The world is once again going for alliances and re-alliances. Hostile states are becoming friends and the old friends are finding new friends. This is how international relations work. The recent crisis in Ukraine and the resurgence of tensions between Russia and the west are likely to become a challenge for India’s foreign policy and its quest in becoming a ‘great power’. To offset the implications of Russia’s hostility with the west, Russia is going to expand its ties with China. In this context, it may pose a big challenge to India as it may shrink India’s room for geopolitical manoeuvring in Asia, especially at the time of the US ‘pivot’ policy.
India’s relationship with Russia has seen many ups and downs during the Cold War. Pakistan completely tilted towards the US but India took a non-aligned posture that benefited it in terms of warmer relations with both Russia and the US. But ties with Russia were more like Pakistan’s ties with China: all weather friends. The common factor that led to such relations with both countries was the Chinese factor. Both India and Russia had common apprehensions about China, which shares long borders with both the countries. Also, both countries had fought limited border wars with China. In the 1980s, India and Russia took initiatives for normalising their relations with China. However, the normalisation was not warm enough due to their wariness about China’s strategic intentions. For a long period, there had been an impression in India that China might encircle India. Now, the reality has changed. China has become a massive power in the world, having all the potential of presenting itself as an alternative to western hegemony in world affairs.
At the same time, Russia is resurging back onto the world stage while India is a rising regional economy. This suggests that India and Russia need each other to secure a stable Asian balance of power. However, Russia’s expanding economic, security and political ties with China are problematic for India. As is evident by recent economic agreements, including a currency swap deal amidst western sanctions on Russia, between Russia and China, Sino-Russian ties are solidifying and becoming thicker than those between Russia and India. In the defence sector also, China is becoming a significant partner for Russia, a position once held by India. Naturally, India feels wary about China’s entrance into the strategic calculus once limited to Russia and India. Going somewhat contrary to Sino-Russian history, Russian President Vladimir Putin, on his meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Moscow last week, declared that Russia and China were “natural partners, natural allies and neighbours”.
The history of Sino-Russian relations is somewhat mixed. In 1950, Russia’s Joseph Stalin and China’s Mao Zedong announced a military alliance against the west. Both shared the common ideology of Communism. Even having the same worldview based on communism and a common threat perception from the west, these relations fell apart by the late 1950s. The Sino-Soviet rift coincided with the conflict between India and China, and helped define India’s strategic partnership with Russia. It seems that Russia is coming closer to China just because of the US and Europe’s attitude towards Russia amidst the Ukrainian crisis. For Russia, economic sanctions and the involvement of the west in Ukraine’s issues, which Russia considers its internal matter, are reactions to Russia’s resurgence in the post-Cold War world. In Russia, there still exists a deep resentment that the US failed to offer an honourable peace to Russia at the end of the Cold War.
In 2000, Putin envisioned stronger ties with China, a strategic policy to give the world alternatives to a US-dominated world order, to construct a multipolar world and to improve Russia’s leverage with the US. For Russia, now is the right time to align with China to regain its position. It does not matter who or what is responsible for post-Soviet Russia’s alienation or who is responsible for the Sino-Russian alignment. The thing that matters to India is the negative implications this power shift could have on India’s quest for power. It is important to recall that the Cold War between Russia and the US limited India’s foreign policy choices. After the Cold War, the normalisation of US-Russia relations widened India’s choices and it pursued warmer relations with both the US and Russia.
If Russia has supported India in the Security Council, the US is bidding for India’s permanent seat in the said Council. Now, India is worried that if relations between the US and Russia once again deteriorate as they are going cold, particularly over the Ukrainian crisis, India may fall into a pit of two choices: Russia or the US. Until now, India has avoided making these choices. On the Ukrainian issue, it has remained neutral by not criticising or endorsing Russia’s political and military actions in Ukraine. Here is the problem: if Russia and China align, with both sharing the same worldview, they may put pressure on India to back off from its positions on multilateral forums like the BRICS, UN and on other international issues like climate change and the recent conflicts in the Middle East. India cannot afford to go either way: supporting the US-led worldview or turning hostile towards Russia. Therefore, this will be a real challenge for India’s foreign office.
The writer is a political scientist based in Islamabad. He tweets @hassanshahjehan