... brewing US-China conflict. It is in their common interests to resist the emerging bipolarity and, where possible, to mitigate its negative repercussions, with an emphasis on promoting multilateral mechanisms of international cooperation.
For example, Russia, India and China are members of the BRICS and the SCO. Moscow and New Delhi should make additional efforts to ensure that these institutions are not going to evolve into “the leagues of extraordinary gentlemen”, but instead will become effective tools in the search for a common denominator in even ...
... take a side within each undermines its credibility and reliability within them, which she fears ultimately risks isolating it. The last paragraph concisely encapsulates her concerns.
Gleb Toropchin:
Taking (Another) Turn to the East: Making Sense of Russia’s Stance in the Asia-Pacific
Dr. Rajagopalan writes that “India is the odd man out in all of these groups, whether it is in the Quad, BRICS or the SCO. In each, other key members have closer ties with each other than any of them do with India. This is potentially problematic because a friend to all will possibly not have any friends to depend upon when in danger.” With all due respect to this ...
... actors) are going to lose a lot if they have to take sides in this forthcoming US-China rivalry. On the contrary, it is in their best interests to confront this bipolarity and to mitigate it to the extent possible with a new emphasis on multilateralism.
India, China and Russia are all members of BRICS and of SCO; Moscow could work harder making these institutions more efficient in reaching common denominators for even highly sensitive security and development issues. There is also a separate mechanism of the Russia-India-China trilateral consultations, which ...
... changing international environment. Hence, the priority goal for both nations’ leaders is to ensure trust between Russia and India via personal contacts at the highest political level such as annual summits and within the multilateral fora such as G20, BRICS, and SCO.
Another instrument to address the risk of growing political gap between Russia and India is to reinvigorate economic ties between the two countries and make both economies more interconnected. It is high time decision makers in both countries re-focused their attention from stand-alone multi-billion strategic projects, which are reaching ...
... the ‘energy bridge’ which is being envisioned between the two countries seems getting solidified.
Regional Organizations
India and Russia have been closely associated in the multilateral organizations both at the global and regional levels. The two leaders spoke of the significance of the BRICS, R-I-C and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). In fact, the SCO was of major focus during the discussion between the two leaders. To make SCO an important and strong pillar,...
... encouraged. Some steps, such as the
extension
of VoA scheme to Indians to selected cities in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District are encouraging, though not sufficient at all.
Creating and sustaining cooperation across diplomatic platforms
The Indo-Russian collaboration has been vibrant and active across multiple international forums including BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that stand out amid the majority of international diplomatic forums led by the West. India’s accession to the SCO and the recent multinational counter-terrorism
military exercise
provides an opportunity to deepen its involvement in the Eurasian geopolitics. Also, the bilateral collaboration has been strategic in terms of creating new ...
... remember that a number of inter-regional and global structures gravitate towards Eurasia in one way or another. This means that the SCO is still facing institutional competition, albeit in an implicit and relatively mild form. We have already mentioned the SCO’s rivalry with the EAEU, but this is not the only possible scenario.
For example, the BRICS organization (which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is based on the Eurasian triangle of Russia, India and China (the “RIC” part of the acronym). Now that India is a member of the SCO, the latter has come to reproduce, somewhat belatedly, the Eurasian triangle of BRICS; ...
... the Indian economy is slated to surpass that of Japan in size by 2030 according to some projections — should be a much more integral part of Russia’s Asian strategy.
The belief in some Russian quarters that Pakistan can be a participant in major SCO or BRICS infrastructure and other projects within the framework of the India-Russia strategic relationship is unlikely to find a positive echo in Indian thinking, given India’s seven decades of experience with Pakistan’s endemic hostility. Russia’s evolving optic on Pakistan is creating a gap in the hitherto strong geopolitical ...
... rise in global food consumption, the exacerbation of the problem of chemical fertilizers, the dwindling fresh water reserves and the necessity to disinfect products. All these topics are parts of the new paradigm of strategic partner relations between Russia and India. The SCO and BRICS frameworks are large enough to attract China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region to Russia–India bilateral relations in these large-scale projects.
In Russia, the task of building a digital economy as a ...
