Russia Gives New Twist To India-China Standoff At LAC The Indian government has launched a direct attack on Beijing until now New Delhi was sticking to the diplomatic code of conduct. In public the statements were non-confrontational, however, in private, India has been direct.
The Indian government wanted the Chinese troops to withdraw but China hasn’t listened. So today, India spoke publicly. The development comes at a time when SJF has been leading protests in Canada, the US, and the UK in front of Indian missions in the name of “solidarity” for the farmer protests in India.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar says the India-China relationship has been significantly damaged this year and that it cannot be business as usual with China as long as the PLA is on the border.
Jaishankar was speaking to an American think-tank where he shared the latest assessment on the China border standoff. Jaishankar said China is in a major breach of bilateral agreements. The Chinese side has given five different explanations to explain the provocation but failed to explain why they didn’t adhere to the agreements.
In fact, the provocations haven’t stopped. China has dispatched fighter aircraft and troops to a Pakistani airbase. It close to the Indian state of Gujarat. The deployment is for the Shaheen military exercise. Now, India has Chinese soldiers at the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in eastern Ladakh, and in the west, the Chinese have been conducting drills with Pakistan.
China hasn’t responded to the Indian minister’s statement, however, Russia has spoken on the border standoff and it is an interesting assessment from a country that has been India’s strategic and major arms supplier.
Russia feels the West is engineering a split between Moscow and New Delhi, however, ignoring the Chinese aggression, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Western powers are trying to engage India in an “anti-China” game.
“For instance, India is a matter of persistent, aggressive devious Western policy which tries to draw the country into anti-Chinese games, promoting so-called Indo-Pacific strategies,” Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding, “and at the same time, (western policy tries to) weaken our close partnership, strategic, privileged relations with Indians. There is a very tough pressure undertaken by Americans on New Delhi, concerning (Indian) military-technical cooperation (with Russia).”
No prizes for guessing who Lavrov is talking about – the United States of America. Russia has its own theory about the border standoff. In the statement, Lavrov referred to India as a “clear role” in the world order.
He says the West wants to weaken India’s alliances with different global powers to maintain what he calls a “unipolar” world order and with those words Moscow seems to have effectively given a clean chit to Beijing.
At the same time, Lavrov has drawn the attention of the world to the great “power game”. The pandemic has shaken the world order. New alliances are taking shape and Russia doesn’t want to lose an ally like India.
Global powers like Russia and the United States have been vying for India’s partnership. India will have to hedge its bets and make sure its rise doesn’t come with a compromise.
