As Xi & Putin join hands, what does ‘no limits’ friendship mean for India?

Even though India has not expressed concerns publicly about the ever-growing bonhomie between China and Russia, the coming together of a historic partner and the greatest adversary is a cause of concern for New Delhi read more

India has to carefully navigate the relationship with Russia as Beijing and Moscow get closer by the day. (Photo: Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping came together in Beijing this month to herald a “new era” of the China-Russia relationship.

The bilateral relationship, which the two leaders have dubbed as one with “no limits”, has been on an upward trajectory for years. While the bonhomie has been most visible since 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, the two countries have been cosying up for at least a decade.

The China-Russia relationship has ramifications for India. While Russia is an old friend from the Cold War era when India had few partners in the West, China is India’s principal rival with whom it has fought a full-fledged war and is engaged in a military stand-off in Ladakh which is now in its fifth year. The Chinese aggression at the border has driven the relationship to its worst since 1962.

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Even if New Delhi would not say it publicly, the coming together of Russia and China is a “headache” for India, says Swasti Rao of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA).

“In simple terms, India is currently seeing its one-time best friend Russia becoming best friends with its longtime rival China. Russia had been India’s principal partner since the Cold War days, but, for the past many years, it has moved closer to China. Today, China has become so integral to the Russian economy and geopolitics that the relationship is indispensable for them,” says Rao, an Associate Fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center of MP-IDSA.

How important is China to Russia?

The boom in the China-Russia relationship started picking up pace after the invasion and annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014. Since 2022, the two countries have taken their convergence to whole new levels. While China has provided dual-use technology used in ammunition and arms manufacturing to Russia, it has got cheap oil and gas from Russia. As Western sanctions closed several markets for both imports and exports, China filled that space by providing everything from machine components to cars and semiconductors to Russia.

“China has become invested in Russia’s victory in Ukraine. The two countries are more aligned than ever. China sees itself as the challenger to what it calls US hegemony. It wants to subvert the US-led world order in its favour and Russia is a natural partner. For Russia, China is now indispensable after Europe and much of the West are off-the-cards,” says Rao.

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Since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and more so since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s approach to international relations has undergone a fundamental shift. Before 2014, Russia was much more committed to genuine multipolarity. It was engaging the European Union (EU) in the West and was working proactively with Japan and South Korea in Asia. In the podcast Global India of the Brookings Institution, Russia expert Nivedita Kapoor said, “In the Russian Far East, in the Arctic, it was Japan and South Korea that were the preferred partners for Russia and there was sort of an unwritten rule that is often talked about: that Chinese companies should have a minimum role in energy projects in the Arctic.”

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Kapoor also mentioned that, before 2014, Russia was shaping non-Western international groupings like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) such that they don’t become China-dominated. This is why Russia facilitated the entry of India into SCO to counterbalance China. But this changed after 2014. She said there are “very specific ways” in which the China-Russia relationship shifted after 2014.

“So, for instance, Russia decides to sell Sukhoi 35 fighter planes and the S-400 missile defence system. Before this, China never got the latest weapons systems from Russia. So, that happened. The cooperation in energy sector started intensifying. Because if you look at the Arctic oil and gas projects, for the first time, China gets a stake in Arctic LNG 2. Its Silk Road Fund invests in Arctic LNG. So, we see that earlier the areas that were not the main areas of cooperation or where Russia was trying to preserve its independence, even those areas, we see that China now gets a preferential treatment,” said Kapoor, a Research Fellow at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Russia’s HSE University.

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The situation is now such that the two countries are in a “co-dependent” relationship where one cannot do without the other, says Anushka Saxena, a China researcher at the Takashashila Institution.

Saxena tells Firstpost, “Both China and Russia share similar political interests of mutual suspicion of the West and a co-dependent economic and military relationship where each matters to the other as a market for arms or as a trade partner for oil, gas, and other consumer goods.”

Since 2022, Rao of MP-IDSA tells Firstpost, Russia has fundamentally changed. She says that the Russian economy is now a war-based economy.

“Russian economy has continued to grow despite Western sanctions and expectations that it would tank, but it is not a natural growth. It is a war-fuelled growth. More and more factories are manufacturing arms and ammunition. Drones are being purchased. Even the society has been militarised as military and private militia recruitment has picked up and is changing the Russian society. The Russia of today is not the one that was there 10-20 years ago. India will have to carefully navigate the relationship in the shadow of China,” says Rao.

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What does China-Russia bonhomie mean for India?

Both India and Russia seek a multipolar world where the post-World War II hegemony of the United States is not the only deciding factor. But while India’s multipolar world order is non-West, the one that Russia seeks with China is anti-West. That’s the first and foremost divergence of India and Russia.

With SCO and BRICS, India seeks to give more space and voice to the Global South at the world stage. As a leader of the Global South, India seeks to be the bridge between the developed and the developing worlds and help fasten the progress of the developing countries. It is visible in India’s partnership with the developed countries of the United States, Australia, and Japan under the Quad framework to assist the developing countries of the Indo-Pacific region with vaccines and other therapeutics during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the other hand, China and Russia seek partnerships with the Global South to create an anti-Western bloc and undermine the West. Moreover, the two countries are clearly propping an anti-US bloc.

“The emergence of a strong partnership between China and Russia, and like-minded partners such as Iran, founded on an anti-West sentiment, has obvious negative implications for India. For starters, the willingness of the three countries to shape norms in the Global South and the Indo-Pacific, or in institutions such as the BRICS and the SCO, gnaws away at India’s strategic space. This is especially because the norms they promote are deeply anti-Western, but also go against values that India holds dear — territorial integrity and sovereignty, democratisation, and greater representation,” says Saxena, a China Studies Research Analyst with the Takshashila Institution’s Indo-Pacific Studies Programme.

Saxena adds that from Ukraine to Gaza, the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea bloc is finding more and more common grounds with the common goal of undermining the West — particularly the United States. The differences between India and the bloc are “fundamental” in nature.

“India stands for multi-alignment, strategic autonomy, and constructive mini-lateralism, especially through groupings like the Quad. There is hence a fundamental difference and non-alignment between how India and this axis approaches values, norms, and institutions," says Saxena.

There are already signs that the India-Russia relationship is not what it once was. Even though Russia was reported to have offered mediation between India and China in the initial days of the Eastern Ladakh crisis, India had opted to tread on its own. Moreover, as India faced China with near-wartime level mobilisation, the emergency supplies of winter clothing, advanced gear and weapons did not come from the traditional partner Russia. They came from the West. The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), one of the foundational pacts that the US has with key partners, was activated and supplies were sought.

What should India do as Russia-China bonhomie increases?

Quietly, India has been working to address the issue of China-Russia bonhomie. Much of the India-Russia relationship was always about military and security affairs. Russia (and the Soviet Union before it) was the traditional provider of military gear to India and a supporter of India at international forums like the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The centrality of Russia on both of these counts has diminished lately.

During 2009-13, Russia accounted for 76% of Indian’s military imports, which reduced to 58% during 2014-18, and further fell to 36% in 2019-23, according to Trends In International Arms Trade 2023 report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

The report says India has replaced Russia with Western partners and the shift is further reflected in new orders being placed.

As for international forums like the UN, India has support from partners like the US and France. India also has the Quad initiative and holds military exercises like the Malabar to flex muscles in the Indo-Pacific region.

Diversifying its imports and relationships is the only way forward and India has been doing for years very ably, says Rao of MP-IDSA.

Rao tells Firstpost, “India will never speak about it publicly just like Russia will never speak against India publicly, but we all know the different trajectories that the two countries are now on.”

The current moment is not without precedent. The changing nature of the China-Russia relationship has affected India at two very crucial moments before, noted Tanvi Madan, a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Programme at the Brookings Institution, on the Global India podcast.

Referring to the India-China War of 1962, Madan said, “At that time, Sino-Soviet relations were still close and, when push came to shove, Moscow chose to side with its ally China over its friend India. It provided Beijing diplomatic support as well as intelligence during the war and it encouraged India to accept Chinese terms. Furthermore, it stalled the supply of MiG fighter jets to India.”

In the 1971 India-Pakistan War, however, Madan highlighted that the Soviet Union supported India as Moscow and Beijing were at loggerheads because of the Sino-Soviet split and the US-China outreach at the time.

To be fair, Russia has not made any antagonistic steps so far, but India still faces tough choices ahead.

“On the one hand, India must make concerted efforts to shape an inclusive global order to suit its interests-based partnerships amidst hindrances created by Russia, Iran, and China. On the other hand, India must preserve and manage its relations with the three actors, which have significant bearing on its economic and military standing,” says Saxena of the Takshashila Institution.