Geopolitical Thinking behind the US Policy-Making toward China and the Diplomatic Choice of Japan

The roots of US policy toward China are laid in the geopolitical thinking mode of its strategic culture. This mode of thinking first originated in Britain and later evolved into geopolitics. Bearing such thoughts, the United States sees China as a country at the southeastern rim of the Eurasian continent, and the rise of China is a threat to its dominance as a maritime state in the Eurasian continent. No matter the rotation of governing parties in the United States, containing the development of China is not merely an expedient for electoral politics but an inevitable choice for maritime states to contain continental states and an objectively necessary national security strategy aimed at retaining the global hegemony of the United States. As China further develops, such intention will become more and more apparent. In order to achieve the goal of slowing down China’s development pace and maintaining US’s political dominance over Eurasia, it seems that the United States has to build a maritime alliance system. The alliance between Japan and the United States will be further strengthened since Japan is a strategic pivot of this system. However, Japan’s perception of interests and strategic thinking are not fully aligned with those of the United States, and as a result, Japan will choose strategies with a certain degree of autonomy, thus eventually limiting the implementation of US’s geopolitical strategies. From the viewpoints of power transfer, geopolitics and ideology for the confrontation between maritime and continental states, this paper focuses on the limitations of the geopolitical thinking behind US’s policy-making toward China and the relatively autonomous strategy of Japan to analyze the status quo and underlying trends of China–US–Japan relations.

Developing of natural gas transportation of Central Asia and its geopolitical and geo-economic aspects

The gas transportation of Central Asian countries has been traditionally main part of their economic sector, because of geographical location and natural resources. Geographical and geopolitical Central Asia has significant commercial and political consequences across the region, and there gas production and export potential of the key Central Asia plays key role of gas transportation sector. Central Asian located in the centre of Eurasian continent and its transportation gas sector has very less implications in the global marketplace. Nowadays, geo-strategic role of this region is very low on global energy market. Central Asia is an important region of the Eurasian continent, touching Asia in the East and Europe in the West. The region is rich in oil, gas, gold, uranium ore and other underground minerals, and occupies an important geopolitical and strategic position, in which historically interests converged and intertwined diverse forces. This region surrounded by the giant powers Russia and China is still and strongly influenced by the unstable situation in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other adjacent regions. In addition, in the context of the expected increase in demand for energy resources in China, India and other Asian countries, reliable supplies of oil and natural gas from the Central Asian region contribute to the stabilization of the international energy market, in connection with which the importance of this region in terms of providing energy security.

Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s development within the Greater Eurasian Partnership – Russian viewpoint

The author analyses new directions of development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), examines the geopolitical reasons of their emergence, and identifies the role and place of the Organisation in the framework of the Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP).The author also presents the Development Strategy of the SCO until 2025 and identifies the areas of common interests with the GEP’s development ideas, which are focused on the economic and trade-related measures along with the issues of political interaction and cooperation in the field of social security. In conclusion the author claims, that SCO countries are acting as “drivers” of regional development and making a concerted effort to create the necessary conditions for ensuring sustainable social and economic development. The new development directions of the SCO demonstrate that the Organisation is able to adapt to new conditions of the changing world, while its participation in new formats of interaction is in demand among the countries of the Eurasian continent

Some rare plant species in the Aktolagay cretaceous massif (Republic of Kazakhstan): the characteristics of populations

Cretaceous massifs of the Eurasian continent is unique not only for its geological features, but also for the peculiar flora, therefore, identification and study of the biodiversity of these unique objects is currently an urgent task. Comprehensive studies of the flora and vegetation of the Aktolagay cretaceous massif (Republic of Kazakhstan) were carried out in 2019. One aspect was the consideration of the ecological and biological features of several plant species characteristic for this territory. The research is devoted to the study of 5 plant species: Astragalus lasiophyllus Lеdеb., Astragalus vulpinus Willd., Matthiola tatarica (Pall.) DC., Eremurus inderiensis (M. Bieb.) Regel, Tragopogon ruber S.G. Gmel. on the territory of the Cretaceous massif Aktolagai. The coenopopulations of the species are located in the lower parts of the slopes, as well as aligned areas at the foot on cretaceous substrates, and on sandstone soils. The arithmetic density of the studied CPs varies from 2.2 to 6.6 ind./m2, the effective density varies from 1.6 to 4.9 ind./m2. The studied coenopopulations belong to normal incomplete ones. The most typical feature is the absence of seedlings, juvenile and senile individuals in the spectrum, while the peak falls on mature generative individuals, in the Mattiolla tatarica coenopopulations - on virginile individuals. Coenopopulations are heterogeneous in their type ("delta-omega" criterion): the Matthiola tatarica one is young, the CP of Astragalus lasiophyllus is transitional, the CPs of Astragalus vulpinus and Eremurus inderiensis are maturing, and the CP of Tragogon ruber is mature. The recruitment index in the studied populations is rather high (0.36–3.05), the agting index is equal or close to zero. Most morphometric features show low levels of variability and plasticity.

ON THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE UZBEK PEOPLE TO THE VICTORY IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR(BASED ON REPORTS BY EVACUATION BODIES)

The article provides information about the assistance provided by the Uzbek people to the evacuated population during the Second World War. It is interpreted that these processes are reflected in the reports of archival sources -evacuation organizations, their content, structure, factual materials, historical and source study significance are disclosed. Only in the twentieth century, two devastating world wars took place in the world, which claimed the lives of millions of people and the tragic consequences of the war left their mark on the lives of people. In this respect, the Second World War of 1939-1945 on the Eurasian continent was one of the most destructive wars in world history

The Impact of Global Warming and Climate Change on the Development of Agriculture in the Northern Latitudes of the Eurasian Continent

In the northern regions of the Eurasian continent, an increase in the sum of active temperatures up to 1500–2000 °C degrees is observed, which creates more favorable conditions for growing crops. The study reveals the prerequisites for the development of crop production in the northern latitudes and analyzes the yield of crops according to the Doctrine of Food Security. Also considered the yields of the main crops in the northern countries of Europe. In the south of the European part of the Eurasian continent, a decrease in crop yields is expected due to climate change and severe aridity. At the same time, this process will have a more negligible effect in the central regions. Improving the thermal regime in the North of the Far East will also increase the yield of fruit and berry, and vegetable crops. In the northern part of the circumpolar belt, an improvement in the thermal regime with a relatively insignificant change in climate humidity will create conditions for increasing crops’ productivity and growing a more comprehensive range of crops, especially in river valleys.

Tracking the dissemination of Erwinia amylovora in the Eurasian continent using a PCR targeted on the duplication of a single CRISPR spacer

Fire blight is the most devastating disease affecting pome fruit production globally. The pathogen is native to North America and was imported to western Europe in the 1950s, progressively spreading over the continent in the ensuing decades. Previous phylogenetic studies have revealed the extreme genetic homogeneity of the pathogen outside its center of origin, which makes epidemiological studies difficult. These are generally only possible using hypervariable regions of the genome such as those represented by CRISPRs (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats), which are, however, not practical to sequence due to their size and variability. Here, we present a simple PCR assay targeting the duplication of a single CRISPR spacer in Erwinia amylovora that was found to be an important marker to discriminate between two main European populations of the pathogen. We implemented the assay on a total of 582 isolates to follow the spread of fire blight across the continent over several decades and, wherever possible, within single countries. The results obtained point to the occurrence of two major separate introduction events for E. amylovora in Europe that occurred approximately 20 years apart, and confirmed the existence of two principal distribution areas located in Northeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean Basin from which the pathogen moved on to colonize the Eurasian continent.