The 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Debate Club, titled “Fair Multipolarity: How to Ensure Security and Development for Everyone” was held in Sochi on October 2-5. The event brought together more than 140 experts, politicians and diplomats from 42 countries to discuss the BRICS, nuclear weapons, food security, energy and the global economy amid the Ukraine crisis.

Professor Gong Jiong, a China Forum expert and vice president for research at UIBE Israel, spoke at the session themed “A World Beyond Hegemony: BRICS as a Prototype of a New International Architecture.” The expansion of the BRICS is a significant step in the multilateral mechanism’s development, which is pushing the global political, economic, and financial architectures towards greater equilibrium and representativeness, said Gong. It should be viewed in a non-confrontational perspective, and the BRICS countries’ legitimate concerns must be respected. He also proposed future directions for the BRICS to realize the transformation of the international order from an economic perspective.

The session, moderated by Feodor Voitolovsky, director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, featured Paulo Batista, former vice president at the New Development Bank; Ram Varanasi, president at the India Foundation; Philani Mthembu, executive director of the Institute for Global Dialogue; Pham Lan Dung, acting president at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; and İlter Turan, emeritus professor of political science at Istanbul Bilgi University

The Valdai Discussion Club aims at delivering a qualified and objective assessment of global political and economic issues. One of its main objectives is to promote dialogue among the global intellectual elite to find solutions to overcome the crises of the international system.