India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has probably never faced such a situation as it is now to engage in a positive diplomacy with the world’s three warring super powers — the US, China and Russia. India is getting increasingly trapped in the international power tussle following the Russia-Ukraine war. The growing Chinese influence on Russia and a simultaneous US pressure on India threaten to impact India’s time-tested friendly relationship with Russia. India has so far maintained a reasonable distance from the US-NATO-Russia-Ukraine conflict over the latter’s sovereignty. India’s increasing trade with Russia is discomforting the western powers. Russia continues to benefit from a network of partners and allies that includes Belarus, China, India, Iran and South Africa. But, with the time passing by, Russia is becoming increasingly dependent on support from China. Will such developments fracture in due course the India-Russia ties as China is regarded as India’s No.1 enemy?
In diplomacy, an enemy’s enemy is a friend. What about maintaining a strong relationship with an enemy’s friend? Russia is a close friend of India’s No.1 enemy, China. Sooner or later, China may try to dampen the Indo-Russian relationships. The question is: will Russia fall for it? Will China like to take on India, its leading import partner, diplomatically head on? India has emerged as China’s sixth largest export destination after the US, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam. Interestingly, China’s diplomatic animosity is yet to affect its global export push that helped the country become the world’s second largest economic power. Mainland China remained as the world’s biggest exporter, shipping US$3.594 trillion worth of products around the globe in 2022. China’s worsening diplomatic relationship with the US had little impact on its massive export to that country amounting $582.8 billion representing 16.2 percent of China’s total exports, last year.
In the trade and economic front, China has also emerged as India’s biggest import source and a major foreign direct investor. Last year, around 47 percent of mainland China’s exports by value were delivered to fellow Asian countries while 20 percent were sold to importers in Europe. China shipped nearly 20 percent worth of goods to North America. Smaller percentages went to Latin America (4.8 percent) excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean, Africa (4.6 percent), and Oceania (2.6 percent) led by Australia and New Zealand.
Ironically, the Russia-Ukraine war has helped boost Russia’s economy and foreign trade with China, India, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Belarus. Russia’s exports surged 72 percent to $45.93 billion, boosted by sales to both non-CIS and CIS countries. Imports rose at a slower pace of 40.1 percent on the back of purchases from non-CIS and CIS countries. Several global brands and major companies from sectors ranging from technology to automotive and energy suspended their operations in Russia in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Russia had hit back at western sanctions by imposing an export ban on more than 200 products including telecoms, medical, vehicle and agricultural and electrical equipment.
As of now, there is no immediate fear of a downturn in the Russia-India relations. But, the situation can change if the Russia-Ukraine war prolongs and turns much uglier with the US-led NATO increasingly feeding Ukraine with lethal new-age weapons to provoke a counterattack on Russia. In such an event, Russia will need stronger Chinese defence support and involvement. And, China should be able to call shots. The world’s second largest economy and third largest military power, China maintains a reasonably big multi-tier “cooperative” partnership network. Among the partners are: North Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Nepal, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Suriname, as well as the African Union. Further, China has forged a “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership” with Belarus, Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Guinea, Kenya, Laos, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Thailand, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Lately, China has significantly increased its economic, political and security footprint in West Asia, becoming the largest trade partner and external investor for many countries in the region. China has also established comprehensive strategic partnerships with Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Recently, China helped broker a peace dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
So far, India has been careful about not allowing Russia’s external issues in its diplomatic exchange with western allies as also with Japan and Australia. The country has strongly defended its large oil imports from Russia since early last year. India is heavily dependent on crude oil import to meet nearly 86 percent of its annual consumption. The country is deeply engaged in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly known as Quad, a diplomatic and military arrangement to contain the Chinese economic and military power expansion in the Pacific-Indian Ocean region. The Quad is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the United States. The diplomatic and military arrangement is widely viewed as a response to growing Chinese economic and military power in the region. China has practically encircled India through its strong diplomatic and economic tie-ups with Pakistan, China’s most important ally in South Asia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The Quad membership provides a kind of diplomatic and military protection against Chinese naval expansion in the Indian ocean region.
Despite China’s aggressive posture along its land border with India and India’s littoral zone covering the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian sea, the country has been trying to maintain a constructive diplomatic dialogue through a raft of organisations such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) grouping and Russia-India-China (RIC) grouping. However, these dialogues do not seem to minimise China’s diplomatic distrust towards India. Effectively, these groupings are in limbo mainly because China does not see eye to eye with India. Fortunately, India-Russia relations have so far remained intact despite pressure from India’s western allies, Japan and Australia. For India, it is a big diplomatic challenge to grow relationships with the US, NATO member countries, Japan and Australia without upsetting Russia.
Now, with the powerful US congressional committee recommending India’s inclusion in the NATO+, ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit of the US, tension may further rise in India’s relations with both Russia and China. Currently, NATO+5 is designed to boost security arrangements among NATO’s five aligned nations — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea and Israel. India’s inclusion will make US military technology transfer to India much easier and faster. Time alone will tell if India is able to smoothly sail through the increasingly difficult diplomatic triangle. (IPA Service)
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