India-China ties a delicate matter, Moscow won’t intervene: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow will not interfere in India-China relations, expressing confidence that Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping can resolve border issues amicably. He stressed Russia's ties with both nations are independent and mutually beneficial

St Petersburg: Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will not interfere in the “delicate” bilateral relations between India and China, expressing confidence that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are determined to resolve their long-standing boundary dispute amicably.

In a wide-ranging interaction with the heads of major global news agencies on Thursday night, Putin praised both Modi and Xi and said Russia’s decades-long partnerships with both New Delhi and Beijing grew naturally and are entirely independent of one another.

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“This is a delicate, multi-faceted relationship between India and China, and interfering into them is not a good idea. Of course, we interact with both our friends — both India and China,” the Russian President said responding to a question from PTI’s CEO and Editor-in-Chief Vijay Joshi, the only Indian journalist at the interaction.

“President Xi and Prime Minister Modi are both trying to resolve all the issues of mutual interest, including the the border issue,” he said.

India and China rolled out a series of measures in the last over one year to rebuild their relationship after it came under severe strain following the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020 and the subsequent military face-off that lasted for over four years.

In August, Modi and Xi met at Tianjin, a meeting held under the shadow of US President Donald Trump’s policies on trade and tariff that set a clear direction for the relations between the two Asian giants. Modi and Xi reaffirmed that the two countries were development partners and not rivals, and that their differences should not turn into disputes.

Russia has been maintaining that it is for the two countries to resolve the border row and that it would like to see friendly relations between the two sides.

Highlighting Moscow’s strategic equilibrium in Asia, President Putin characterised Russia’s ties with India and China as having evolved organically.

He stressed that Moscow’s growing synergy with New Delhi does not come at Beijing’s expense, just as Russia’s deep alliance with China does not compromise its bond with India.

“Russia has established these relations (with India and China). It was happening naturally. Relations between Russia and India do not disturb China, our relations with China do not disturb India,” he said.

In a 2022 joint communique, Putin and Xi described Russia-China relationship as “no limits” friendship. India and Russia have a ‘Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership’ that is built on mutual trust and strategic convergence.

In his remarks, Putin also gave a historical background of the Russia-India-China trilateral framework, which became the basis of BRICS later.

“At one point, I suggested that leaders of India, China meet in Russia and that’s how Russia-India-China was established. We had things to talk about, to agree upon, ” he said.

Both Beijing and Moscow are actively pushing for the revival of the Russia, India and China (RIC) mechanism to jointly put up unilateral policies being pursued by Trump to undermine globalisation. The Russian president also touched upon frosty ties between India and Pakistan.

“We are well aware of the intricacies of the issues concerning the border between India and Pakistan,” he said without elaborating. At the same time, Putin said he does not believe Pakistan was under control of China “I don’t think so,” he said adding, “Pakistan is a large country which has multi-faceted ties with different countries”.

He was responding to a question as to whether Russia could do something to allay India’s concerns that China is heavily supporting Pakistan’s military with hardware, technology and intelligence. There have been concerns in India as roughly 80 per cent of Islamabad’s military equipment is of Chinese origin.

“Of course, for Pakistan, it is very important to take into account the cooperation with China, ” he added when asked about China-Pakistan friendship.