President Putin’s speech on Friday at the Foreign Ministry touched upon a lot of topics but only his ceasefire proposal was widely reported upon outside of Russia. One of the aspects that was ignored concerns his proposed Eurasian security system that’ll involve Russia’s Union State with Belarus, the CSTO, the Eurasian Economic Union, the CIS, and the SCO. It’s a noble and visionary initiative but it must respect India’s national interests otherwise it risks being counterproductive to Russia’s multipolar goals.
The reason why there are worries that it might not is because President Putin mentioned that “the Russian proposal is not contradictory, but rather complements and aligns with the basic principles of the Chinese global security initiative”, which he discussed with President Xi during his recent trip to Beijing. That’s not a problem, and it would be great if they cooperated in peacefully resolving international conflicts and sustainably preventing future ones, unless Russia’s stance towards India’s conflicts changes.
At present, Russia fully supports its special and privileged strategic partner’s position towards its territorial disputes with China and Pakistan, which is one of the few differences between Moscow and Beijing but is responsibly managed in order to not ruin their cooperation on other issues. That might change, however, as Russia’s pro-BRI policymaking faction – which readers can learn more about here, here, and here – rapidly grows in influence.
They believe that a return to Sino-US bi-multipolarity is inevitable so Russia should accelerate China’s superpower trajectory as revenge against the US for everything that it did from February 2022 onwards. Their “friendly rivals” are the established balancing/pragmatic faction, which fears potentially disproportionate dependence on China and considers India to be a counterweight for averting that. The competition between these two has largely evaded popular attention but is immensely important.
Evidence exists in support of the observation that the pro-BRI faction’s influence is growing. The Valdai Club, which is one of Russia’s most prestigious think tanks and annually hosts President Putin, published a report earlier this year titled “Charting the 2040: Younger Generation Insight on the World in the Making”. It was practically co-authored by China since half of the expert contributors are Chinese and scandalously concluded on page 25 that India is only a rising power with equal influence as Pakistan.
Up until this point, all Russian experts viewed India as a power on par with their own country, not on the bottom third rung of the international hierarchy that the Valdai Club introduced in their report with no more influence than Pakistan. Literally several days later, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov then suggested that Russia could invite Pakistan to October’s “Outreach”/“BRICS Plus” Summit through the backdoor of inviting all SCO members, which would greatly offend India for the reasons that were explained here.
Considering the Valdai Club’s role in helping to formulate Russian policy, it’s likely that their experts’ changing views towards India and Pakistan – which are a direct result of the pro-BRI faction’s influence – informed Ushakov’s announcement and are also shaping relevant discussions at the Foreign Ministry. Accordingly, it can’t be ruled out that Russia’s position towards India’s conflicts with China and Pakistan might also change with time, even if only subtly and never officially acknowledged.
After all, China might request something of the sort sometime down the line in exchange for it leading the creation of a Brazilian-fronted peace process on Ukraine, which readers can learn more about here and here. Furthermore, seeing as how President Putin publicly described his proposed Eurasian security system and China’s global security initiative as complementary, the pretext exists for China to lean on Russia to this end in order to more closely align their policies towards India’s conflicts.
About the most relevant one in this context, China refuses to withdraw its forces to their position before summer 2020’s lethal clashes with India over the Galwan River Valley along their disputed border, and the People’s Republic also claims the state of Arunachal Pradesh as its own with the name “South Tibet”. Beijing’s position is that it never crossed the Line of Actual Control (LAC) there and that the aforesaid Indian region is historically Chinese despite China only ever briefly controlling a sliver of its land in 1962.
Meanwhile, Delhi’s position is that China illegally crossed the LAC and continues to occupy Indian territory, with its continued claims to Arunachal Pradesh constituting a dire threat to territorial integrity. This ongoing dispute has toxified their ties and correspondingly impeded their cooperation in BRICS and the SCO. India has also begun to respond to what it considers to be China’s aggressive policies by tacitly adjusting its policy towards Taiwan and hinting at doing the same towards Tibet in the coming future too.
It’s therefore likely that Sino-Indo ties will continue deteriorating, with the tangible consequence being that it’ll be much more difficult to get them to agree to anything meaningful within those multipolar organizations that they’re a part of. In parallel with this, they’ll also naturally go on a soft power offensive to convince the greatest number of countries across the world and especially the Global South to take their side, with Russia being a top object of competition between them.
Russia might very well start to tilt towards China on this issue as it becomes more diplomatically indebted to that country for its efforts in leading a Brazilian-fronted peace process on Ukraine ahead of November’s G20 Summit in Rio and continues synchronizing its proposed security system with China’s. President Xi could also remind President Putin how much he owes him for continuing to export high-tech products to Russia and purchasing huge amounts of energy for stabilizing the ruble in defiance of the US.
All that China might ask Russia to do is to treat India as a “normal country” in this dispute instead of as the special and privileged strategic partner that those two officially consider each other as being. The Valdai Club’s previously cited report suggests that this is being considered. In practice, it could take the form of Russian diplomats asking their Indian counterparts to “compromise” on the LAC “for the greater multipolar good”, while their academic and media communities could publish complementary materials.
Despite Russia’s innocent intentions, India would definitely be disappointed and its people would consider this recalibrated policy to be a betrayal, thus pressuring policymakers to at least send some public signal of displeasure. India’s pro-US policymaking faction could also exploit this development to push for intensifying their country’s strategic partnership with America in spite of their newly troubled ties, which could in turn empower Russia’s pro-BRI faction to do the same vis-à-vis China.
The end result of this spiraling tit-for-tat could be the swift restoration of Sino-US bi-multipolarity despite each of those two’s shared goal of averting that scenario in order to midwife complex multipolarity. That’s precisely what their pro-BRI and pro-US policymaking factions want, each for their own reasons, though it’s still what neither of their established balancing/pragmatic factions want. Even so, it could still happen in the event that one or the other of these upstart factions obtains predominant influence.
So long as Russia remains committed to midwifing complex multipolarity together with India, and the argument in favor of continuing this policy is that it would give Russia more strategic autonomy than in a restored Sino-US bi-multipolar system, then it mustn’t change its policy towards India’s conflicts. Its proposed Eurasian security system and China’s global security initiative can continue aligning on all other issues, but it would truly be “for the greater multipolar good” if they agree to disagree on this one.
