India can do a lot with China and Russia

IT was former Russian premier Yevgeny Primakov who made the tentative suggestion of a trilateral partnership among India, China, and Russia a few years ago. His idea has evoked everything from enthusiastic support to strong denials, counter arguments, worried warnings, and intrigued commentary from leaders, officials, and strategic studies experts. While India and China had reacted with caution, then Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov had even dismissed the possibility saying that the era of Cold War-style blocs should not be revived. He was thinking, of course, about such a partnership inevitably being seen as a counter-balance to American predominance in the international system.

The idea has refused to go away and in their first stand-alone meeting in Vladivostok on Thursday, foreign ministers of the three countries have issued a broad-based joint communiqué, belying the avowedly "informal” nature of the discussion. Though avoiding mention of red herrings like defence cooperation and "strategic partnership” and stressing that it was not directed at "any third country,” the basket of subjects for cooperation spans agriculture, transport, energy, high technology and fighting terrorism and drug-trafficking. What is more, they have even declared that they "favoured democratisation of international relations aimed at building a just world order” and "progress towards multi-polarity”.

While China is routinely described as being lukewarm to the prospect given its relationship with Pakistan, the idea has received repeated endorsement over the years by strategic affairs specialists in China's state-sponsored think tanks. Russian cooperation with China has been growing in strength and now encompasses several fronts and it has pushed for and welcomed the recent initiatives for better ties between India and China. None of the countries has neglected its relationship with the United States, though. Given the nature of the international system, classic balance of power equations are unlikely to suddenly lose their relevance. The stage is being set for the emergence of an interesting new element in the geopolitics of the 21st century.