‘Trumping’ the US: Can India-China Russia do it?

On Sunday, during an interaction with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chinese President Xi Jinping did raise eyebrows when he referred to the Panchsheel pact, struck between then PM Pandit Nehru and Chinese leader Chou En-Lai in 1954, emphasizing on the five principles of peaceful coexistence.

Nehru did truly believe that he had a good friend in the Chinese but he was forced to swallow his words a few years later. Despite all that talk about everlasting friendship between the two Asian giants, China struck decisively in 1962 grabbing a major part of our northern borders.

At the end of the Sino-India conflict, China was in ‘illegal occupation’ of approximately 38,000 sq km of Indian territory, the government of India informed Parliament as recently as a few weeks ago in August. The times no doubt have changed and we now live in an entirely different age when a domineering President called Donald Trump has sent our trade and business ties with the US on a downward spiral, imposing a mas sive 50 per cent tariff on Indian imports.

Exporters are rushing to identify alternative markets to make up for the lost US ‘paradise.’ Other countries with much lower tariffs may take over the huge space, left vacant be cause of pricey Indians goods, thanks to the tariffs. The ‘Howdy Modi’ days are no doubt a fast fading dream and India is looking to stitch new global alliances with China and Russia, its all-weather ally, to counter the bullying menace that the US is turning out to be.

They dreaded days of the Galwan encounter five years ago when Indian and Chinese soldiers engaged in a heated duel, have been forgotten with economic factors virtually forcing a rapprochement. India needs China just like the Chinese do and with Russia ever willing to add a ‘third dimension’ to the growing friendship of the three global powers, the Americans will surely have to sit up and take notice of where their tariff ‘injustice’ has landed them. 

It is not easy forgetting the bitter wars of the past but then when diplomacy makes such compromises necessary, there is little nations can do but forget and forgive and engage in mutually beneficial alliances. The detail of how China bonhomie will help India in the long run are yet to be worked out but the stress no doubt will be on combating the fallout of the spiralling tariff war with the US.

China, India and Russia put together constitute 3 billion people which is a huge chunk of the 8 billion people on Earth and they could in unison balance and counter balance any adverse trade impact the US may force on them, with mutually advantageous arrangements.

The good days of the US and India cosying up are gone and there are even unconfirmed reports that PM Modi, hurt over the manner in which Trump has treated India, has refused to take the US President’s calls. Allying with China and Russia, seems to be India’s only hope to minimise the fallout of the US tariffs but going by past experience, we will also have to be wary of the machinations of our northern neighbour, which has in the past, tended to wreck ties built on good faith and understanding.