Russia and China have endorsed India’s efforts to formalise an iron-clad rejection of international terrorism, amid a call by the three countries to end the era of a unipolar world and rid the globe of the threat of “regime change.”
At the end of their day-long deliberations in the Chinese capital on Monday, the foreign ministers of the Russia-India-China (RIC) grouping issued a comprehensive joint communiqué that called for an ambitious reform of an international system that was respectful of the diversity of home-grown political systems.
The communiqué recommended India’s inclusion in an expanded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), a 21-nation grouping of Pacific Rim countries. The Ministers endorsed India’s impending membership to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) after elevating the grouping, which is pillared by Russia, China and most of the Central Asian States as “one of the key instruments in promoting multilateral political, security, economic and humanitarian interaction in the region.”
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which India is joining soon, has been holding major counter-terrorism exercises, in anticipation of the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Recognising the threat to stability posed during Afghanistan’s upcoming transitional phase, the three Ministers called for supporting the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), in tune with the withdrawal of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
Without specifying the “Pivot to Asia” doctrine of the U.S., which involves concentration of forces on China’s periphery, a joint statement by the RIC grouping called for advancing talks in the East Asia summit framework on rule-based security architecture in the Asia-Pacific, driven by the United Nations.
