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I've recently returned from Delhi, where I participated in the third trilateral conference on relations between India, China and Russia in a fast globalising world.
Since the last such meeting a year ago, much has happened to show that the work of our three-way group of scholars and former politicians is crucial. The ties between the three countries have greatly improved, with Russian president Vladimir Putin visiting China and India, Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee visiting China and Russia, and Chinese leader Hu Jintao spending almost a week in Russia last Spring. The foreign ministers of the three countries have met twice in the past year - on a trilateral basis. This means that steps are being taken to exploit the vast potential for cooperation between the three countries.
Scholars agree on the three "no" principles which would form the basis for the relationship. First, there should be no attempt to forge a military alliance. Second, no confrontational issues must divide the three. Third, the three way cooperation must not be directed against other countries.
There are many areas where the trilateral cooperation can bring a new era in central, south and east Asia. For instance, terrorism is a common enemy of all the three countries. Our views on Islamic extremism creating mayhem in Kashmir, Chechnya and Singkiang are similar.
While there is room for expanding ties to contain this menace, we'll also need to iron-out and clarify some complexities. China's relationship with Pakistan - a sponsor and incubator of terrorists - is a major stumbling block.
As a result of Vajpayee's visit to China, there has been some movement towards solving the long-standing border dispute. Some participants even suggested that the approach used in negotiating the India-China frontier might be adapted to normalise the much thornier Indo-Pak relations. With India-China relations improving, this could impact China's dealings with Pakistan positively.
We have already sorted out the border dispute inherited from the Sino-Soviet rift, and moved to new levels of economic and political cooperation. The Sino-Russian trade is expanding in arms, nuclear technology and energy cooperation. Russia has a long-standing trade relations with India in many areas, but the key to future development would depend on the expansion of three-way interaction. For instance, plans to pipe Siberian oil and gas to China could be enlarged to incorporate the Indian market. Another area where the countries could reap profits is transport. We already have a Russia-Iran-India transport corridor opening up to carry cargoes from South Asia to western Europe. The route is much faster and cheaper than the existing ones. Another way being explored is a rail link to Europe via Korea and Russia's trans-Siberian railroad.
There is a growing interest in Russia's vast Siberian and far eastern territories, with their cornucopia of natural resources, and how these could be made to serve the rapidly-industrialising and modernising Indian and Chinese populations. It's no coincidence that India's largest-ever foreign investment is worth $1.7 billion in the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field on Russia's far eastern seaboard. The potential is breathtaking.
Participants from the three countries expressed concern on the deteriorating situation in Iraq. This is significant because it points to an agreement in their foreign policies. Everyone opposes military intervention without the UN mandate and wants Iraq's sovereignty to be respected. But this is not an essentially an anti-American stance. The stress is on strengthening individual relations with the US holding a key place in deciding the foreign policy.
One concrete area where this trend might start taking shape is the potential enlargement of the six-member Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which focuses on security and cooperation in Central Asia. Russia, China and four ex-Soviet Central Asian states belong to the group, but India and Pakistan have both expressed their desire to join it. Even the US is looking for an observer status in the group.
This Delhi meeting marked the end of the first cycle of our trilateral commission's meetings. We shall begin anew in Moscow next year. There is every reason to hope that the positive changes we've seen over the past three years will accelerate in the next period.
(Dr Tatiana Shaumian is Director, Centre for Indian Studies, Moscow)
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