On the occasion of the Day of Hungarian Science John von Neumann University organized a scientific conference which is the 23rd in the sequence. Eurasia Center contributed to the initiative by joining the conference program with a workshop entitled “Changing world order – Changing Eurasia” including lectures in English and Hungarian.
At the opening plenary session Professor Brian Chi-Ang Lin, a guest researcher at BC4LS, gave a presentation entitled “Sustainable Economies and the United Nations 2030 Agenda”, reviewing the main points of the United Nations’ sustainable development agenda for the period up to 2030, as well as the main challenges facing its implementation. The 2030 Agenda envisions a secure world free from poverty and hunger, with full and productive employment, access to quality education and universal health care, gender equality, and an end to environmental degradation. Professor Lin believed that in order to achieve the mentioned goals, each country should adapt sustainable growth policies, such as the circular economic model, even by using an indicator called the circular GDP indicator (CENIA), because the framing and implementation of the SDGs can only be successful starting from the national level.
The researchers and experts of the Eurasia Center participated in the English section. Dr. Péter Klemensits, research director of the Eurasia Center, explored the links between industrial revolutions and the emerging world order in his presentation entitled “Industrial Revolution 4.0 – A New World Order?”, noting that Asian countries that are leading the 4th Industrial Revolution are expected to play a prominent role in the new world order. Alexandra Zoltai, researcher of East Asia at the Eurasia Center, in her presentation entitled “Japan’s position in the changing Eurasia” analyzed Japan’s current economic situation and geopolitical attitude emphasizing the influence of decisive recent events such as the hosting of the Summer Olympics, the change of prime minister and assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A truly complex issue was discussed in the presentation of Meszár Tarik – expert on the Middle East at the Eurasia Center. In his presentation “Jews in Iraq: which factors led to the mass emigration of their community in the middle of the 20th century?” he explained that the mass emigration of Iraqi Jews between 1949-1951 was a result of many factors such as the ideology imported from former Nazi Germany after WWII and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Today however the Iraqi Jews despite the attempts to get in touch with their homeland cannot form a separate community.
Geopolitical matters were discussed in the Hungarian section of the workshop by associate of the Eurasian Center’s Geopolitical Research Group. Dr. Ágnes Bernek, senior researcher of the Eurasia Center and head of the Geopolitical Research Group, presented her presentation entitled “World economy dominated by geopolitics – expected trends and growing question marks in an uncertain world” on the Anglo-Saxon and Asian global economic mega-regions, the emerging Central Asian and Middle Eastern mega-region lead by Russia. The presentation examined the prospects of the new, multi-polar world economy that is significantly influenced by the war in Ukraine. Anita Faust, presented her lecture entitled “The role of narratives in the construction of world order – Analysis of the Samarqand Declaration”. The presentation emphasized the role of the shaping aspects of narratives in the world order on the example of the declaration of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) issued in September 2022. Gábor Andrékó explained in his presentation “Russia’s Great power status and the Russian perception of world order (2008-2022)” examined the Kremlin’s goals and policies. He concluded that the main characteristics of Russian foreign policy can be determined, and by that, the activity of Russian foreign policy in a given problem area can be predicted. He also emphasized that Moscow envisions the development of a multipolar regional world order and to achieve this the Kremlin uses both theoretical-, and practical conceptions. Finally László Simon’s lecture entitled “The individual as a non-state-level power factor in the infocommunication networks” based on Albert László Barabási’s network research results sought the answer to how individual infocommunication activity affects power relations. The presentation emphasized the importance of open communication as a method of preventing aggression, and drew attention to the difference between cyber criminals and cyber partisans.
