Juggling competing interests

India will need to strengthen ties with Russia and China while simultaneously maintaining its strategic relationship with the United States

Officialese usually conceals more complex situations than it reveals. The invitations India received at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)  meeting in Bishkek from China and Russia to strengthen trade ties should not deflect attention from New Delhi’s need to craft a strategy to have good ties with them, while  simultaneously maintaining its strategic partnership with the US. And the communiqué’s call to end terrorism was preceded by China’s advice that India should not make an issue of Pakistan, which is also a member of the SCO. Obviously India and China have differences over how to handle Pakistan’s training and export of extremists.  

When it comes to trade ties, the SCO communiqué’s call to protect multilateral trade was preceded by a Chinese call asking India to team up to ward off America’s bullying trade practices. India’s response will strengthen or weaken India’s ties with China, Russia — or the US. The fact that India will retaliate against the US withdrawal of duty-free benefits under its Generalised System of Preferences does not imply that that it is somehow taking sides with China and Russia against the US.

After all, India has a border dispute with China. Should it ever come to the crunch, America’s global weight will count with India, because the US is the only country which can counter China’s growing military and economic clout singlehanded. 

India’s attitude to the US is at variance with those of Russia and China. Unlike India, Russia and China are challenging US global primacy. And one of the aims of their strategic partnership is to limit American influence in what they see as their own spheres of influence. For Russia this implies the Eurasian countries that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; for China, the South China Sea and more generally, the western Pacific. Unlike India, Russia supports China's claim to the South China Sea.

At another level, for all the talk in some Indian circles about Russia being India’s tried and trusted friend, Moscow is neutral on the Sino-Indian conflict. It has also advised India to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which India views as a unilateral push to advance China’s interests and a threat to India’s sovereignty, because it cuts across disputed turf in Pakistani-occupied Kashmir. 

On the US-Russia front, India should not view last October’s deal to buy Russia’s S-400 missile as implying that Russia has done it a unique favour. The missile will help India to track aircraft beyond its borders and project power in the Indian Ocean, where Beijing has grown increasingly assertive. But Russia has always had two irons in the fire. Moscow offered Beijing the S-400 in 2015 and started delivering the missile to China in 2018. Delivery to India of the S-400 will start in 2020 — if India does not back out of the deal under American pressure to buy the F-35 with the intent of advancing interoperability between Indian and US forces.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Both Russia and China sought closer economic collaboration with India at the meeting

Even if India sticks to the deal, the outstanding point is that the S-400 deal will not upset Sino-Russian ties. In fact, India and Russia signed the deal as Moscow and Beijing extolled the highest levels of their ties, and hailed the golden age of their partnership just before the SCO summit. 

India’s strategy pundits should also take note of other factors that strengthen Russia-China ties. China’s need for gas and oil entails amicable ties with neighbouring Russia, which is one of the world’s biggest energy producers. Also, with Moscow’s consent China has established a sizeable economic presence in Russia and Central Asia. It has built railways in Russia and constructed railway lines connecting Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to China.  Earlier this year, their connectivity was further strengthened by the building of a railway bridge across the Amur River, linking the Russian Far East with northeast China. 

The Russia-China call for more Indian investment and trade is welcome. But China is already the top trading partner of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEAU). In 2016, India ranked in 18th place in the EEAU’s imports and 15th place in the EEAU’s exports. Unfortunately, India’s efforts to connect with Russia and Central Asia are hampered by the absence of shared borders with any country in the region. 

At another level, some in New Delhi wrongly thought that the International North-South Corridor (INSTC) could counter China’s BRI. Founded in 2002 by India, Iran and Russia, the INSTC was inaugurated in January 2018. Apart from India, all other members of the INSTC, which include Iran, Eurasian Russia and its “near abroad” in Central Asia, the Caucuses and Europe, have joined the BRI. Each has stronger trade and investment ties with China than with India. And Indian media reports have missed the listing of the INSTC in the Annex to the joint communiqué issued after China’s Second Belt and Road Forum on April 27 — though it is not specified what projects China will carry out along the Corridor. 

The SCO meeting highlights the necessity for New Delhi to build bilateral ties with Beijing and Moscow. But as it tries to maxmise its diplomatic options, it must reconcile India’s need with its wish to strengthen its strategic partnership with the US, whose global ascendancy is challenged by China and Russia.    

The writer is Founding Professor, Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, New Delhi