As practice shows a specificity of the Chinese approach is a long-term investigation of the market в длительных переговорных процессах and long negotiation processes that may end up with zero results. So during the reducing of its investments and withdrawing money from the Russian economy in 2018 and 2019 China refused to finance the pipeline “The force of Siberia”, invest in the construction of the Russia’s largest gas processing plant in the Amur region and considered the high-speed railway the Eurasia which was supposed to connect Beijing, Moscow and Berlin unprofitable. Chinese investment companies are often connected with the government financing therefore their investment decisions in many respects are not always motivated only by financial indicators. In our opinion at present the Russian participation in the project “One belt – one road” has mainly potential advantages and possibilities and real results for the Russian economy are very insignificant.

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China urged to speed up the pairing of the EAEU with the project «One belt – one road» 17.10.2018. URL: https://www.vestifinance.ru/articles/108722 (date of access: 13.12.2019). (in Russian)

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International experts positively assessed the results of the forum «One belt and one road» in Beijing 08.05.2019. URL: https://news.rambler.ru/other/42154117-mezhdunarodnye-eksperty-polozhitelno-otsenili-itogi-foruma-odin-poyas-odin-put-v-pekine/ (date of access: 14.12.2019). (in Russian)

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国驻俄罗斯大使李辉: “一带一路” 倡议开启中俄共同发展的新航程 = The Chinese Ambassador to Russia Li Hui: «The one belt – one road” Initiative opens a new path for the joint development of China and Russia. URL: https:// baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1610935269955576597&wfr=spider&for=pc (date of access: 18.12.2019). (in Chinese)

На фоне экспертных оценок деятельности АСЕАН и прогнозов вероятных тенденций ее развития отклик Ассоциации на вызовы, порожденные Четвертой промышленной революцией, приобретает исключительно большое значение. Оценивая достижения АСЕАН в «предцифровую» эпоху как основу ее политики по противодействию цифровым вызовам, авторы определяют степень нынешней и перспективной готовности Ассоциации эффективно управляться с ними. Выделяя исследование из числа большого количества работ о влиянии Четвертой промышленной революции на АСЕАН, авторы проводят следующую центральную мысль – основная уязвимость АСЕАН проистекает из взаимного наложения застарелых и нынешних проблем, что обусловило основную причину недостаточной готовности Ассоциации управляться с цифровыми вызовами, а не серьезность этих проблем как таковых. Научная новизна проведенного исследования состоит в выявлении оптимального средства снижения этой уязвимости. Выводы и рекомендации авторов по данному комплексу вопросов определяют научную уникальность исследования.

Ключевые слова: АСЕАН, цифровизация, безопасность, азиатско-тихоокеанское многостороннее сотрудничество, инициатива Пояса и Пути, Индо-Тихоокеанский регион, Россия.

As scholars review ASEAN’s performance, as well as predict likely trends of its future development, the association’s response to the challenges presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution becomes crucial. Assessing ASEAN’s pre-digital achievements as the foundation of its response to the emerging digital challenges, the authors specify the association’s current and prospective readiness to effectively cope with them. As distinguished from numerous writings on the aftereffects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for ASEAN, the central argument of the chapter is as follows. The key vulnerability of ASEAN’s policy is the overlap of the long-standing and present ASEAN’s shortcomings as the central reason behind its insufficient preparedness to face the digital challenges rather than the seriousness of these problems per se. The academic novelty of the research comes from distinguishing an appropriate remedy to decrease this vulnerability.

The actuality and the academic significance of the research stem from the authors’ identification and analysis of issues critical for ASEAN’s future evolution. Among these issues, the pivotal are prospects for the association to lose its digital sovereignty as a result of the intensifying Sino-American contradictions over the digital issues, the emergence of new imbalances between and within Southeast Asian states with negative implications for the ASEAN Economic Community. The aftereffects of the on-going digitalization of economic exchanges for ASEAN’s multilateral dialogue platforms and initiatives in the economic and political-security sphere. The authors’ findings on this set of issues, as well as their assessment, determine the academic originality of the paper.

Keywords: ASEAN, digitalization, security, Asia-Pacific multilateralism, Belt and Road Initiative, Indo-Pacific region, Russia.

The new period of globalization marked by an exponential increase of information flows with the concomitant benefits and challenges presents the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with serious policy dilemmas. By its very definition, the “brave digital world” can expand ASEAN’s possibilities to maintain the presently respectable rates of economic growth by exploring its new sources. But a deeper insight suggests that the same developments may well give the association strong reasons for concern rather than for optimism.