Tragedy or farce?

If the BRICs and SCO are Russian and Chinese bargaining chips with America, what is India doing at Yekaterinburg? India has traveled down this road before when it deluded itself about Asian unity in the early years after independence and ignored the gathering crisis with China.

Within a decade Delhi was locked in a debilitating conflict with Beijing. Delhi faces similar challenges with Beijing today. These include the stalled boundary talks, deepening distrust on Tibet, and the gathering sense of mutual geopolitical encirclement.

If India sweeps these difficult bilateral issues under the carpet and indulges in soaring multilateral rhetoric with China, Beijing will administer a painful reality check sooner than later.Those in the South Block who remember the tragic results from the delusions of Asian unity in the 1950s, one hopes, do recognise that the chatter in Yekaterinburg on Eurasian solidarity is little more than that.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.