IT is an image sure to send shivers down the spines of Western leaders – Russia’s bloody dictator Vladimir Putin hand in hand with the leader of the world’s largest nation.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent a very clear signal to the US and Europe with his appearance at a summit in China this week.
AlamyRussian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were photographed together at a summit in China this week[/caption]
APBizarrely the two leaders of Russia and India hold hands[/caption]
Don’t mess with me.
Even more worryingly, this cosy love-in was organised and hosted by China’s all-powerful President Xi Jinping.
The photo of the three men lined up together at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on Monday is a chilling moment for us all.
Here we had Putin (wanted for war crimes), Xi (unopposed ruler of the biggest dictatorship) and Modi (accused of slipping into authoritarianism) displaying a united front.
Until now, India and China, each with populations of over 1.4billion, had a frosty relationship.
What it signals is that the axis of power is draining from the West and heading to the East.
They are also ratcheting up their military spending, although Modi’s £65billion on defence is dwarfed by Xi’s £235billion.
The ten members of the SCO, which also includes Russia, Belarus, Iran and Pakistan, represent 40 per cent of the global population.
They are talking about trading more with each other, getting away from using the dollar as a reserve currency and greater stability.
China wants the SCO Development Bank to counter Western institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
But we should not despair, because behind the handshakes and smiles is a fragile peace between these unhappy neighbours.
Russia is on its knees in front of China in economic terms, while Modi and Xi are not friends.
In 1962, China grabbed part of Kashmir, and as far as India is concerned that is still their territory.
China and India clash in the Indian Ocean, on the Himalayan borders, and in June 2020, troops from both nations died in a border dispute.
Plus, India’s primary enemy, Pakistan, is being heavily backed by Beijing.
There’s a lot dividing China and India as they vie to be the global superpower of the future.
It is not unlikely that the nuclear-armed India and China will get themselves into a militarised crisis or even a war sometime in the next ten or 15 years.
The TimesSir Keir Starmer recently struck a trade deal with India, and the EU are currently negotiating a free trade agreement too[/caption]
Modi also knows that Moscow does not have much to offer in the long term.
At the moment, Putin sells India the oil and weapons it needs, but Russia has little use beyond that.
Modi has carried on as if he doesn’t care that the Americans are really trying to pressure him. It is making the Indian Prime Minister popular at home
Prof Michael
Ultimately, the leader of the world’s most populous nation has a lot more common interests with the US than with either China or Russia.
So why is Modi there? He’s using this summit to thumb his nose at Donald Trump, who has placed 50 per cent tariffs on India.
Modi has played this rather well because the US President and his cabinet have tried at least four times to contact the Indian government to say, ‘Should we talk?’ and the Indians have ignored it.
Modi has carried on as if he doesn’t care that the Americans are really trying to pressure him.
It is making the Indian Prime Minister popular at home by showing that he isn’t going to rush to Washington and prostrate himself, the way a lot of other leaders have.
The West has got to help India not become a client of Russia or China.
India, which exports far more to the US than it does to any other country, needs us more than we need them in the short term — and we need to show the benefits.
Sir Keir Starmer recently struck a trade deal with India, and the EU are currently negotiating a free trade agreement too.
Earlier this year, the UK also launched a defence partnership with India, which included agreeing to sell them Laser Beam Riding MANPADs and STARStreak high- velocity missiles.
The one thing Russia’s war with Ukraine has shown the world is that Moscow’s once-vaunted weapons perform poorly on the battlefield and so India is looking elsewhere for hi-tech arms.
True democracy
In 1991, when the Cold War came to an end, we thought the world was ours and that we had won the argument in favour of liberal free-trading democracies.
The anti-Western axis will only be emphasised today when North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un attends a military parade in Beijing alongside Xi
Prof Michael
Now it is going the other way.
China invited Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as a guest to the SCO.
This is the leader of a Nato country that can no longer be described as a true democracy due to its arrests of opposition leaders.
The anti-Western axis will only be emphasised today when North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un attends a military parade in Beijing alongside Xi.
The world is moving against our interests and that will happen for some time.
We have to realise that, as free-trading liberal democracies, we are becoming an endangered species in world politics.
We need to preserve what really matters to us.
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