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