Background
RIC as a strategic grouping first took shape in 1998 as a counterbalance to the Western alliance. The aim was to ensure that it is not left to the America-led West alone to shape the rules of global governance. The leaders of these countries have been meeting on the sidelines of meetings like G-20, in which they have been building up on their personal chemistry. In fact, numerous geopolitical clubs like BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) have been formed and annual conferences attended with great fanfare to further this fine ideal. But the reality is that the dream is buckling under a power hungry China and India needs to heed the changing tide.
The Changing Scenario
The crisis in Ladakh formed the backdrop of foreign minister S Jaishankar’s virtual meeting with his Russian and Chinese counterparts under the aegis of the RIC grouping. Attending the meeting was not a foregone conclusion, especially after the highly condemnable Chinese provocation in the Galwan valley. The Indian Foreign minister gave a very terse message in his address highlighting that hhe challenge was not just one of concepts and norms, but equally of their practice. The leading voices of the world must be exemplars in every way.
While President Xi Jinping has always stressed win-win relations, his actions have betrayed zero sum thinking. It’s clear to see that China is constructing a global “community of common destiny” through Trojans, like the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative. Far from enjoying equal status, member countries in groups like the BRI, BRICS, RIC, SCO, RCEP are seconded to Chinese special interests.
With America, under Donald Trump surrendering the position of global leadership to the Chinese the world is now witnessing a grand decoupling – at first economic and then political – between the China model and the liberal Western democratic model with serious implications for global security and stability.
India is beginning to feel the full implications of that as China’s power drunk leadership. Bellicose assertions by China along the LAC, and its brazen anti-India partisanship in international forums and the ongoing attempt to isolate New Delhi in its own subcontinental sphere of influence is a byproduct of the hubris that has swept over the Chinese.
Russia appears hesitant to even step in to serve as an interlocutor between India and China at the RIC dialogue only proves the point.
Global Outlook and India’s Options
There is widespread public discontent in China over the handling of the Covid-19 outbreak and globally most countries are more distrustful of China than ever before. Even though the Xi regime will flex more muscle tearing down the order it has benefitted from, it is hoped that China cannot go far like this. India’s policy makers must wriggle out of the dragon’s embrace and seek friends in other places. The Quad and Japan-America-India (JAI) formulation could be one such point of departure.
