The China Russia Relationship and India's interests

• President Vladimir Putin's showed strength with President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week amid the standoff with NATO on Ukraine
• It was intended to demonstrate that Russia and China were on the same page on the “core interests” of upholding “international equity and justice” in the face of US “unilateralism”, and supported each other against “external interference and regional security threats”.

Russia-China Joint Statement

• It was issued after the summit — titled ‘International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development’ —
• It hailed the “new inter-State relations between Russia and China [as] superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era”.
• It said the friendship had “no limits” and no “forbidden areas of cooperation”.

Background of Relationship

• Relations between China and the former Soviet Union were frosty, marked by mistrust and doctrinal differences for most of the Cold War decades.
• The change came in 1989, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the first Soviet leader to land in Beijing since Nikita Khrushchev in 1958. The visit took place in the midst of the Tiananmen Square student protests, but Gorbachev held off from saying anything that would anger his hosts.
• Gorbachev and paramount leader Deng Xiaoping declared “mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, noninterference in each other’s internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence” as the basis of their bilateral relations.
• In 2001, the two countries signed the Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation, paving the way for expanding economic and trade ties, including sales of defence equipment and energy by Russia to China, and Russia's backing for China's position on Taiwan.
• Last June, the two countries extended the treaty at a virtual meeting between Putin and Xi.

Russia-China axis and its areas of cooperation

• Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea in Ukraine led to a sharp downturn in Moscow's ties with the US, NATO, and Europe.
• This was also the turning point in Russia's ties with China, which revealed the possibilities, potential, and the limits of the relationship.
• When the US, EU, and Australia imposed sanctions on Russia, Russia turned reflexively to Beijing.
• Over the next year, Russia opened its doors wide for Chinese investments, and struck a $400 billion deal for Gazprom, the Russian state monopoly gas exporter, to supply 38 billion cubic metres (bcm) annually to China for 30 years from 2025.
• The Power of Siberia pipeline began operations in 2019, and sent 16.5 bcm of gas to China last year.
• During Putin's visit to Beijing last week, the two countries signed a deal for another pipeline, Power of Siberia 2, which will add 10 bcm of gas to the annual supply for 30 years.
• Since 2016, trade between the two countries has gone from $ 50 bn to over $147 bn. China is now Russia's largest trading partner.
• Towards a modus vivendi in Central Asia, the two countries agreed to work towards speeding up the linking of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.
• With their ties closer than ever before, the crisis in Ukraine has been an opportunity for each country to express solidarity with the other's grievance against the U.S.

Challenges within the relationship

• Despite being together in rejecting US unipolarity, the relationship between Russia and China is complex and layered.
• Each has its distinct worldview and specific interests in its geographical region, and its own battles to fight.
• Several observers have pointed out, the China-Russia compact is not yet a formal security alliance against the West, nor is it an ideological partnership.
• The joint statement referred to NATO's expansion, but did not mention Ukraine.
• Back in March 2014, in the vote on UN Security Council resolutions on the referendum in Crimea that was used by Putin as an excuse to annex the Black Sea peninsula, China had abstained — and despite the recent bonhomie, has not recognised Crimea's accession to Russia.
• China's main security interests lie in Asia; Russia's are in Europe.
• Russia, which wants to be recognised as a great power once again, has positions independent of Beijing on many issues — including on the relationship with India.
• As the smaller economy — its GDP is a tenth of China's — but with a strong memory of its lost superpower status, Russia is loath to become China's junior partner.
• Despite talk of Russia-China co-operation in Central Asia, Moscow still sees the region as part of its sphere of influence.
• For Beijing, war in Ukraine is the least suitable of options. It would take US military energies away from the South China Sea, but might also stall talks to resolve trade issues.
• China and the EU are each other's biggest trading partners — China's trade with Russia is small by comparison.
• As for Ukraine, it is a crucial link in Xi's BRI project. China is also Ukraine's biggest trading partner — and its agricultural exports, particularly corn, have sustained China during its trade war with the US.

India’s interest in Russia-China Relationship

• New Delhi's best bet would be to treat its relations with both countries and the US separately — or it runs the risk of shrinking its own space.
• India's relationship with Russia is not what it used to be, but there is much that both sides continue to see as mutually beneficial.
• The Russia-China statement did not mention China's border dispute with India; it only made a reference to developing cooperation among the three countries.
• The Russian embassy reiterated that Kashmir was an issue for India and Pakistan to resolve bilaterally.
• India would restrict its foreign policy choices and undermine its own status as a rising power of global standing, if it takes sides in a conflict that has nothing to do with it.