Vol 6, No 2 (2022)

The author of the article makes an attempt of the conceptual consideration of a comprehensive strategic partnership, a poorly investigated kind of international relations, so far. It is mentioned that different countries, as well as official documents and research-works discuss the features of this status of international relations differently. General theoretical conclusions are applied to the concrete object of the research, i.e., to current Russia-Vietnam relations. The conclusion is that the level of their development does not fully correspond to the content of the term “comprehensive strategic partnership”. It is emphasized that such a situation interferes with the efficient development of cooperation. The current confrontation of the West with the Russian Federation against the background of the developments in Ukraine affects Russia-Vietnam relations.

The paper discusses recent changes in Vietnamese development strategy: a shift to greater emphasis upon services rather than industry. Given the historical focus of strategy upon the traditional ‘trope’ of factories and an industrial proletariat ‘led by the Party’, this change clearly has significance across many dimensions. The paper explains the policy shift. It then links this strategy, endorsed by the Party, to tensions globally. On the one hand the data shows that developing countries have since the end of the Cold War tended to servicise, not industrialise, with the faster growing countries showing more servicisation (as a share of GDP). On the other, data on research and donor advice shows a continuing and far greater interest in industrialisation. The paper points to published research on Vietnam since 2016 that appears to endorse servicisation. Contrast is made between Vietnam and ‘poster boys’ such as Thailand and Malaysia, praised in the early 1990s as ‘Newly Industrialising Countries’, that now seem to confront relative economic stagnation. Vietnam’s rapid economic growth whilst not implementing the Party’s strategy of ‘Modernisation and Industrialisation’ invites reexamination of the underlying forces driving change in Vietnam.

Phan Chau Trinh (1872–1926) is one of the most typical reformist in Vietnam in the early twentieth century. The article analyzes his political views and the concept of national salvation he proposed. For a more complete and objective disclosure of the role of Phan Châu Trinh, archival documents, mainly collected in France, as well as proceedings of scientific seminars and conferences of recent years, were involved. In the context of the Đoi moi reforms carried out since 1986 and the country's course towards international integration, reference to the history of Vietnam and the activities of famous political figures such as Phan Chau Trinh, who made a huge contribution to the struggle for independence, is of particular relevance.

Since recently the government of Vietnam has paid special attention to the development of cultural industries. Culture used to be the branch which could but “spend money” and exist at the expense of other branches, but now it is gradually becoming an important source of economic value creation and contribution to GDP of Vietnam. Considering culture to be capital also for Vietnam’s culture, the article sheds light on the development of five cultural industries, viz. cinema, performance arts, fine arts, advertisment and cultural tourism, showing thereby the contribution of culture to social and economic development of contemporary Vietnam.

The article surveys a scientific conference and a scientific-practical student seminar held in Moscow and in St Petersburg in the frameworks of the “Vietnam Cross Days” that were organized by MGIMO Vietnamese Students Association, the ASEAN Centre in cooperation with the Ho Chi Minh Institute of the Saint-Petersburg State University. Russian and Vietnamese speakers discussed a wide range of issues, including bilateral relations, growth and development of Vietnam, as well as the history, culture and language of this country.

The defense of the thesis on specialty 08.00.10 “Finance, money circulation and credit” was held on April 27, 2022 at the Dissertation Council session D 999.076.02 based on the International Banking Institute named after Anatoly Sobchak (IBI) and Emperor Alexander I St Petersburg State Transport University (PGUPS).

This is an essay on life and work of one of the main specialists on Vietnam’s biodiversity, who spent many years investigating tropical forests of the country, the author of over a hundred articles on the results of those investigations and of the book “Mammals of Vietnam”.