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How Putin’s Russia could help China and India get along
- In the face of rising Western hostility, Russia ‘would not want to see India and China fighting with each other’, Chinese scholar says
- A Russia-India-China platform, as proposed by President Vladimir Putin, would ‘increase the stability factor in general Sino-Indian relations’, Hu Shisheng explains
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Russia’s role in mediating between China and India should not be overlooked, a leading Chinese scholar on regional geopolitics has said, weeks after the Russian and Indian leaders greeted each other with a bear hug.
Hu Shisheng, a top expert on China-India relations, also predicted “a more stable border” between the two Asian powers this year, although stand-offs along their disputed border, now one of the biggest flashpoints in the region, were likely to continue.
The assessment from Hu, director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), was part of an analysis published on the CICIR website on January 5.
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Moscow’s relations with both big neighbours have been in focus in recent weeks, after President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were pictured greeting each other warmly on December 6.
Putin had travelled to New Delhi for the 21st annual India-Russia summit, in what was only his second overseas trip since the Covid-19 pandemic began two years ago. During their meeting, both leaders reaffirmed what Putin called “time-tested” ties.
Nine days later, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a video call – their seventh since the pandemic started – where the Russian president proposed a trilateral summit with India, according to an aide.
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