Russian support for China is not Russian snub to India
In the recent SCO Summit of its member’s Foreign Ministers, Sergey Lavrov, the Foreign Minister of Russia, mentioned quite a few things that Indian media & the geopolitical analysts based in India are reading as a snub towards India with open support to China.
To set the landscape correctly, last year on 24-Feb, Russia initiated a military operation against Ukraine, sending its troops directly into Ukraine, with the pretext of saving the Russian-speaking population against the atrocities committed by the Ukrainian govt. Since that operation began, the Western bloc (which includes European countries, primarily EU member states, & USA) has criticized Russia for its unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.
It’s been more than 14 months, and this conflict has led to a huge loss to Ukrainian infrastructure, life loss & negative effects on the global economy in general in the form of Food & general inflation. No country has been spared from its ripple effects.
Under the latest SCO summit, Russia has commented that the West to contain and stop China, has created new blocks like QUAD & AUKUS. This statement has been taken as a jibe towards India, which is a member nation of 4 country group of QUAD.
Russia also targeted the USA, for its intention to remain the sole superpower in the world and hence creating these groupings to divide and compromise the regional collaboration.
Indian defense & geopolitical analysts are seeing such utterances in an event that is hosted by India as an embarrassment to the hosts.
My understanding of these comments is slightly different from the popular belief in India currently, and the following is what I derive from the address by Sergey Lavrov.
Analysis
Please understand that SCO is a Chinese forum. India may be the host, but the core of this forum is the first five countries that formed the forum & the nucleus is China. So Russia trying to see the situation by putting China at the core is not a snub to India.
When Lavrov quoted about QUAD & AUKUS, India can easily defend its position by saying that it has maintained always that QUAD is a non-military support group to encourage more economic & technology-based collaboration among the member countries, its AUKUS that SCO should be more careful of.
Russia attacking USA’s desires for maintaining its superiority goes in Indian favor too. India has for a long time maintained the idea that the world is turning into a multipolar world, and the Russian statement is in line with that idea.
The USA has historically always found a way to redefine a new bogeyman, every time its formidable foe is defeated. After Germany was defeated in WWII, the USSR was painted as the communist dark force, even though they fought on the same side in WWII. Then post-USSR disintegration and after a few decades of peace, the USA started painting China as the new communist dark force, which also was its fellow allied forces member in WWII. The same is bound to happen to India if India rises to a certain size & that threatens the USA’s idea of them being the lone superpower. Remember, it was China that the USA supported & shared the economic growth with & claimed to be the right partner for the future growth of both countries.
Another angle where I feel analysts are doubting Russian intentions is that Russia has paused the work on the Rupee-Ruble bilateral trade under the de-dollarization exercise. This has more to do with what India has to offer Russia in return & more negotiations are needed to be done. At the start of the Ukraine conflict when sanctions came in, Russia was desperate to sell its inventory in the warehouses. It sold it at a very heavy discount, but now China openly coming to demand 10% more, so the discounts will vanish. In that case, India’s Oil import bill from Russia will jump to $50Bn. India doesn’t have many goods to sell back, but China has, so Russia is trying to have more Yuan available with them. India may have to negotiate better terms or offer more discounts from their side to let the Rupee-Ruble trade agreement proceed.
Conclusion
India has always been cordial to all the countries in the past and still is, keeping a select few in special company. The only way forward is through good diplomacy. The USA will do what will suit them and their designs, we can’t blame them or any other country for looking for their benefit in the geopolitical game of influence. India needs to be mature enough to understand that this is how the world operates and we may have to find our own path.
Similarly, Russia is playing its cards wisely, and they are not necessarily anti-India. Just the way we look for our interests, Russia is doing the same. It’s the creative work of our External Affairs Ministry (EAM) now to find a true Win-Win combination for the bilateral trade to have a better outcome.
