Vitaliy Boldyrev, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: boldyrev89@list.ru.
The paper examines the place and role of China in US policy for building the Pacific region. Historical time is a key factor that influenced the US efforts. American historical time is understood as a phenomenon with five dimensions: dynamic, structural, narrative, ideal and cultural civilizational. Also, US policy was influenced by the spatio-temporal organization of the region. Between the 1980s and the mid-2010s, liberal ideas dominated in American foreign policy and pursued a goal to build an American-centric economic space supported by a set of shared norms and rules. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was the quintessence of the course. At first, China fitted in US suggested model of the region due to capacious, poorly developed but reforming market as well as tensions with the USSR. In the late 1980s, for the first time there were reasons for US policymakers to perceive China negatively, which were stopped by economic interests. The situation changed by the mid-2010s. First, there was growing dissatisfaction with the removal of industries. Second, by implementing the TPP initiative, the US government was missing new trends in building the region. Third, the Asia-Pacific secu rity architecture left a wide field for political manoeuvre. Fourth, China, borrowing and adapting American liberal ideas, offered its own alterna tive for the formation of the regional space. This provoked discontent in US economic and political circles. Therefore, Washington rethought Chinese view on building the region (the “umbrella” nature of basic ideas, state-centrism) and suggested an extensive Indo-Pacific concept and a number of multi-lateral economic formats with directly declared purpose to build the US-centric space.
Keywords: USA, China, Silk Road, Indo-Pacific region, Chinese initiatives, liberalism, foreign policy, historical time

Valery Mishin, Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: val.mishin@mail.ru.
The paper is dedicated to exploring the dynamics of the current situa tion on the Korean Peninsula since the rise to power of the conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol in South Korea. It analyzes the extent of his foreign policy’s impact on the security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region. The vectors of South Korean diplomacy are highlighted along with the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) involvement in the formation of the so called “Asian bloc system” under the aegis of the USA. The study is based on the analysis of the ROK’s national security concept, the so-called “Washington Declaration” of April 26, 2023, the results of the trilateral summit between the United States, the ROK, and Japan at Camp David on 11 August 2023 as documents defining the global nature of the alliance with the USA, emphasizing the alignment of the Yoon Suk-yeol admin istration’s foreign policy with the bloc security policy of other regional allies. The aim of the study is to identify threats within the context of Yoon Suk-yeol’s bloc policy, arising amidst the global world restructuring, shifts in the balance of power, the development vectors of the region, and the strengthening of pro-American sentiments among South Korea’s conservative elite. The research objective is to demonstrate that South Korea’s accession under President Yoon Suk-yeol to bloc formats under the aegis of the USA carries the threat of a sharp escalation of tension on the Korean Peninsula as well as losses in traditional relations with China and Russia.
Keywords: South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, bloc policy, regional security, Washington Declaration, North Korea.

Egor Razumov, Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: razumov@yeboshi.ru.
This paper attempts to analyze the Chinese policy for establishing cyber units as a part of PRC’s national security. The paper examines the process of creation and development of specialized cyber forces, including key moments in the establishment of the Information Support Forces in 2024. The doctrinal basis and functions of the official cyber forces within the People’s Liberation Army of China are analyzed, and trends in the development of cybersecurity in the People’s Republic of China are identified. Special attention is paid to the strategic aspects of cybersecurity including the integration of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and big data into military operations. The paper emphasizes the significance of cyber forces in ensuring national security and protecting critical infrastructure from cyberattacks and espio nage. It examines how cyber forces contribute to the modernization of the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China by enhancing their capability to manage and coordinate military operations. The conclusion of the paper highlights the need for further research in the field of cyber units in the People’s Republic of China. The importance of integrating innovative technologies into military doctrine to maintain techno logical independence and strengthen national security is underscored. It is noted that the further development of the cyber forces of the People’s Liberation Army of China will play a crucial role in the modernization of the armed forces and the strengthening of China’s position on the inter national stage, contributing to its transformation into a leading cyber power. Thus, cybersecurity and the development of cyber forces become the integral elements of the national security strategy of the People’s Republic of China.
Keywords: China, PLA, cybersecurity, cyber warfare, national security, military construction, artificial intelligence.

Galina Mikhailova, Far Eastern Fire and Rescue Academy — branch of Saint Peters burg University of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: judges64@mail.ru.
The paper highlights the issues of the development of Chinese higher education in the training of fire safety specialists. The paper presents the history of fire safety development in China, the emergence of the first fire brigades, which allows to trace the continuity of the fire protection measures. It is noted that the aspect of professionalization of firefighters and the “specialization” of universities and faculties became crucial with the formation of the People’s Republic of China. The relevance of fire safety issues continued to increase due to the rapid economic develop ment of the country in the 1950s. The paper describes the formation of the system of higher education in the field of fire safety, distinguishes three stages in its modern development, characterizes each stage with its own concept, provides statistical data on the number of fires, indicating the need for a more thorough and thoughtful system of fire safety measures, and, consequently, on the improvement of the training of specialists in the field of engineering fire protection. The reforms undertaken by the Government of the People’s Republic of China mod ernized the activities of universities in this field, the State Laboratory of Fire Science was formed, whose leaders are committed to strength ening China’s scientific base for fundamental research and innovation. The focus is on research activities that contribute to the improvement of fire safety regulations and the education system in this field.
Keywords: higher education, fire safety, professionalization of firefighters.

Alexander Prasol, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok. E-mail: aprasol@gmail.com.
The Oninki military chronicle (“Records of the Onin Years”) is the main source of information about the largest military conflict of medieval Japan. The war, which lasted from 1467 to 1477, was a turning point in the system of military rule. It dealt a crushing blow to the Ashikaga regime and set in motion an uncontrollable mechanism of internecine warfare throughout the country. The chronicle describes the events that took place in the central part of the country several years before and during the war. The author of the chronicle is unknown, but judging by the anti-war orientation of the text, it is most likely a monk or an aristocrat of low rank, closely associated with the Buddhist clergy. In favor of this assumption is the obvious adherence to Confucian values, to which the author appeals throughout the text. The detailed description of events indicates that the text was written soon after the end of the war, perhaps even in the 1470s. The reliability of the information is generally commendable although today’s knowledge of this period is much more complete. Structurally, the chronicle consists of three scrolls. The first scroll describes the events leading up to the outbreak of war and the first battle in the capital between the contenders for the supremacy of the Hatakeyama family. Hatakeyama Masanaga and his patron Hoso kawa Katsumoto, who had been defeated in this battle, retaliated and began full-scale fighting in the capital. The battles lasted from late May to mid-October 1467. These events constitute the content of the second scroll, which translation is presented in this paper. The description and the Russian translation of the Oninki are published in our country for the first time. The translation is provided with detailed commen tary and illustrations to facilitate the perception of medieval realities. The paper aims to expand the base of Japanese medieval monuments translated into Russian.
Keywords: Muromachi period, war of the Onin years, Ashikaga Yoshi masa, period of internecine wars.

Nikolay Vorontsov, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: nsv91@yandex.ru.
The paper is devoted to the problem of public perception of the Khabarovsk Territory of the plans for the construction of the Far Eastern nuclear power plant within the framework of the Long-term state program for the development of the region of 1987. Based on archival documents and press materials, the genesis of anti-nuclear protest as an important part of the regional environmental movement is analyzed. The factors that determined the emergence and growth of the anti-nuclear cam paign, the participation of townspeople and rural residents, representa tives of indigenous peoples of the Amur region are revealed. It is shown that under the conditions of perestroika and “glasnost” policy, the NPP designers faced a negative attitude from the local population, who had a deep distrust of nuclear energy after the Chernobyl accident. The nature of the protest, the main forms and methods of the campaign against the NPP, the conditions for the formation of the ideological base of the anti-nuclear movement are studied. The coverage of the problem of the construction of the NPP in the media of the Khabarovsk Terri tory is considered. The arguments of the opponents of the construc tion of the NPP are identified, and a dialogue with nuclear scientists and government officials is shown. The position of the opposite side, the defenders of the NPP construction, is presented. The reasons for their failure in defending their point of view are established. The author came to the conclusion about the pattern of success of the anti-nuclear public campaign, which managed to solve key problems: to gain a social base for the environmental movement, to disarm opponents by a combination of scientific argumentation and emotional influence based on the fear of a repetition of the Chernobyl disaster, and also to successfully indoc trinate part of the political leadership of the region.
Keywords: nuclear energy, Far Eastern Nuclear Power Plant, environ mental protest, perestroika, glasnost, Khabarovsk Territory.

Vladimir Podmaskin, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: podmaskin@yandex.ru. Russia. E-mail: supwin26@mail.ru.
The paper is devoted to a poorly studied problem. It is concluded that until the mid-19th century the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East had an extremely low level of knowledge about soil fungi and preserved the identity of the tradition of developing a specialized secret system of knowledge about wood fungi. They served as a significant indicator of life support and worldview, were associated with the invention and transportation of fire, treatment and food. It is impossible not to take into account the fact that ideas about mushrooms were supplemented by data from a “non-local” tradition. From the second half of the 19th century, under the influence of the food culture of Russian settlers, the aborigines experienced a break in tradition in changing practices in relation to edible soil mushrooms. The study showed that folk knowledge about mushrooms preserved the tradition of transmitting ethnic values ini tially perceived in the aspect of an esoteric function that contributes to mythologization. Currently, under the influence of positive folk know ledge of the incoming Russian population, there is a break in tradition and the emergence of exoteric stable principles of identity to natural resources in the mass consciousness of the indigenous people. We see how attitudes towards the lack of gastronomic interest in mushroom picking change over time, which reflects the identity of the culture of life support and changes in the socio-economic structure of ethnic commu nities. Today, with the development of market relations, the collection of edible mushrooms is sharply increasing and becoming an important source of income for the local population. It is significant that due to communication between the indigenous peoples of the North and the Russian population, the range of food products and medicinal pro ducts expanded. The methods of cooking mushrooms for food, collecting and harvesting them at present are analyzed. The study showed that on the basis of the dominant rational principles of folk knowledge about wild plants an original life support system is created aiming at de veloping adaptation and adaptive human activity in the extreme conditions of the Russian Far East.
Keywords: Tungus-Manchus, Paleo-Asians, folk knowledge, mushrooms (edible, medicinal, poisonous), traditional nature management, Russian Far East.

Marina Osipova, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), RAS, Saint Petersburg, Russia. E-mail: ainu07@mail.ru.
One of the important actions of the “bear festival” (ains. yomante) of the Ainu (indigenous peoples of the Pacific Islands) was the bear dance — yomante rims (upopo). It is a ritual dance of the Sakhalin, Kuril and Hokkaido Ainu. Yomante rims is considered as an ethnic dance having choreographic elements characteristic only for the Ainu dance. This is a round dance performed by men and women in the direction of the sun. Such dance is not typical for peoples who are hunters, fisher men and gatherer as the Ainu people were. Yomante rims is an ethnographic phe nomenon or a mystery among the bear dances of neighboring peoples. However, there are no comparative studies of the Ainu dance in domestic or foreign historiography and the dances of the Paleo-Asians of the Amur, Sakhalin, Chukotka and Kamchatka. That is why the purpose of this paper is to identify the structural features and semantic component of the bear dance of the Ainu on the basis of a comparative analysis of the performing arts of the Far-Eastern Paleo-Asian peoples, to describe its movements and musical accompaniment, and to determine the differences of the same dance of the Paleo-Asians. Based on field work and analysis of available sources, using descriptive, historical-systemic, comparative-historical and visual methods, the author made an attempt to understand this phenomenon in Ainu dance art. The study showed that the structural feature of the Ainu dance is its chain-circular and chain-ornamental structure. There aren’t any improvisations, and the pantomimic elements are insignificant. However, there was a version of the sitting dance, typical for the inhabitants of Chukotka. Unlike the thanksgiving dance of the Far Eastern Paleo-Asians, the Ainu dance was a dance-amulet of the soul of a bear “sent” to the Mountain Spirit. Despite these conclu sions, the question of the origin of yomante rims remains open.
Keywords: Ainu, bear festival, yomante rims (upopo), round dance, imitative dance, amulet dance, ethnographic phenomenon.

Alexander Varlamov, Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North (IHRISN), SB RAS, Yakutsk, Russia. E-mail: ataki2006@yandex.ru.
The paper is devoted to the Evenki ethnographic traditions associated with metal processing. The purpose of the research is to describe the metal processing as a stable ethnographic tradition of the Evenki and related ethnic groups from the Early Metal Age. The research methodology is based on the interdisciplinary approach that allows a comprehensive consider ation of the research topic based on the results and materials of various scientific disciplines. The results of the archaeological research suggest a correlation between the sites of the Early Metal Age and the carriers of the Proto-Tungus culture spread in the Baikal region, the Amur region and Yakutia. The common language stratum of the Tungus-Manchu peoples, which is associated with the names of metals and their processing, indicates its formation in the era of the ancient Tungus community. Archaeological data and historical documents indicate the Amur region and Primorye as the center for the development of Tungus metallurgy. The description of the Evenki ethnographic and worldview traditions shows the existence of their own culture of processing various metals for economic and ritual purposes. The plot-motif composition of the Evenki folklore indicates the existence of developed traditions of blacksmithing. In the epic tradi tion of the western Evenki, the blacksmith acts as a hero-avenger, a hero savior. In the epic of the eastern Evenki the traditions of metal processing are reflected in the typological image of a blacksmith-assistant and the image of a hero in metal armor. The description of metal processing traditions is typical for the genre of Evenki legends, which describe metal processing technologies, materials and facts related to the local history of clans and blacksmithing. Traditions of metal processing are found in the mythological motif “iron heart” and images of the shamanic pantheon. The stability of the ethnographic traditions of metal processing is reflected in the anthro ponymicon of the Evenki of different local groups.
Keywords: the Evenki, Tungus-Manchu peoples, Glazkov culture, Early Metal Age, Bronze Age, Ilou, Bohai, hero-blacksmith, blacksmith motif, Evenki anthroponymicon.

Anatoly Sartsev, Institute of History, Archeology and Ethnology of the Peoples of the Far East, FEB RAS, Vladivostok, Russia. E-mail: starcev.42@mail.ru.
It is believed that the ethnonym Ujlta was introduced into the ethno graphic literature of Russia by the Japanese philologist Jiro Ikegami. His proposal to introduce this ethnonym was supported by many ethno graphers of the post-Soviet period. However, the author of this paper believes that Jiro Ikegami was mistaken; the Oroks should be called by the ethnonym Uilta, not Ujlta. This version was supported only by A.M. Pevnov — a philologist from the Institute of Linguistic Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg). He pointed out the erroneous use of the term Ujlta instead of the original self-name of Uilta by post-Soviet researchers. After his evidence, ethnographers from the N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Moscow) agreed that the Oroks should be referred by the ethnonym Uilta. However, the ethnographers from the Institute of Ethnology do not admit their mistake in naming the Oroks, blaming local authori ties for this, who did not turn to linguists for advice on how to call the Oroks of Sakhalin. Considering the etymology of the ethnonym Uilta (Uil’ta), the author of the article believes that this name is associated with the placename Uil — a large village located in the places where the Oroks were formed and the affiliation suffix -ta, due to which the names are formed. Thus, the etymology of the word Uilta would mean “residents of the village of “Uil” or “Verkhovsky”. However, A.M. Pevnov rejects these versions and believes that there is no suffix -ta in the Orok lan guage, although in his publications he, referring to T. I. Petrova, uses this suffix repeatedly.
Keywords: Oroks of Sakhalin, problem, concept, ethnonymics, Ulta, Uilta, Ujlta, etymology, scientists, officials.

Victor Krivonogov, Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russia. E-mail: victor950@yandex.ru.
The research, carried out among the Bystrinsky Evens of Kamchatka during the ethnographic expedition in July-August 2023, aimed to identify contemporary ethnic processes. The main part of the group lives in the Bys trinsky district, in the village of Anavgai, where the Evens make up about two thirds of the population, and in the district center of Esso, where about 500 Evens live and make up a quarter of the population. During the research, a mass survey of the Evens population on their main ethnic territory was carried out using a special survey list, achieving a sampling rate of 25%. For adults, the questionnaire was filled according to their own answers, and for children it was filled according to their parents’ answers. In total, 196 questionnaires were completed. The mixed pattern of their settlement defined the peculiarities of contemporary ethnic processes — the Evens almost completely forgot their language and traditional culture and use the Russian language. A break of endogamy took place: more than half of the Evens families are mixed in terms of ethnic composition, most often with Russians, but occasionally with other nationalities (Koryaks, Itelmens, etc.). The majority of the Bystrinsky Evens are of mixed origin, and almost all children and youth are mestizos. The ethnic identity of the Evens is quite stable, in mixed families most children are idenitfied as Evens. Natural growth allows at least to maintain the number of this territorial group, but the recent increase in migration outside ethnic ter ritory leads to its reduction.
Keywords: Bystrinsky Evens, ethnic processes, ethnodemography, language processes, mixed marriages.