Growing Russia-India-China Tensions: Splits in the RIC Strategic Triangle? - The Diplomat, 17 March 2020

In one of my earlier columns for The Diplomat, I looked at the growing tensions within the Russia-India-China strategic triangle. I argue that there are growing tensions in New Delhi’s engagement within this arrangement and its other alignments.

India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr. S Jaishankar will be heading to Russia later in the month for a ministerial-level trilateral meeting among three Eurasian powers of the RIC group: Russia, India and China (RIC). The meeting, to be held in Sochi on March 22-24, is meant to take stock of major geopolitical developments affecting the Indo-Pacific region.

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According to reports, the meeting will possibly discuss the recently-concluded Afghanistan peace deal, the return of the Quad (quadrilateral security dialogue involving Australia, India, Japan and the United States), the Indo-Pacific concept and the implications of the end of the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty for the region. The last RIC leaders meeting took place on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Osaka in July 2019, just after another trilateral between three democracies – Japan, America, and India (JAI).

RIC came together as a strategic triangle in the late 1990s under the mentorship of Yevgeny Primakov as “a counterbalance to the Western alliance.” The Russian goal was the “end[ing] its foreign policy guided by the US,” and rebuilding old partnerships with countries like India nurturing relatively newer friendships such as with China.

While this may have fitted at least partially with India’s goals in those years, it is unclear if this fits with Indian objectives now as New Delhi increases its strategic engagements with the United States and American allies. Indeed, India’s growing strategic partnership with the United States, Japan, and Australia conflicts with the RIC’s goals and objectives of seeking to undermine Washington’s role in the Indo-Pacific. Washington’s support to India on a number of critical issues, demonstrated most recently when China attempted to raise the Kashmir issue at the UN Security Council, is important. In fact, it is the rise of China that is at the front and center of many of India’s strategic engagements.

India has traditionally avoided taking sides in international politics, especially between the great powers, preferring its traditional nonalignment. But China’s rather hostile attitude towards India in recent years is increasingly forcing Indian decisionmakers to confront what China’s growing power has come to mean for India. The 72-day long Doklam crisis, China’s repeated actions at the United Nations, and other forums appears to demonstrate that China is aggressive and unfriendly towards India. This makes it difficult to see how engagements through platforms such as RIC, the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS), or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are going to alter the basic conflictual nature of relations between India and China.

Even though Russia has remained an old friend for India, New Delhi seems to realize that Moscow is increasingly under stress to follow China’s dictates. In January this year, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was openly opposing the Indo-Pacific concept, that too at the Raisina Dialogue, a major geopolitical conference organized by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a prominent Indian think-tank (full disclosure: the author works at the ORF).

Responding to a question on the Russian perspective and role in the Indo-Pacific, he said it is nothing but an initiative “to contain China,” and is divisive in nature. He went on to ask: “Why do you need to call Asia-Pacific as Indo-Pacific? The answer is evident… to exclude China. Terminology should be unifying, not divisive. Neither Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) nor the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) grouping is exclusionary.”

Even on issues such as the Jammu and Kashmir, which China raised at the UN Security Council, Russia preferred taking a middle position, not supporting India’s stand entirely for fear of offending China. It seems that while relations with India are important but for Moscow, its ties with Beijing are far more important and takes precedence over every other relationship.

Russia’s position at the closed-door session of the UN Security Council was revealing. After the meeting, the Russian representative at the UN said, “Russia continues to consistently promote normalization of India – Pakistan ties. We hope that existing divergences around Kashmir will be settled bilaterally by political and diplomatic means only.. .. on the basis of Simla Agreement of 1972 and Lahore declaration of 1999, in accordance with UN Charter, relevant UN resolutions and bilateral agreements between India and Pakistan.” Highlighting the UN resolutions to resolve the bilateral disputes between India and Pakistan “marked a sharp variance from Russia’s traditional position on Kashmir.” The two tweets by the Russian Representative in New York were further retweeted by the Russian foreign ministry Twitter account, which served to confirm the Russian position on the Jammu and Kashmir issue.

Overall, India’s strategic goals appear to be increasingly incongruent with that of Russia and China. As another case in point, even as the three foreign ministers will be meeting to discuss the Afghan peace deal, Moscow did not invite India to the recent meeting it hosted on Afghanistan. For all the rhetoric on finding a regional solution to Afghanistan, India has been kept out of such deliberations at the behest possibly of China and Pakistan. While there is merit to India engaging both Russia and China, it cannot mask the fact that there are growing tensions within the RIC grouping.

Russia-India-China Trilateral Grouping: More Than Hype? - The Diplomat, 5 July 2019

In my column for The Diplomat last week, I wrote on the Russia-India-China grouping, looking at the rhetoric and reality of it.

During the G-20 Summit in Osaka, Russia, India, and China (RIC) held the latest iteration of a trilateral meeting between them. While the grouping itself is nothing new – the notion of meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting began last year and many other meetings were held during the G-20 meeting this year as well – the RIC nonetheless stole the headlines this year.

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RIC as a strategic grouping first took shape in the late 1990s under the leadership of Yevgeny Primakov as “a counterbalance to the Western alliance.” Primakov, a Russian politician and diplomat who was also the prime minister of Russia from 1998 to 1999, is credited with the idea for RIC. The group was founded on the basis of “end[ing] its subservient foreign policy guided by the U.S.,” and “renewing old ties with India and fostering the newly discovered friendship with China.”

But the idea of meeting at the leader’s level on a more sustained basis has only surfaced over the past couple of years. The three sides had done so last year at the G-20 meeting in Argentina, where there was also a focus on the trilateral summit between the United States, India and Japan, called JAI (Japan, America, India). And on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in Kyrgyzstan, the leaders agreed to meet again in Osaka during the G-20 Summit.

The RIC meeting this year is only the third heads of state meeting of the group in 12 years, which speaks to the state of the play among the three countries in nurturing this strategic grouping. Nonetheless, in the current period of geopolitical transition, there is an effort to renew and rebuild some of these old initiatives as a way to counter the U.S.-led world order.

These efforts started in Bishkek, when Russian President Vladimir Putin, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Chinese President Xi Jinping held separate bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the SCO Summit. Reports speak of great “personal chemistry between Putin, Xi and Modi” that has “worked wonders.” While the Russia-China leg of the triangle has been fairly strong in the last few years, Modi has also had reasons in recent times to cozy up to Russia and China in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war with India, especially since the Trump administration has withdrawn India’s Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and imposed tariffs on Indian goods.

To be sure, India has remained a key partner in the United States’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy, and Modi too has sought a close strategic partnership with the United States in an effort to address China’s rising power. But the recent trade and tariff war may cast a negative shadow on the broader U.S.-India strategic ties, which stands to advantage China and Russia. It is no coincidence that the RIC meeting and the strengthened bonhomie among the three leaders has come amid these difficulties between the United States and India. While U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in India in late June to assuage some of the growing difficulties in the India-U.S. bilateral ties, the trip, as well as Pompeo’s statement “Modi hai toh Mumkin Hai” (“Modi makes it possible”), did very little to change the broader strategic dynamics with New Delhi.

In this respect, how the RIC meeting was perceived and portrayed at G-20 in Osaka came as no surprise. Unlike the second edition of the JAI Summit, which did not get much attention, the RIC meeting was trumpeted as a major success for developing economies, emphasizing the need for free and open markets, and opposing any efforts at protectionism, all clearly targeting Trump’s America. Clearly, Xi and Putin pitched this at the ideal moment, when New Delhi is the latest of many who have come under Trump’s tariff war.

Modi, in his opening remarks to the RIC meeting in Osaka, underlined the importance of the RIC grouping and the exchange among the three on the global economic, political, and security situation. He highlighted the usefulness of the exchange of views at the earlier meeting of the RIC foreign ministers in China in February. Modi said that the foreign ministers had discussed all important issues including “promotion of counterterrorism, international hot-spot issues, reformed multilateralism, climate change and cooperation under RIC.”

Xi, for his part, is reported to have emphasized the importance of the three countries in the context of upholding multilateralism. He urged the leaders of Russia and India to assume “global responsibility” to defend their national interests while pushing for a multilateral world order. Xi went on to add that “the rise of protectionism and unilateralism has severely affected global stability and economic growth, as well as the existing international order which emerging economies and developing countries have relied on.” Clearly, Xi was trying to muster greater support amidst the ongoing U.S.-China trade war.

It is not clear how Modi will weather the tariffs issue, and New Delhi may not find much relief by going with the RIC to address this issue. While Modi has to be mindful of the charm offensive by Xi and Putin, which obviously works to their own self-interest because of their own difficulties with the United States, Washington must also play its cards carefully and not let New Delhi fall into Beijing’s lap. The United States and India must ensure their current trade and tariff issues do not lead to serious strategic disagreement. The two cannot afford to miss the emerging geopolitical realities driven by China’s growing power. So far, the United States and India have been able to more or less maintain the momentum in the relationship and it has been mutually beneficial. It is too early to say if the calculations are changing.