India to participate in trilateral RIC meeting with Russia, China

The Union Ministry of External Affairs on June 18, 2020 confirmed India’s participation in the virtual RIC (Russia-India-China) foreign ministers meeting on June 23.  Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier confirmed the trilateral meeting.

What is RIC?

• Conceived by the then Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov in 1998.
• The group was founded on the basis of “ending its subservient foreign policy guided by the U.S.,” and “renewing old ties with India and fostering the newly discovered friendship with China.”
• Significance and potential of the grouping:
• Together, the RIC countries occupy over 19 percent of the global landmass and contribute to over 33 percent of global GDP.
• All three are nuclear powers and two, Russia and China, are permanent members of the UN Security Council, while India aspires to be one.
• The trio could also contribute to creating a new economic structure for the world.
• They could work together on disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.

Importance of RIC for India:

• It forms the core of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
• India is in a geostrategic sweet spot today.
• It is important for India as an aspiring power to be able to thwart China’s aspirations of being a hegemon in both the maritime and continental spheres.

Significance

• This would be the first meeting between Indian EAM S Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi since the India-China border stand-off along the LAC.
• The two leaders had earlier joined for a virtual summit of the foreign ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) on May 13 but at that time full details of the border issue hadn’t been made public.

Importance of meeting for India-China relations:

• RIC being a trilateral group, it often does not discuss bilateral issues. Russia has advised India not to raise any bilateral issues in the RIC meeting.
• The topics to be discussed in the meeting have already been determined. Therefore, new issues will not be raised in the meeting.
• India also supports resolving its border disputes bilaterally, so there is every possibility that India does not raise its border disputes at the RIC meeting.

UPSC