for members of the press at the SPIEF website .