Page 3 of
3 A velvet divorce in
China By M K Bhadrakumar
China's rise. Like India, Russia
realizes that China's influence in Asia-Pacific
has grown in impressive terms over the recent
period. Russia has taken note of an optimistic and
confident China, which in the past year or two in
particular has begun displaying a new strategy and
a new understanding of Asian security in terms of
trade and economic cooperation based on China's
capacity to contribute to Asia's overall
prosperity. Clearly, the economic
situation in Asia would no
longer look good without China.
But the
Russian and Indian assessments of the import of
this diverge insofar as Russia doesn't see that
China's stronger regional influence in any way
weakens Russian influence. On the contrary, Moscow
estimates that China's bigger role in Asia
increases Russia's influence there. This will
become more so, from the Russian point of view, as
regional cooperation within the framework of the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization gains momentum
and the multi-layered military-technical
cooperation programs between Russia and China get
more closely linked. As a Russian commentator
wrote recently, "China's success [in Asia] has not
left anyone empty-handed."
This, of
course, is not the sole factor behind the
weakening of the Russia-China-India trilateral
format as apparent at the Harbin meet. Two other
factors must be counted. First, the gradual shift
in Indian foreign policy, especially during the
past two to three years under the present
government in Delhi, towards placing primacy on
its strategic partnership with the US, has begun
to be noticed in Moscow. Not that it came entirely
as a surprise.
Moscow is, historically
speaking, not unaware that the natural choice of
the English-speaking political elite in Delhi has
always been its sense of affinity with the West
and it was the West that was not prepared to
accommodate India in the Cold War period. Moscow
could as well have anticipated that in the present
era of globalization, the West would inevitably
take a good second look at India. Equally, Russia
is no stranger to Asiatic mentality and would see
what was so apparent, namely, that the growing
migration of the upper caste Indians to North
America would eventually compel the Indian elite
to move close to the US.
But, Moscow was
inclined until recently to trust India's capacity
to maintain an independent foreign policy, even if
pragmatism required close proximity with the US in
the post-Cold War era. It appears Moscow has
lately begun wondering whether, alas, India is
genuinely embarking on a path of becoming
America's ally.
Moscow is also aware that
in comparison, Delhi has allowed Russian-Indian
relations to lapse into a state of masterly
inactivity in the recent past. Economic relations
have remained stagnant. People-to-people relations
have atrophied and political exchanges have lost
their fizz. Military cooperation has run into
problems. Moscow must have begun sensing that
India's nuclear deal with the US provides the
perfect backdrop for the US to enter the Indian
arms market in a major way and to establish
inter-operability between the armed forces of the
two countries. This will indeed mean the erosion
of Russia's traditional role as India's arms
supplier.
What is particularly
disconcerting for Moscow is that the US-Indian
strategic partnership and the steady gravitation
of India to US geostrategy is taking place at a
time when US-Russia relations continue to
deteriorate. A genuinely non-aligned India, which
in its national interests is forging close ties
with the US - that is something that Russia would
have no problems with. But Russia has a problem
reconciling with the idea of an India that is
under compulsion to harmonize its foreign policy
with US global strategies, as increasingly seems
to be the case.
Meltdown in Sino-Indian
ties Equally, the strains in India's
relations with China in the recent period have
begun casting a shadow on the trilateral
Russia-China-India format. The optimism apparent
during the period from 2000 until 2005 about a
possible breakthrough in Sino-Indian relations has
ebbed away. China too perceives that the US is
drawing "India in as a tool for its global
strategic pattern", though China still likes to
say it believes that "India's DNA doesn't allow
itself to become an ally subordinate to the US,
like Japan or Britain".
In sum, both
Russia and China will carefully gauge how India's
nuclear deal with the US and its rapidly growing
strategic partnership with the US could come to
affect the strategic balance in Asia. On its part,
India has become more than ever determined that
its participation in the trilateral format
involving Russia and China must in no way cause
misgivings in the American mind to the effect that
an Asian concert is gearing up to challenge US
global strategies.
In Harbin, Yang
signaled that China is prepared to wait for India,
and is in no hurry. He gave a positive spin in his
capacity as the host, though, when he said,
"Trilateral cooperation has achieved important
progress ... consensus on international issues is
gradually increasing, pragmatic exchanges and
cooperation in economic and other fields is
gradually developing in recent years. The
trilateral meeting has already become a key
platform for all the three countries to enhance
mutual political trust, expand exchanges and
cooperation."
Yang also said the
trilateral cooperation was of "great potential and
wide prospects" and therefore it was of "great
necessity" to strengthen such cooperation. Lavrov
remained by far the most optimistic. Expanding on
Yang's optimism, he said, "The platform of the
troika is truly becoming one more point of mutual
attraction of our countries and one tool for
developing our mutually advantageous cooperation."
He stressed the three countries' common positions
on "such principled issues as bolstering the UN's
role and the multilateral approach in world
affairs, the necessity of recognizing the
realities of multipolarity, democratizing
international relations and tackling all current
problems in the world by collective means".
What stood out was Mukherjee's reticence
at the press conference, where he manifestly
played down the import of the trilateral format by
stating that the Harbin meeting merely facilitated
an exchange of views on regional and international
issues. He said the format "improves mutual
understanding and trust" with regard to the common
challenges of regional conflicts, terrorism,
narco-trafficking, underdevelopment, poverty and
climate change as well as about developing
"sectors of common business interest" and about
"cooperation in areas such as agriculture,
disaster mitigation and public health".
Mukherjee summed up the Harbin meet as a
"very useful interaction". He sidestepped thorny
issues such as multipolarity or unilateralism. He
made sure he didn't get anywhere near using
problematic expressions such as "double
standards", either.
Former Russian prime
minister and prominent orientalist Yevgeny
Primakov couldn't have anticipated such a
disparate outcome when a decade ago he first
mooted the idea of the Russia-China-India
trilateral format during a visit to New Delhi.
M K Bhadrakumar served as a
career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for
over 29 years, with postings including India's
ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey
(1998-2001).
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