Opinion Old friends in a new world

For it is a taboo in the Indo-Russian discourse to mention China except in the context of strengthening the triangular cooperation and its expansion to include other emerging powers such as Brazil and South Africa.

This silence,however,is unsustainable as India and Russia come to terms with the rise of China as the single most important geopolitical fact of our time.

Delhi and Moscow can pretend in public that they are building an “Eastern bloc” with China to limit the power of the West. In private they cannot but fret about the shifting internal balance within the East amidst the emergence of China as a great power.

In any case the Indian and Russian posturing on the “strategic triangle” is unlikely to impress Beijing. After all China has a strong tradition of realism in the conduct of its external relations.

Nor can China ignore the fact that the clutch of defence and nuclear deals between Delhi and Moscow will have some impact on Beijing’s own perceptions of the balance of power in southern Asia.

China has long countered the Indo-Russian security cooperation by expanding its own strategic military transfers to Pakistan. Just as a new phase in Indo-Russian defence cooperation has begun,so has the broadening of the Sino-Pak defence cooperation that includes the joint production of fighter aircraft.

It is also not clear if the convergence of Russian and Indian interests in Afghanistan — the most important security challenge in the region — is shared by China,which is a close partner of Pakistan.

But first the question of the strategic triangle and its changing political context. The Russian initiative for triangular cooperation with China and India in the mid-’90s was a response to Moscow’s fears about a unipolar world dominated by the United States.

The once feared “hyperpower” is now widely seen as headed for an inevitable relative decline. And few now doubt the proposition that the principal challenger for the US is China.

Unlike the US,which resides in another hemisphere,China is next door to Russia and India and shares massive frontiers with both. For all their anxieties about the US,it is the rise of Chinese power that directly affects the relative positions of Russia and India in the Asian hierarchy.

And nothing gives the jitters to Delhi and Moscow more than the prospect of a political accommodation between Washington and Beijing — the so-called Group of Two. Although the idea of a Sino-US condominium has lost some

of its shine in recent months,Dr Singh and Putin know that China has begun to outrank Russia,let alone India,in the American strategic calculus.

Moscow’s security discourse remains focused on the US and NATO. Russia’s recently announced military doctrine does

not say a word about China. That does not mean Moscow is not concerned about the implications of China’s rise.

Nor is Beijing unaware of the internal debate in Moscow about a potential China problem. Beijing has also been irritated by the Russian reluctance to open up gas sales (as opposed to oil trade) and its arms transfers to China’s neighbours,including Vietnam and India.

India’s relationship with Russia is often framed,in the public domain,as an anti-American project. But those familiar with the history of Indo-Russian partnership know well that it was shaped as much by Beijing as it was by Washington.

The foundation of the Indo-Russian strategic partnership in the late ’50s and early ’60s took place in conjunction with the rapid deterioration in the ties between the ruling communist parties in Moscow and Beijing.

The Indo-Russian treaty of peace and friendship of 1971,in turn,was a direct consequence of the Sino-US rapprochement initiated by President Richard Nixon and his National Security Adviser,Henry Kissinger.

If a relatively weak and internally divided China has had such an impact on the Indo-Russian relationship,a rising China will begin to shape the entire global and regional context of the partnership between Delhi and Moscow.

India and Russia,then,could do with an honest discussion between their leaders about China. Such a discussion does not mean Delhi and Moscow have to return to their old anti-Chinese ways.

Given the centrality of China in world commerce and international politics,there is no way Delhi and Moscow could contain Beijing even if they wanted to. What India needs is not a diminution of the Chinese role in Asia but an expansion of the Russian one.

Dr Singh must press Putin to get Russia to pay as much consideration to the Asian balance of power as it does to Europe and the US. The Slavs,like the Indians,love grand-standing on global issues; it is about time that they focused a little more narrowly on regional security issues in Asia.

India must encourage Russia to take a more active role in the Indian Ocean. Delhi and Moscow could also begin to promote

better coordination between their policies in southern and eastern Asia.

India and Russia already have a mechanism to discuss Afghanistan. They must now institutionalise a new framework to discuss the full range of regional security issues in the littorals of the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific.

The Indo-Russian strategic discourse has been dominated by the nitty gritty of bilateral cooperation and an abstract notion of “promoting multipolarity” during the last decade and a half. As a world of many powers dawns,India and Russia have their task cut out in Asia.

raja.mohan@expressindia.com