Perfect Imbalance: China and Russia. Book talk with Dr. Una Berzina-Cerenkova

Join us for an engaging conversation between Dr. Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova (Riga Stradins University), Dr. Thomas Fingar (FSI), and Dr. Jovana Lazić Knežević (CREEES), who will discuss Dr. Bērziņa-Čerenkova's new book:

Perfect Imbalance: China and Russia. World Scientific Europe Ltd, 2022. 

The book seeks to answer one of the most important outstanding questions in twenty-first-century politics: how close are Putin's Russia and Xi's China?

Written by a scholar fluent in both Chinese and Russian, this book examines the current China–Russia partnership from several perspectives. First, what Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and their respective foreign policy establishments publicly say about the relationship between the countries. Second, how the two establishments frame their tangible cooperation on matters such as security, the Arctic, space, and international relations with other Eurasian countries. Finally, the book examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon Sino–Russian relations. Putin and Xi's stories, where possible, are cross-checked with what is really happening.

Perfect Imbalance argues that although Russia has not pivoted towards China, and although there is no official Sino–Russian alliance is in sight, the relationship will continue to grow and expand in search for a perfect imbalance.

Dr. Una Aleksandra Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a political scientist, China scholar, Head of Political Science PhD program and China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University, Head of the Asia program at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, a member of the China in Europe Research Network (CHERN) and European Think Tank Network on China (ETNC). After having defended her doctoral dissertation on traditional Chinese discourse, she has held a Senior visiting research scholar position at Fudan University School of Philosophy, Shanghai, China, and a Fulbright visiting scholar position at the Center for East Asia Studies, Stanford University. Bērziņa-Čerenkova is a European China Policy Fellow at MERICS and an affiliate of the Lau Institute at King's College, London.

Dr. Bērziņa-Čerenkova publishes on PRC political discourse, contemporary Chinese ideology, EU-China relations, Russia-China, and Belt and Road Initiative.

Open to Stanford affiliates and members of the general audience, RSVP requested. This event is part of Global Conversations, a new series of talks, lectures, and seminars focusing on the benefits and fragility of freedom. The series is co-sponsored by Stanford Libraries and Vabamu.