In recent years, there has been a noticeable increase in the interest of scientists, politicians and ordinary citizens in ethnic issues.

The reasons for this phenomenon are multifaceted. It seems that, in its most general form, the current increased interest in ethnic groups is directly related to globalization, which has sharply intensified international migration and the density of interethnic contacts in most parts of the world. Accordingly, the problems of preserving the former or searching for a new national identity, adapting previously nationally homogeneous societies and states to the realities of multiethnicity, which is far from always desirable and in any case came, from the point of view of psychological perception, somehow too quickly, have become almost universal.

It can be stated that the famous image of the" melting pot", which forms the American people from representatives of many nations and nationalities, has clearly faded in its attractiveness. Many people today have concerns about whether globalization will transform this " melting pot "into a kind of ruthlessly unifying" melting Pol Pot " - everyone is free to offer translation options themselves...

The terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, were undoubtedly a direct catalyst for the general interest in the national spectrum of human existence. It turned out that the famous expression of Rudyard Kipling -"...What is a tribe, a homeland, a clan, if the strong with the strong face to face at the end of the earth rises? " - at the beginning of the XXI century does not look as axiomatic as at the end of the twentieth century. Although it would undoubtedly be wrong to associate the activities of Al-Qaeda and international terrorism in recent years in general only with certain specific religions and peoples, nevertheless, it is quite obvious that "tribe, homeland, clan", that is, the ethno-national factor, plays a huge role here.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to another circumstance that is only beginning to be realized relatively widely. Namely, the specific nature of international life in recent years seems to mark the end of the era of economic determinism that reigned after the defeat of socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Over a wide geographical area, the world has witnessed the absolute failure of attempts to solve the most acute problems - both at the level of specific States and on a broader scale-almost exclusively by economic methods within the framework of a universal liberal economic paradigm. In particular, the evolution of the post-Soviet space, the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq clearly indicate

Portyakov Vladimir Yakovlevich, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors. Director of IDV RAS, Doctor of Economics.

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on the need to turn to cultural, historical, and civilizational methods of responding to the challenges that exist here.

In the light of the above, it is quite natural that multiethnic Asia is currently attracting special attention of the scientific community. On December 17-18, 2004, the Center for Asian Studies of Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand) held an international scientific conference "Ethnic Groups in Asia: Harmony and Conflict" with the participation of about a hundred scientists from Thailand, China, USA, Australia, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Mongolia, the Republic of Korea, and Russia.

The reports of scientists examined various aspects of the historical heritage and the current state of interaction of ethnic groups in the states of widely understood East Asia (Eastern Asia), covering the sub-regions of North-East, South-East and East Asia proper (East Asia).

It was noted that the difficult history of interethnic interaction in the region still has a significant impact on interstate relations in the region. In this sense, a calm, tolerant attitude to the history of interethnic conflicts would serve as a key to the harmonization of interstate relations in the region in the future.

However, it is extremely difficult to implement this approach in practice. As stated in the report of U Thettun (Myanmar; former Burmese Ambassador to France and UNESCO), Burmese-Thai relations are often overshadowed by the fact that when analyzing the numerous invasions of Burmese and Thais on each other's territory in the course of history, " the Burmese remember only their victories and forget about defeats, ... the Thais, on the contrary, remember they forget about failures and forget about triumphs." Such historical memories are often artificially maintained by the authorities, who seek to use nationalism to promote rapid economic growth. According to Wu Tettun, it is time to put the rewriting of history behind us "and enter together, hand in hand, into a new broad globalizing world."

A number of reports addressed the problems of national minority policies in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Although these three countries are dominated by State-forming ethnic groups, they are also multiethnic and multilingual communities. Thus, in Cambodia, in addition to the ethnic Khmer people, who make up 95% of the population, there are 32 other ethnic groups, the total number of which as of 1996 exceeded 500 thousand people. The largest non - Khmer ethnic groups are the Cham (203,000 people, profess Islam; also live in Vietnam), the Vietnamese (109,000 people), the Chinese (47,000 people), and numerous local nationalities, often numbering less than a thousand people and experiencing increasing difficulties in preserving their language and cultural traditions.

In addition to the actual Vietnamese ("khin", "kinh"), there are 54 national minorities in Vietnam, which make up about 13% of the population. According to Vietnamese scientists who spoke at the conference, the combination of three elements in the Vietnamese civilization - mountain culture, marine culture and delta culture, which plays a leading role, makes Vietnam a unique country (in this case, culture is understood as a combination of lifestyle, methods and objects of economic activity).

The most significant share of national minorities in the population of Laos, where 47 main ethnic groups and 230 subgroups belonging to four ethno-linguistic families - Tibeto-Bir-are officially identified-

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May, tai-kadai, Hmong-mien and Mon-kmer. The main problem of national minorities in Laos today, however, is not ethnic, but social. Of the total number of people living below the poverty line (38.6% of the country's population), 93% are members of national minorities.

Special attention was paid to Thailand at the conference. For a long time, it positioned itself as an ethnically homogeneous and monoconfessional (Buddhist) state. In 2004, however, a number of incidents involving human casualties harshly reminded the Muslim minority, mainly concentrated in the southern regions of the country bordering Malaysia, of their problems. In 1996, Muslims accounted for 5.3% of the population (3.2 million people). At least some Muslims consider themselves ethnic Malays. In recent years, the issue of more effective socialization of non-Thai ethnic groups living in the mountainous regions of the north of the country, on islands, etc. (about 750 thousand people out of the 60 million population of Thailand) has also been actively raised.

Judging by a number of reports at the conference, Japanese society is also becoming less ethnically homogeneous, as almost everyone assumes a priori. According to Rowena Ward (Sydney University of Technology, Australia), in 2001, 1% of the Japanese population was non-Japanese, including descendants of workers imported to Japan before 1945 from Korea and China, descendants of people of Japanese origin who are now returning to Japan from South America, "abandoned children" ("zankyukoji").born to Japanese soldiers during the occupation of China. Non-Japanese are also two local peoples - the Ainu and the Ryukyusu (Okinawans). As a specific ethnic group, the Burakumins are also perceived as descendants of representatives of the lower caste of the Tokugawa class society. In total, the Ainu, Ryukyushu, and Burakumin make up 3% of Japan's population.

The conference in Bangkok confirmed the lack of ready-made recipes for how to minimize interethnic and interfaith conflicts at any level - domestic, interstate, sub-regional, regional, global. At the same time, a number of ideas were voiced that, as scientists believe, can give an impetus to the harmonization of interethnic relations. Let's highlight some of them.

For example, Lee Seo Hyeng of the Academy of Korean Studies (Republic of Korea) believes that the traditional ideas of peace and shared prosperity for East Asian societies, embodied in the category of " great unity societies "(a well-known concept of Chinese philosophy "Datong"), combined with a Buddhist worldview, can serve as the basis for peace efforts in the sub-regions of East and South-East Asia.

Narifumi Maeda Tachimoto (Chubu University, Japan), who identifies four types of ethnic conflicts - problems of local national minorities, separatist movements, religious antagonism, and migration problems-suggests that in overcoming the above-mentioned antagonisms, one-sided protrusion of any one supposedly universal principle, primarily human rights, should be abandoned (this will rather stimulate interethnic contradictions). but, on the contrary, to seek ways to common prosperity based on the coexistence of ethnic pluralism and equality.

Kinhide Mushakoji (Director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Partnership at Osaka University of Economics and Law) sees one of the most acute ethnic problems at present in the migration pressure that forces all states to learn to co-exist with different diasporas (note that this situation fully fits the Russian situation). In his opinion, sooner or later "global Asia" will turn into a complex multi-level multiethnic region, and in this regard, regional institutions will be created in the future.-

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tuts such as ASEAN and APEC will not only have to be limited to state entities, but also include diaspora communities. Mushakoji highly appreciates the role of diasporas as a socio-cultural and political-economic bridge between the countries of "global Asia". He believes that the Korean and Chinese diasporas in Japan can play an important intermediary role in overcoming the negative consequences of Japan's past aggressive actions towards Korea and China.

On October 12-14, 2004, the international scientific conference "Ethnic Minorities and the Strategy of Great Powers in Asia" was held in Honolulu (USA), organized by the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. It was attended by about 50 scientists from the United States, India, Great Britain, Russia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Israel, employees of the diplomatic missions of China, Russia and Sri Lanka in the United States.

The main theme of the conference was reflected in reports on inter-ethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka (the problem of Tamils), Indonesia (Aceh), India (North-Eastern States, Kashmir), and the Philippines (Islam-professing ethnic groups in Mindanao, known collectively as "Moro").

The Uyghur theme was unexpectedly loud among the stories related to national minorities. This was partly due to the professional orientation of a number of conference participants who specifically study Xinjiang, and partly due to attempts by Uighur separatist organizations outside of China to step up their activities. Thus, in April 2004, at a meeting in Germany, a number of separatist groups announced the creation of the "Uyghur World Congress", and in September 2004, the creation of the "Government of East Turkestan in exile"was announced. At the same time, the conference gave diametrically opposite assessments of the possible development of the situation in Xinjiang. So, Ms. Dreyer (June Teufel Dreyer) The University of Miami researcher believes that a combination of factors that destabilize the socio-political situation in China's western regions "can create conditions that allow separatist elements to realize their hopes for an independent political status in one form or another." On the contrary, Yitzhak Shichor From the University of Haifa, he considers " the prospect of reviving the East Turkestan Republic independent of China... practically nonexistent". The official attitude of Beijing to the problem of "East Turkestan" was reflected in the report of Xu Bu, Adviser to the Chinese Delegation to the UN.

At the same time, the focus of attention of the participants of the conference in Honolulu turned out to be the Indian, Chinese and Russian diasporas, that is, as one of the scientists jokingly but in essence rightly noted, not so much ethnic minorities as ethnic "majorities". This is natural in its own way, taking into account the gigantic scale of international migration in the modern world. According to the International Organization for Migration, at the beginning of this century, the total number of international migrants reached 175 million, or about 3% of the world's population. For example, the Indian diaspora is over 20 million strong, and to use a famous phrase once addressed to the British Empire, "the sun never sets." In the United States alone, the population of Indian origin (new immigrants and descendants of old ones) grew from 387,000 in 1980 to 1,678,000 in 2000 (Arthur Rubinoff, University of Toronto).

Among the materials of the Honolulu conference related to the Chinese diaspora, one should highlight the report of Elizabeth Vishnick (Columbia University East Asia Institute) "Economic security and the Chinese economy".

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migration to the Russian Far East", based largely on author's surveys of Chinese people traveling to work in Russia. Of the 250 Chinese workers interviewed by E. Vishnik in prov. In July 2004, only 4 people (1.6%) expressed a desire to become Russian citizens, and another 7 people (2.3%) would like to marry a Russian citizen. For half of the Chinese (123 people, 49.2%), the main motivation for going to work in Russia was unemployment in their own country.

Overall, Russia is a relatively modest recipient of Chinese labor services exports (less than 3% of China's total labor force exports at present). Up to 65% of Chinese who go to work in the Far East are residents of the prov. Heilongjiang, 10-15% in different years gives Jilin, and the majority of the rest are residents of Liaoning, Shandong and Jiangxi. At the same time, the three northeastern provinces together account for 17.6% of the total number of Chinese working abroad, while Fujian alone accounts for 17% and Jiangsu for 15.9%.

As noted at the conference, the total number of Russians living outside the borders of Russia is now 25-26 million people. The largest communities are located in Ukraine (8 million people), Kazakhstan (4.9 million people), the United States and Canada (3 million people). Despite the importance of developing a benevolent and financially supported policy towards compatriots abroad, the main thing for Russia in the foreseeable future is to overcome the trend of depopulation in its own country. Little by little, the idea that immigration flows, including from China, should be actively used for this purpose is gaining a wider public response. Perhaps this is one of the few real ways that will ultimately allow us to defend the territorial integrity of Russia. And the calls to "put something from the Trans-Ural territories on the table for sale, following the example of Alaska," which have been repeated periodically since the mid-1990s, were also made at the conference in Honolulu.

And one last thing. Contrary to the endlessly replicated myths about a certain "imperial character" of national politics in the former Soviet Union, and in today's Russia, the conferences in Bangkok and Honolulu directly or indirectly indicate the opposite. According to Charles Ziegler (University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA), " Central Asia is often described as a colonial appendage of Russia. However, Soviet rule brought significant benefits to the region, especially in areas such as literacy and education. The region has surpassed neighboring states in many indicators." And at the conference in Bangkok, scientists from Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Mongolia remembered their studies in the Soviet Union and Russia with extraordinary warmth, and some of them - many years after graduation - retained a good knowledge of the Russian language.

Probably, from stories of this kind, you can draw different conclusions or not draw any at all. I also remember Kipling's lines "... there, in a faraway place, I know, a girl from Burma remembers me", ending with the call "to return to Mandalay".

It's time for Russia to return to Asia. For the full program. It's not too late yet. There, unlike in Europe, we are appreciated and expected. And this is worth a lot.

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