The tripartite meeting among the Foreign Ministers of India, Russia and China at Vladivostok on June 2 deserves more than passing attention for several reasons. The first is obviously the importance of the three countries. Russia is no longer a super power but retains not only its nuclear teeth and vast economic potential but also sits on massive reserves of oil. China is a nuclear power and an economic powerhouse. India is a nuclear weapons country that already carries considerable economic weight, which is set to increase rapidly in the years to come.
Not only that, the three sprawl over a landmass that stretches from northern Europe and Siberia to the Pacific, the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, and includes some of the richest reserves of both fossil fuel and minerals. Thus geo-strategically, militarily and economically, the three countries are bound to emerge as an awesome global force if they effectively coordinate their policies in matters of mutual and separate national interests, as well as some of the challenges that confront them and the world. Understandably, the meeting was precisely about doing that. According to reports, the focus was both on strategy and energy resources.
Much would, of course, depend on the level and effectiveness of the coordination achieved, which in turn would hinge on the mutual trust that informs the process. There is reason for optimism. There was no doubt a time when both Sino-Soviet and India-China relations were tense and hostile. If India and China had clashed in 1962, there were several border skirmishes between Soviet and Chinese soldiers in the late 1960s, with the ones on the banks of the Ussuri river being the fiercest. The very fact that the tripartite meeting has been held shows how much things have changed. While ties between Russia and China were the first to thaw, those between India and China took much longer. For quite some time, Russia’s efforts to build bridges between New Delhi and Beijing were stalled by reservations in both capitals. It is only as a result of the remarkable improvement in India-China relations, holding forth the promise not only of a settlement of the border dispute but also highly beneficial mutual economic ties, that the reservations on both sides dissolved.
The fact that the rise of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism poses a common threat to all the three countries, certainly works to bring them together. So do economic interests. India-Russia and Russia-China economic ties have a long history. Those between India and China are growing rapidly. The three countries, however, have to be sensitive to one another’s concerns for their mutual cooperation to achieve its full potential. China, for example, needs to be mindful of India’s uneasiness over developments in Bangladesh and should take this country into confidence in matters like collaborating with Dhaka on the nuclear front. Equally, the new triple entente should not be seen as directed against any country and should evolve in a manner that does not jeopardise India’s increasingly warm ties with the United States.
