The unprecedented terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the creation of the anti-terrorist coalition made significant adjustments in world politics, especially in the Muslim world-from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the former Soviet Central Asia to Yemen and Sudan, as well as to neighboring countries-from the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the PRC to Chechnya and Kosovo.

However, new threats - international terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, etc. - have not eliminated the classic threats to international and regional security that have existed since the first state formations appeared in the East five thousand years ago. Neither did the Treaty of Versailles, nor the victory of the anti-fascist coalition in World War II, nor the end of the Cold War.

The threat of armed conflict between States remains, as do numerous ethnic conflicts, which have become even more widespread and violent in the unipolar world. The danger of a nuclear missile war, especially a local one, has not been completely eliminated. And such a war or even a major interstate conflict would be fraught with losses incommensurable with the bloodiest terrorist attacks, estimated at hundreds of thousands and millions of human lives.

Now the focus is on the threat of an Arab-Israeli war, as well as an armed conflict in the Persian Gulf region in connection with possible US military operations against Iraq.

However, the number one contender for a large-scale armed conflict between the great powers-the United States, China and Japan - remains the last reserve of dangerous Cold War relics in East Asia. These are primarily two potential hotbeds of fierce confrontation - the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.

The counterterrorism war has not had a noticeable impact on the region, with the exception of the participation of American instructors in operations of the former colony and long-time US ally of the Philippines against Muslim separatists associated with international centers of terrorism in the south of the country.

The current Republican administration of George W. Bush - one of the most conservative and belligerent in all the years after World War II - from the very beginning set a course for a tough confrontation between China and North Korea. Unlike Clinton, who elevated U.S.-China relations to the rank of a strategic partnership in 1998 and made considerable efforts to mitigate the situation on the Korean peninsula, Bush described Beijing as a "regional rival", returned Pyongyang to the status of a"pariah" country, and recently ranked it along with Iraq and Iran in the " axis evil." For the first time since the normalization of US-Chinese relations, the head of the White House openly declared support for Taiwan in the event of an armed conflict.-

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conflict with China. The preoccupation with the anti-terrorist war and Bush's visit to Beijing softened the rhetoric somewhat, but did not change the essence of Washington's Chinese policy.

Against this background, the situation in Southeast Asia remains tense. For the first time since World War II, the traditional rivalry between China and Japan in Southeast Asia has sharply escalated, moving from an implicit struggle to an open one. With Washington's active involvement, the arms race is intensifying on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The source of tension remains the South China Sea and the Paracel Islands and Spratly Islands (Nansha), which are claimed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei. According to some analysts in the region, Beijing has been carrying out a "creeping occupation" since the Chinese armed forces seized the Paracel Islands in the final stage of the American War in Vietnam,driving out the Vietnamese. The result was a clash between the Chinese and Vietnamese Navies in March 1988. In the 1980s and 1990s, Beijing also established control over some of the Spratly Islands. The Philippines also sent its ships to the area of the territorial dispute.

Our magazine opens the Regional Security subheading with articles about the rivalry between Tokyo and Beijing in Southeast Asia, the arms race between China and Taiwan, and disputed islands in the South China Sea.

In the future, we intend to cover traditional threats in other regions of Asia and Africa as well.

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