'Today, in the age of digital technologies and AI, Asian and African studies are still a trend just like 10, 20 or even 50 years ago’
Maria Soloshcheva, Institute of Asian and African Studies
I got my bachelor's, master's and PhD degrees at the Faculty of Asian and African Studies, St Petersburg University. In 2014, I defended my PhD thesis devoted to Chinese-Tibetan relations in the 18th century. During my studies, I spent a year on an internship in China.
In 2014, I joined HSE University-St Petersburg upon the invitation of the professor Evgeny Zelenev who is a founder of the Asian and African studies direction at HSE University campus in St Petersburg and a director of the Institute for Asian and African Studies.
We started as a department consisting of only 10 professors teaching 60 students. Today, the institute comprises 6 departments, more than 100 professors and almost 500 students.
My research interests cover two main directions. First, it's internal politics of the PRC regarding ethnic minorities and autonomous regions as well as external politics of the PRC towards Africa and the Middle East.
Some people may be surprised that I combine the history of the 18th century and the modern era but as a historian, I am sure that we should look for the roots of modern political and economic problems in the historical past. The depth of this historical past is the true indicator of a historian's expertise.
Both directions I engage in are extremely topical in modern Russia which is establishing the relations of strategic partnership with the PRC. I'll try to make it clear: for the PRC, partnership is the first and initial level of bilateral international cooperation. Then, the other two come: adherents-countries and allies-countries. Russia is only going through the first level but the potential of the Chinese-Russian cooperation is evidently huge, and the prospects of regional cooperation either in Africa or the Middle East are colossal. Only think of it: by 2050, the Africans and Arabs will have accounted for 1/5 of the whole world population with which the PRC already has established the closest relations in the form of adherents-countries and allies-countries.
As for the Chinese policy towards national minorities, primarily, those 5 registered as national autonomies and the other 50 minorities living in China, it is one of the most important directions of the national policy which may influence the sovereignty of the PRC in general. In this case, I do not draw any analogies with the USSR collapse but I can highlight that the integrality of modern China depends not only on political, economic and military force but also on how inter-Chinese inter-ethnic and inter-cultural cooperation will be organise
At HSE University, I value that it is a modern university which creates conditions for implementing the research potential of its employees and also encourages the development and regular updating of educational programmes. The latter is especially important under the conditions of constant increase in the pace of modern technology development.