Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was made to march in lockstep with his Chinese counterpart in the latter’s effort to torpedo the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting on 2 March.
NEW DELHI: CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping was delighted to see India go ahead with the purchase of five S-400 defensive radar and missile installations in 2018. They were confident that the move by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to ignore Washington’s objections and go forward with the purchase of the high-performance systems would instantly attract US sanctions. This was a reasonable surmise, given that even a NATO member-state, Turkey, was slapped with sanctions for its own purchase of the same systems. Apart from that, the US withdrew its assent for the manufacture of F-35 combat aircraft to Turkey, thereby dealing a blow to the accelerated military modernization plans of Turkey’s strongman, R.T. Erdogan. The Russians too were happy, as they had been tasked by their senior partners in the Sino-Russian alliance with fulfilling the critical task of so damaging India-US relations that meaningful security cooperation between the US and India would be rendered impossible. Knocking India out of a strong security and defence relationship with the US was an essential factor in carrying forward Xi’s master plan of dominating the waters of the Indo-Pacific before the close of the decade. Progress towards that objective would, he was certain, assist in propelling him to a fourth five-year term as CCP General Secretary, after securing an unprecedented third term at the close of 2022. To the disappointment of Xi and the muscular Sino-Russian and Sino-Wahhabi lobbies in the US that were prodding first the Trump and subsequently the Biden administration to impose sanctions on India, both refused to take the bait, aware of (i) the desire of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the start of his term as Prime Minister nine years ago to establish a close working relationship with the US including on matters relating to mutual defence, and (ii) the essentiality of India as a security provider on the US side in the matter of ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific in the face of efforts by an authoritarian superpower to establish its dominance over it.
The wisdom shown by Presidents Trump and Biden in refusing to sanction India for its purchase of S-400 systems means that Moscow has failed in the task given to it by the CCP leadership of significantly weakening the India-US relationship. In 2023, partly as a consequence of western punitive measures against the Russian Federation led by Vladimir Putin, the dependence of Russia on China is becoming clearer by the day. Such an evolving situation is certain to impact defence (although not commodity) purchases by India from that potential fourth superpower (after India). What had been suggested by this analyst from 2014 onwards, which was to work towards making India an important manufacturing and software development location for the production of both civilian and military platforms by Lockheed, Boeing, Airbus and other western manufacturers, is finally becoming a reality as a consequence of Prime Minister Modi steadily overcoming bureaucratic and political obstacles to such developments. The consequence is that Xi appears to have almost entirely lost faith in the ability of Putin to persuade Modi to back away from adhering to a deepening security relationship with Washington, London, Berlin, Paris and now Rome. Italian Primo Ministro Georgia Meloni’s brief visit to India to meet Prime Minister Modi and open the 2023 Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi was an indication that relations between two countries joined together by history and traditions going back several millennia have been on a fast track.
Sidestepping the myopic zeal of his greenhorn Foreign Minister to cosset PRC accomplice Pakistan and instead hector India about Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany has joined hands with his counterparts from the UK, France and Italy in making a close working relationship with India a priority. Perhaps the German security services need to do more research into the actual origins of the plentiful funds being received from abroad by the Green Party, whose leader has been among the most insistent in beating the drums of war throughout the past year and continuing. Where the S-400 is concerned, had the US early on offered to install the THAAD system in India on terms suited to the close partnership with India, those who were critics of the S-400 deal would have had a better hand in warning against going ahead with the purchase. Shortsightedly, barring a few informal hints during the Trump administration (of selling the system to India at an extortionate price), no offer was made of the installation of the THAAD system. It may be added that in contrast to Ukraine, upon which free armaments have been raining in profusion, both Japan and South Korea are being made to pay top dollar for the THAAD, while Taiwan has yet to be offered the system, even for payment. Clearly, the PRC lobby is no longer as much on the defensive in the US as it initially was for a while in 2017 when Trump stunned Beijing by announcing a few tariff hikes against some goods arriving from that country.
EFFORT TO TORPEDO G20 2023
Given the failure of Russia to change the trajectory of India-US relations in particular, CCP general Secretary Xi Jinping has evidently seen no value to the PRC in Russia seeking to act in a manner that at least partially meets Indian positions. As a consequence, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was made to march in lockstep with his Chinese counterpart in the latter’s effort to torpedo the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting on 2 March, now that India under PM Modi had assumed the Presidentship. The Foreign Ministers of South Korea and Japan stayed away, aware that their counterparts from the G7 countries were going to create a scene at the meeting in order to grandstand for the benefit of voters back home. Some Foreign Ministers from Europe showed discourtesy by not attending External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s dinner on 1 March, but overall, the Indian side was able to secure the agreement of 18 of the 20 members of the Group to bring out a common document. Expectedly, the Chinese side opposed the draft document, joined by Russia, but suffered a defeat in the campaign of the Sino-Russian alliance to convince the Global South that they rather than India were the champions of this important geopolitical player. Turkiye, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico among others joined hands with India, snubbing the Sino-Russian alliance.
The world is visibly fracturing as a consequence of Cold War 2.0 between not just the US and the PRC but between the democracies and an authoritarian superpower reaching out for hegemony. Although the Japanese Foreign Minister diplomatically skipped the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting, citing an issue in the Japanese Diet as the reason, he was present at the Quad Foreign Ministers meeting the next day, thereby demonstrating the importance that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida attaches to good relations with India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who along with then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe masterminded the revival of the Quad in 2017. It will not be forgotten that Abe and Modi established a close personal relationship dating back to the period when the latter was Chief Minister of Gujarat. Showing that he is as much a friend of India as Abe San was, Prime Minister Kishida is likely to visit India this month itself as chair of the G7, where he will hold discussions with the chair of the G20, Prime Minister Modi.
Had any other member of the G20, especially a member of the Global South, joined hands with Russia and China in blocking a factual and balanced resolution, that would have been a victory for China in particular. Beijing had hoped that the presence of Russia by its side in attempting to torpedo the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting would ensure that South Africa, Argentina and Brazil would join the duo. Instead, they stood by India, their partner in the building of an international architecture that promotes rather than retards the development of the Global South, in contrast to the institutions that were set up during and after World War II. What has taken place is a deepening of the understanding of the people of India of the extent to which Moscow has mortgaged its freedom of action to Beijing. While this will not affect commodity purchases nor seriously impact overall bilateral relations between Delhi and Moscow in the manner that the aggression of the PLA has affected the ambience of the relationship between China and India, it does bring into relief the risks inherent in relying on a country so tightly bound to the PRC as the primary supplier of defence equipment to India. Unfortunately for Russia, while what it describes as the “Collective West” has forfeited a substantial part of the goodwill and trust that it enjoys in the Global South as a consequence of its sanctions and obsessive focus on Ukraine to the neglect of more pressing issues elsewhere, the discourtesy shown by Foreign Minister Lavrov in Delhi to the host nation of the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting will not easily be forgotten. Obeying China has a price, and Russia is paying it even in terms of its relationship with India.