All eyes at the SCO annual meeting in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, are on the RIC—that is, Russia’s attempts to revive the Russia-India-China strategic triangle, despite the still-unresolved history of conflicts between India and China. So writes Suhasini Haidar today in The Hindu.
“You cannot rule out that Mr. Putin will try to bring the Indian and Chinese leaders to a conversation,” said India’s Pankaj Saran, both a former Ambassador to Russia and a former Deputy National Security Advisor. It was Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that engineered a “RIC” meeting, on the sidelines of the September, 2020 SCO ministerial meeting in Moscow, between India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. That success led to the more recent bilateral meeting between Wang and Jaishankar, being the first thaw in the relationship after the military confrontation between the two countries at Galwan in June, 2021.
Lavrov suggested to India’s President Modi last April that there be a meeting of the “troika’s” leadership at one of a number of international conferences that would be held this year. Saran commented: “RIC is a Russian effort, and it is important to remember that while neither China nor India may push for the RIC, they will not take it off the table, either. Eventually, it will all depend on India-China ties.”
As The Hindu notes, the RIC grouping was first promoted as a strategic option by then-Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov in the 1990s. But while 18 Foreign Minister-level meetings have been held since its initiation, the Heads of State have met only three times in this format, the last time on the sidelines of the Osaka G-20 in 2019.
Otherwise, New Delhi has seen the forging of the strategic relationship of China and Russia, and the growing trade and economic projects. Yesterday, Russia’s Ambassador to India, Denis Alipov, told RIA Novosti that New Delhi is exploring the possibility of boosting the export of medicines, agricultural products, electronics, and auto components to Russia. “As the problems associated with ensuring mutual settlements and logistical support for trade are resolved, the interest of Indian companies to the vacant niches in the Russian market is growing.” According to the Russian ambassador, the sides are exploring prospects for the development of investment cooperation in pharmaceuticals, hydrocarbon deposits, and the diamond sector. Alipov added that cooperation in the mining industry, civil aviation, and shipbuilding are also being considered.
The diplomat said earlier that trade turnover between Russia and India has been “increasing unprecedentedly,” reaching over $11 billion in the first six months of this year, compared to the $13.6 billion for the entirety of 2021. (This is about a 60% larger volume of trade.) He said that the two countries aim to boost the annual volume of mutual trade to $30 billion by 2025.
The misconceived and ill-intentioned project to isolate Russia could turn Moscow into the economic development lynchpin that steers the China-India relationship out of problems inherited from colonial times.
