What 15th RIC 'trilateral' means for China-India relations?

By Swaran Singh 

The 15th round of Russia-India-China (RIC) foreign ministers 'trilateral' in New Delhi this week reinforces their significance for being an alternative paradigm in global governance. They have been working in tandem and have always been able to put together a detailed joint statement at end of their interactions responding to almost all issues of the day. Their joint statement this time makes detailed remarks on Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan and Israel-Palestine dispute as also on running themes of UN reforms, Asian security Architecture, climate change, and devotes several paragraphs on terrorism. But these remain pious sentiments without actionable initiatives.

Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, center, holds hands with her Chinese and Russian counterparts Wang Yi, right and Sergey Lavrov after a press statement at the end of their meeting in New Delhi, India, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017. [Photo: AP/Manish Swarup]

Then what makes their remarks so important? First of all, these are invariably at variance with the western approaches on these issues and crisis situations. But it is the weight behind these views that needs to be considered. These happen to be not just rapidly transforming large emerging economies but also include world's largest and second largest societies, world's largest economy (in purchasing power party), as also world’s largest territorial state with second largest military power. Two of them are permanent members of the UN Security Council and they all have nuclear weapons. Especially in face of shrinking global leadership of the United States, their views carry enormous potential to make the difference.

To put things in perspective though, such joint statements of the RIC 'trilateral' are notorious for usually being verbatim repeats of earlier years. Yet, what they leave each year and what they add or repeat after-a-gap invariably leads to interesting insinuations. Moreover, it is the immediate political backdrop of their 'trilateral' as also their varying press remarks or public lectures by visiting dignitaries that always add interesting cues to various interpretations by analysts. For instance, the fact that this 'trilateral' was preceded by re-launching of quadrilateral of democracies (the United States, India, Japan, Australia) in Manila last month saw both Wang Yi and Sergey Lavrov on same page airing their skepticism without any direct reference to the Quad. For China-India it was the backdrop of their 73-day long Doklam standoff with this marking first India visit by a Chinese leader. So what did this 'trilateral' imply for China-India equations?

At the very outset, India had advertised terrorism to be their top priority for this interaction. Terrorism, in any case, receives the maximum space in their joint declarations. This is so because all three see themselves as victims of terrorism. But, they have had varying assessments and strategies to deal with this menace.  This resulted in all references to terrorism in joint statement being just a broad brush. This perhaps also reflected compulsions of host state trying to ensure consensus. The BRICS joint declaration in September, when China was the host, had not just devoted several paragraphs but also named several terrorist outfits. From there, broadly condemning terrorism in all forms and agreeing to strengthen their cooperation to take "decisive and concerted action" against globally proscribed terrorists and organizations was a clear climb down. But this also shows China's lingering doubts about the veracity of India's preoccupation with Pakistan that needs be addressed. This disconnect was reflected in their press briefings when Indian foreign minister mentioned Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed by name while Russian and Chinese foreign minister talked only of "eliminating the breeding grounds of terrorism" without taking any names.

Second, India has been distancing itself from China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Indeed, India has been launching various parallel corridors like the India-Japan Asian-Africa Growth Corridor or working with Russia for early development of 7,200 km long International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) linking India, Iran, Afghanistan to Central Asian and Europe.  There is also talk of India being part of U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Corridor. These are often portrayed as competitive to BRI.  But the fact that their joint statement chose to continue with old language and "welcomed synergy of various initiatives to improve regional connectivity in Asia" does not seem all that innocent.  This may mark a change in India's aptitude towards BRI. Sergey Lavrov was seen openly batting for India's participation at his public lecture at New Delhi's Vivekananda International Foundation. Wang Yi reportedly raised this matter in his informal meeting with Ajit Doval who is India's national security advisor and Special Representative for China-India border talks. Understandably this must have come up at the two foreign ministers bilateral. What makes it interesting is that now China's State Counselor Yang Jiechi will be coming to New Delhi next week (December 20-21) for 20th round of border talks which may see this being discussed further. So there may be more to it than meets the eyes in first twenty-four hours after this event.

(Swaran Singh is professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and visiting professor at Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies in Kunming, China)