Why the Russia-India-China Reboot Won’t Last
Trump’s trade war is pushing the three closer together, but trust issues run deep.
The three leaders — Putin, Modi and Xi — in 2019.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP/Getty Images
The Russia-India-China alliance, floated in the 1990s as a counterweight to the US, is being revived today as a way for the three countries to ride out the storm of President Donald Trump’s trade war. But old suspicions mean the union is unlikely to endure. Despite their shared grievances with Washington, the partnership is more a marriage of convenience.
That reality will be on display this week when the three nuclear powers converge in Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. The Kremlin is pressing for a long-awaited trilateral meeting. If the troika did find new life, it would send a powerful signal that the geopolitical heavyweights are aligning in the face of US pressure. But the inherent tensions between India and China, and economic differences between the three, make that outcome unlikely.