Can India Help Pull Putin Away From Xi? Or, Should It?

NDTV

2 days ago

Last week, India's Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Rahul R Singh, confirmed what many defence observers had been saying, that China actively helped Pakistan during India's Operation Sindoor. Speaking at a Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) event, Singh acknowledged that China was hurting India using its ancient military doctrine of "36 stratagems", one of which involved killing the adversary with a "borrowed knife".
We already knew that China was Pakistan's main military and diplomatic backer and has decided to sell Islamabad dozens of its 5th-generation fighter jets. But it is rare for an Indian military or even senior government official to name China as its main threat, despite the country's strategic policy being primarily aimed at its powerful neighbour.
Singh's comment came barely two weeks after US President Donald Trump hosted the Pakistani military chief, Asim Munir, at the White House. Earlier, the US Central Command chief, Gen Michael Kurilla, had described Pakistan as a "phenomenal partner" in counter-terrorism and insisted that America needed both Pakistan and India.
Post-Pahalgam Reckoning
India's military action against Pakistan over the Pahalgam terror attack failed to get unequivocal support from major powers, disappointing many Indians who expected world leaders to recognise India's right to defend itself after a horrible terror attack. They condemned the attack but didn't go beyond that, despite their knowledge of China's military help to Pakistan.
People were dismayed that Western leaders hyphenated India with Pakistan despite New Delhi's efforts in the past two decades to come closer to the West and expand economic and defence ties. Munir's welcome in Washington emphasised that Islamabad remained important to US interests in the region.
As India has not been a treaty partner with the United States, having maintained its strategic autonomy in foreign policy, the Western reaction or lack of support should not have come as a surprise to New Delhi. Nevertheless, this has highlighted a major problem for India.
The Chinese Threat
India needs to review its strategic relationships to tackle the challenge posed by the ever-deepening military relationship between Pakistan and China. There is now a strong case for strengthening our strategic partnership with Russia, while maintaining such ties with the United States.
As this essay explains later, Moscow would also like to reduce its dependence on Beijing, which has steadily grown since the Ukraine war. The US and other Western countries will welcome that too.
In recent weeks, many in India have wondered if it was right to rely more on the West in recent years and weaken relations with its traditional ally, Russia. They recalled how Moscow stood by India during the 1971 war when the West and China supported Pakistan.
Although Russia's reaction since Pahalgam has not been different from the West's, historically, the former has been loyal to India. When we conducted the first nuclear explosion in 1974 and nuclear weapons tests in 1998, Moscow stood by us and did not join the Western countries in slapping sanctions on India.
It remained crucial for India's atomic programme during the country's nuclear isolation by the West. It was only in the last two decades that the United States built its strategic partnership with New Delhi, partly to counter the Chinese threat. But India still had to rely on Russia for nuclear-powered submarines, which the US constantly refused to provide. Now, of course, India is building such submarines itself.
The Su-57
Russia has now offered us the fifth-generation stealth fighter Su-57, virtually on our terms - seven years after India pulled out of the joint-manufacturing jet project. It's ready to produce the fighter in India, happy to share its full source code, and has even offered to transfer technology, which the US or any other Western country is reluctant to do. This will help India in its project to produce the fifth-generation aircraft.
Of course, the political leadership must respect military experts if their assessment doesn't back the Russian fighter and they prefer the American F-35, which is also on offer. But we do have the Russian option to consider.
Why India Could Be A Better 'Partner'
Russians have been more willing to partner with India in high-tech defence projects than with China. Moscow is particularly reluctant to share its aviation expertise with Beijing, an area in which China is believed to be still behind both the US and Russia.
India and Russia may even co-produce the S-500 missile defence system, following the success of the S-400 system against Pakistan last month. The two countries have already been jointly producing several defence platforms, such as the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile, which was used against Pakistan in the recent conflict.
Thus, although India has diversified defence relationships over the past decade, Russia remains its single biggest partner.
The last three years have been tough for Russia after President Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine, forcing the former to embrace China more tightly. Three weeks before the invasion, Xi Jinping announced his no-limits partnership with Putin. With the West providing Ukraine with the latest weapons and air defence systems, Russia came under pressure, which only increased further after Western sanctions.
Although officially neutral, China has been supporting Russia in the war. According to US officials, Beijing has been providing Moscow with significant quantities of machine tools, drones and turbojet engines, microelectronics and nitrocellulose, which Russia uses to produce propellants for weapons.
Not All Is Rosy
However, the China-Russia partnership also has its limits, and they view each other with suspicion. A recently leaked report from the Russian intelligence agency, FSB, describes China as "the enemy". The FSB assessment, reported in the New York Times last month, calls China a serious threat to Russian security. "Beijing is increasingly trying to recruit Russian spies and get its hands on sensitive military technology, at times by luring disaffected Russian scientists," it says. The FSB report warns that China is trying to encroach on Russian territory in the Pacific, where the two countries have a long-running dispute. It also says that China is increasing its influence in Central Asia and spying on Russia's vast territory in the Arctic.
The warning by the Russian secret agency suggests that given an opportunity, Moscow could be persuaded to loosen its ties with Beijing. Although India is currently not strong enough to replace China, Russia would like to strengthen strategic ties with New Delhi.
Beijing has not provided Moscow with its unflinching diplomatic support since the Ukraine conflict. Like India, it has also abstained in most UN resolutions on Ukraine in the past three years. China has also been putting pressure, though unsuccessfully, to dissuade Russia from selling some of its advanced defence systems to India, such as the S-400 anti-missile defence shield.
Weaning Putin Away From Xi
Trump, meanwhile, has also been trying to wean Russia from China with his continuing attempts to woo Putin. A strong alliance between Moscow and Beijing is a serious challenge to Washington. But if Russia can be persuaded, America can focus on the Chinese challenge.
Even before his election in November last year, Trump had declared that he wanted to "un-unite" Putin and Xi. To achieve that, he first wants to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict so that Moscow's dependence on China could be curtailed.
But Putin doesn't yet trust Trump or the American establishment, where he is not seen as a friend. America's European allies also see Moscow as a greater threat than China, at least for now.
How The Ukraine War Benefits Beijing
Xi Jinping, however, is concerned about Trump's attempts to pull Putin away from China. In February, soon after Trump intensified efforts to end the Ukraine war, Xi affirmed China's "no-limit" partnership.
It is in China's interest that Russia stays engaged in the war. The end of the Ukraine conflict could lead to an improvement in Russia's relations with the US and a reduction in its dependence on Beijing. The war is also depleting a lot of American military equipment given the constant supplies to Ukraine, something that suits Beijing.
Peace with Ukraine can also lead to the lifting of American sanctions and help Russia rebuild its economy and redevelop its arms industry, which is currently forced to rely on China for many components. This will also benefit India as Indo-Russian defence projects will get a new lifeline.
Any reduction in the Chinese footprint in Russia will be good news for India. Since the Ukraine war, the Modi government has remained neutral despite pressure from the West. It has also been helped by a cheap supply of oil from Russia, which increased from just 2% before the war to 40% by last year.
But Xi is unlikely to let Putin escape from Beijing's clutches so easily. Last year, Russia-China trade reached a record $245 billion, 66% more than in 2021, a year before the start of the Ukraine war. This increase was largely driven by a surge in Chinese exports of civil-military dual-use goods. China is now Russia's largest buyer of crude oil, ahead of India.
Fears In Washington
No doubt, India and Russia's closer strategic partnership will be seen with suspicion in Washington and other Western countries. But India should be able to convince its Western partners that unlike China, India is not ganging up with Russia to threaten them, and that the real aim is to weaken Moscow's dependence on Beijing.
As part of its multi-polar policy, India must also continue to deepen its strategic relationship with the United States, the only power still capable of countering China. India and the US need each other to deal with the Chinese threat. Americans know that India has never posed any security threat to them. Pakistan may be useful to them, but it can harm its security, as it has done in the past. It is, after all, for this reason that the US is reluctant to sell its advanced military systems to Pakistan.