How Putin's Russia could help China and India get along

Russia's role in mediating between China and India should not be overlooked, a leading Chinese scholar on regional geopolitics has said, weeks after the Russian and Indian leaders greeted each other with a bear hug.

Hu Shisheng, a top expert on China-India relations, also predicted "a more stable border" between the two Asian powers this year, although stand-offs along their disputed border, now one of the biggest flashpoints in the region, were likely to continue.

Indian and Chinese troops exchange greetings and sweets at 10 locations on the border. Photo: Twitter alt=Indian and Chinese troops exchange greetings and sweets at 10 locations on the border. Photo: Twitter>

The assessment from Hu, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relation (CICIR), was part of an analysis published on the CICIR website on January 5.

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Moscow's relations with both big neighbours have been in focus in recent weeks, after President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were pictured greeting each other warmly on December 6.

Putin had travelled to New Delhi for the 21st annual India-Russia summit, in what was only his second overseas trip since the Covid-19 pandemic began two years ago. During their meeting, both leaders reaffirmed what Putin called "time-tested" ties.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 6, 2021. Photo: AFP alt=Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 6, 2021. Photo: AFP >

Nine days later, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a video call - their seventh since the pandemic started - where the Russian president proposed a trilateral summit with India, according to an aide.

Xi and Putin "agreed to continue exchanging opinions in this regard and endeavour to hold the next summit within the RIC [Russia-India-China] framework in the near future," Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told Tass news agency at the time.

Both India and China see Russia as an important strategic partner. And Moscow, now facing increasing hostility from the West, "would not want to see India and China fighting with each other", Hu wrote in the article.

For Beijing, a stable relationship with New Delhi could help offset pressures from the Quad, a four-way informal security grouping of US, India, Australia and Japan that is seen as an important part of the US-led Indo Pacific strategy to counter China.

"The Modi government would not oppose [an RIC summit] ... as falling foul of China has created disadvantages to improving India's prospects of rising as a great power," Hu wrote.

China, India and Russia are members of several multilateral platforms, including the G20 group of nations, the five-nation BRICS group of emerging economies with Brazil and South Africa, as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a Eurasian political and security alliance including four central Asian countries and Pakistan.

A new platform for a Russia-India-China summit, if achieved, could also "enable more active strategic interactions among the three countries, which would also increase the stability factor in general Sino-Indian relations", according to Hu.

Relations between China and India dropped to the lowest point in 2020, after border troops engaged in their deadliest clash in 45 years in June that year.

SCMP Graphics alt= SCMP Graphics>

The violence in Galwan Valley, in the disputed western Himalayan border near Tibet, sparked a stand-off that has led to at least 13 rounds of military talks so far between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

The two militaries have completed disengagement at some friction points, but troops remain posted and tensions still flare up from time to time.

On Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry dismissed India's claims that China was building a bridge across the hotly contested Pangong lake.

"China's infrastructure build-up on its own territory is entirely within its sovereignty and is aimed at safeguarding territorial sovereignty and security while working to maintain peace and stability in the India-China border region," ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing.

The day before, the Indian foreign ministry slammed China's decision to rename various locations along their disputed border in the eastern Himalayas. To India, the area is its northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, but Beijing claims major parts of it as part of its South Tibet region.

Calling the renaming a "ridiculous exercise", Indian ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi urged China not to complicate bilateral ties "further".

However, while bilateral relations were likely to remain fraught, major confrontation was unlikely, Hu forecast.

Hardening battle lines at China-India border raise fears of sustained, 'small-scale conflict'

No major clashes had broken out at the border in 2021, Hu noted, while two minor conflicts - in August and in October, "were handled effectively at the first moments and this has demonstrated that the two countries have paid great attention to the peace and stability in the border regions."

Striking an optimistic note, Hu said India and China can work on cooperation, including on pandemic control, counterterrorism measures, regional stability and climate change, which would help ease bilateral ties.

"After two years of mutual adjustment, both sides seem to have found a new way of getting along."

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.