-Conversations with Chinese experts indicate that the Chinese political class is slowly but surely working out its new "Western" policy, of which India is part. Beijing's purpose is obvious: Not to repeat previous mistakes, when the two countries nearly became military adversaries by a strange coincidence of circumstances. Meanwhile, the global tasks of the two rapidly developing economies are practically identical: To establish a worthier place in the world as befits their greater weight in it. By joining efforts, they can achieve these tasks much faster than they could independently. Therefore, Beijing can only benefit from its friendship with India, a country of interest to it in and of itself and as a partner in regional policy in Central and South-East Asia. The question is how to tackle this matter without forfeiting China's friendship with Pakistan, previously perceived by many Indians as a means for pressurizing India.
In Delhi, meanwhile, it seems the Indian political class cannot reconcile itself to close Chinese-Pakistani relations. Many people in India do not want to understand that a world in which both China and Pakistan will be partners for India is coming closer. However, Indian business circles are outstripping political circles in their willingness to develop contacts with the country's great neighbor. At the end of the week, before Wen Jiabao arrives in Delhi, fresh figures on the growth of Indian-Chinese trade should be published, and these figures will surely be interesting.
For Moscow, India-China rapprochement is a major goal of Russia's foreign policy, and thethree countries have many things to do together.
Most probably, a regular meeting of the Russian, Chinese and Indian foreign ministers will be held in late spring-early summer of this year. The location of the meeting has been chosen, and it is unusual, but has not been officially announced yet.
At the meeting, Moscow hopes, with utmost delicacy, to outline several spheres that it considers need trilateral talks, not Moscow's shuttle diplomacy for rapprochement between the two countries. These include plans for developing the energy sector in the east of Russia, as well as the Central Asian issue. If discussion of these issues meets with difficulties, there is the last resort - enumerating positions on key issues of international policy that are nearly identical for the three countries.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov may have to avoid prompting his two partners on how they should settle the issue of China's recognition of Sikkim as an integral part of India, or any other issues related to the two countries' 4,056-km-long border; the issue of the Russian-Chinese border (which is of comparable length) was finally settled by Moscow and Beijing only last year. Some compromises could not be avoided, and still arouse anger in some political circles in Russia. However, on the whole, the experiment was successful, and was preceded, in particular, by the rapid development of Russian-Chinese political and economic ties.
However, another issue not directly related to the Indian-Chinese border may be a real trial for the three countries' prospective rapprochement. This issue is linked to long-standing attempts made by American diplomatic circles to prevent India, China and China-friendly Pakistan to become closer. U.S. deliveries to Pakistan of long-promised F-16 American fighter aircraft, announced during the recent visit of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to South Asia, with a simultaneous promise to supply F-16 or even the more powerful F-18 fighters to India, could become a means for achieving this objective.
Russia is not following developments as a potential rival for the U.S. on the armaments market. It is true that any seller would prefer to be a monopolist, knowing for sure that there is no prospect of this. Both India and China buy, and will continue to buy, not only Russian weapons and military hardware. The problem is that Russia will not happily supply weapons to countries without a strong enough rapprochement between them to prevent them from using the weapons against each other. Proof of this is Moscow's protracted and tiresome balancing act between the two buyers of Russian weapons - India and China.
Rivalry on the market is therefore not the reason. At issue are attempts by Washington to tie its supplies of fighter aircraft to India to its refusal to join the gas pipeline project from Iran via Pakistan. Russia hopes for serious commercial involvement in this project.
The symbolic aspect of the matter is obvious: On the one hand, there is a pipeline bringing nations closer together and signifying a step forward in economic cooperation. On the other, there are supplies of weapons to countries that are still some way from real friendship. What is alarming is that Delhi must reject a beneficial partnership with Iran in exchange for the dubious benefits of confrontation with Pakistan. Meanwhile, the benefits of Iran's involvement in international cooperation are obvious, while its isolation is fraught with danger to its two neighbors - Russia and India.
"We are yet to see whether Russia will be able to battle over this pipeline. We shall judge by its resolve on how serious Russia is as a partner," a high-ranking Indian official said, on condition of anonymity. Russia could say the same in reply. As for Beijing, accelerated rapprochement with Delhi while maintaining friendship with Pakistan would create conditions for the successful implementation of the Iranian gas pipeline project and many other projects that would benefit Russia as well.
